El medio
es el diseño audiovisual
by Jorge La Ferla,
Editor
Editorial Universidad de Caldas, Manizales,
Colombia, 2007
702 pp. Paper, US$ 40.00 (80.000 $ colombianos)
ISBN: 978-958-8319-05-6.
Reviewed by José-Carlos Mariátegui
Alta Tecnología Andina (Lima, Peru)
and London School of Economics London,
UK
jcm@ata.org.pe
Since the early 90s the Argentinean
media theorist Jorge La Ferla has been
publishing a series of compilations bringing
the voices of Latin American and European
intellectuals together. Thanks to his
constant work through the La Ferla Chair
at the University of Buenos Aires his
publications have been not only decisive
for several generations of students and
researchers in Latin America, but also
were among the first ones in Spanish that
gave light to new topics surrounding the
interdisciplinary fields of new media.
The publication of El medio es el diseño
audiovisual (The medium is the audiovisual
design) brings part of his previous
editorial work together with several new
titles into a massive compound of 46 authors
and 72 texts, making this book the most
complete compilation of new media theory
to date published in Spanish. As in the
case of La Ferlas previous projects,
one of the merits of El medio es el
diseño audiovisual is that
it brings for the first time Spanish translations
of several emblematic texts on new media
theory.
Usually there is a tendency to publish
books and articles of Western mainstream
intellectuals as the only and decisive
voices surrounding media arts; however,
the harmonic blending with articles by
writers from Latin America, makes this
publication unique. Texts from Arlindo
Machado, Paula Sibilia, Claudia Giannetti
and Lucia Santaella are published along
with other better-know authors such as
Lev Manovich, Umberto Eco, Oliver Grau,
Pierre Levy or Peter Weibel, composing
an original blend of contributors with
ideological solidity. An additional innovation
is making visible the names of other intellectuals,
particularly from the Colombian scene,
where the book was published, such as
Hernando Barragán, Ricardo Cedeño
M., Myriam Luisa Díaz, Mauricio
Durán, Carmen Gil Vrolijk, Iliana
Hernández, and Felipe César
Londoño.
The compilation is divided in nine chapters
with varied topics that include the relations
between art, science and technology, television
studies, experimental film, new media
design, media archaeology, video art,
hypertext and non-linear narratives, interactive
media and new media philosophy. Though
we may argue about the way the texts in
each chapter are compiled since the notion
of new media is in permanent shift, so
are these broad topics, which makes El
medio es el diseño audiovisual
a screenshot of the current state
of affairs. Additionally to the contributions,
an analytic Index and a list of referenced
works transforms this publication into
an important research tool.
The book is also part of a broader opinionated
project of making more diverse the present
homogeneous discourse around new media
and audiovisual technologies. An additional
critique to the book is that this blend
lacks contributions from other new contexts
of the world where there is currently
an active development of the field of
new media, such as India, China, the Middle
East or South Africa. However, taking
a critical stance on the diverse ways
of thinking, designing or creating in
different places of the world, the book
tries to make a global and diverse assemblage
by incorporating authors from the Latin-American
context. The book includes several texts
around design concepts and issues in new
media and tries to intersect these ideas
with broader media issues that are prospective
and important for the 21st
century, ranging from current media wars,
specially taking into consideration that
Colombia in itself is a country with an
internal war. This prospective vision
is complemented with deep and thoughtful
texts on the history of new media from
authors such as Vilém Flusser or
Siegfried Zielinski. In conclusion, the
context-hygienic vision of new media and
several universalistic visions, which
do not mean they loose their critical
carriage, are reconfigured with more local
postures to enable a global panopticon.
Finally, is worth mentioning the unique
social nature of this publication that
is orientated to being accessible as much
as possible by selling it at an affordable
price that covers the basic printing costs;
the funds will be then used to generate
new titles through the same egalitarian
modality. El medio es el diseño
audiovisual stands by itself as a
very important contribution that will
benefit the future generations of researchers
and students of new media in the Spanish-speaking
Latin America.