Waldemar Cordeiro and Arteônica: Rewritings of digital art in Brazil and Latin América

Abstract

In the passage from the 1960s to the 1970s, the Brazilian artist Waldemar Cordeiro (1925–1973) developed his first works in computer art by applying the mathematical concept of “derivative function.” Around the same time, he organized and took part in exhibitions, and composed a series of essays envisaging that the use of digital resources would become an inevitable process for the future of information reception and artistic communication. A closer look at Waldemar Cordeiro's production, both artistic and theoretical, after almost fifty years of his first forays into the field of art and technology, is an excellent opportunity not only to revisit his trajectory, but to rewrite the history of digital art and our conception of it, locating Brazil and Latin America as situated centrally, not peripherally, in relation to the European and North American narratives. Waldemar Cordeiro and Arteônica: Rewritings of Digital Art in Brazil and Latin America is divided into three sections. In the first, we will conduct a quick comparison between the theorists of informational aesthetics and the essays by Waldemar Cordeiro, especially from one of his most thought-provoking texts—Arteônica—published in the early 1970s. In the second section, we will present a brief overview of Waldemar Cordeiro’s concretist phase and of his semantic concretism (or popcretos)—a vital discussion for our understanding of the questions posed by his computer art phase (1969–1973). Finally, we will analyze his works in arteônica in order to properly emphasize the traits of his output and his relationship within the country’s context.