In this article, Bittencourt recalls the period of intense artistic experimentation during the 1970s as Brazilian artists explored the potential of new technological media that created audiovisual images (photography, film video art, and video installation). This article, which is unrelated to any specific exhibition, is both critical and a reflection as well as being a review of new visual technologies. In fact, some of the artists mentioned in the article—Anna Bella Geiger, Ivens Machado, and Paulo Herkenhoff—researched the institutional policies of the recently opened Sala Experimental at the MAM-Rio (Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro) in a jointly-written article [see ICAA digital archive, doc. no. 1110602. See also an essay by Fernando Cocchiarale about Geiger, “O pão nosso de cada dia,” in which the critic discusses his exhibition at the Sala Experimental del MAM-Rio (doc. no. 1110557)].
Francisco Bittencourt was a particularly attentive and active critic in the Rio de Janeiro art scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This article can be viewed as a secondary source; it is of interest because it reactivated the critical debate that raged during that decisive time about the relationship between art and technology, a subject that is now of fundamental importance for those who seek a broader understanding of the recent history of Brazilian art.
