Between officiality and deviation: Cuban digital art and its critical treatment of the national technological reality

Abstract

In this paper we focus on the use of the digital medium in the works of a group of Cuban visual artists between 2000 and 2015 to create a work of artistic, socio-cultural and political resistance to the national difficulties of accessing ICT and cyberculture. We start by panoramically describing the national technological context and alternative connectivity practices developed by civil society, in which artists are often participating researchers. We propose two recurring themes that reflect the critical approach of artists to the process of national computerization and participation in cyberculture: the difficulties of access to and participation in the digital flows of information and cyberculture; and the alternative social practices of connectivity with which the population tries to reverse the reality of its context. We indicate some specific opportunities for artists in the social structure to access the media and understand the issues addressed. We observe different trends among them, according to their artistic solutions, their break away from traditional formats and their levels of intervention in space and social practices. Finally, we describe the poetics proposed by each author and analyze the behavior of some structural aspects in the use of digital art, such as materiality, interactivity and space-time relationship.