Ever since it was founded, the CAYC (Centro de Arte y Comunicación), helmed by the cultural promoter, artist, and businessman Jorge Glusberg, was intended as an interdisciplinary space where an experimental art movement could flourish. The establishment of collaborative networks connecting local and international artists and critics played an important role in this process. As part of the interdisciplinary approach it had always encouraged, the CAYC promoted experimental practices, appropriating a variety of examples of Argentine art from the 1960s.
Roberto Villanueva (1929–2005), a theater director, actor, and set designer, was a pivotal figure in the avant-garde who breathed new life into Argentine theater in the 1960s in his influential role as director of the Centro de Experimentación Audiovisual at the Instituto Di Tella. This newsletter announces that he will direct and produce Hola hermanito (1970), a play written by Elio Gallipoli (1944–2014). In metaphorical terms, the play addresses the ritual and desire to eliminate “the other” based on the struggle between a pair of Siamese twins. The technical credits include a reference to a videotape made by Glusberg. The CAYC had always sought to encourage the use of this medium in local circles as part of its efforts to promote experimental practices that explored the overlap among art, communication, and technology.
Activities of this sort became a regular part of the CAYC’s programs in 1974, when Glusberg took part in Open Circuits: An International Conference on the Future of Television, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and later with the Encuentros Internacionales Abiertos de Video organized by the CAYC in Buenos Aires, London, Paris, Ferrara, Antwerp, Caracas, Barcelona, Lima, Mexico City, and Tokyo.
