In this essay, Julio Plaza discusses the emergence of an unusual phenomenon that processes information instead of accumulating it. The information is produced by spontaneous groupings whose sole objective is to exchange ideas, and whose production favors quantity over quality. The underlying goal is to decentralize the production and transmission of art. This new approach to printing seeks to change views of the world and of art by being harshly critical of both traditional and pre-industrial art production. The “poetic function” would therefore lose its privileged place and would be replaced by a manipulation of the universe of signs, therefore creating an “extreme situation” in the art field that is very similar to an inter-semiotic one and the handling of the media. Plaza sees a parallel to the language of propaganda (based on images and text) that is used to transmit ideologies and world views. In his opinion, communication is the most important factor for an art project that clamors for freedom. 

Julio Plaza, the Spanish artist and professor who lived in São Paulo, was one of the main champions of multimedia in Brazil. In this essay he explains the goal of transmitting art (via semiotics) through the media for libertarian purposes that, like it or not, are utopian. In his opinion, that critical role is already an intrinsic part of the Conceptual art being produced in the city of São Paulo. The exhibition Poéticas Visuais, which was jointly organized by the author and the director of the MAC-USP (Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo), Walter Zanini, ran from September 29 to October 30, 1977. Mail Art was one of the themes of the event, and many of the exhibited works had been sent my mail from various Latin American and European countries.  

The multimedia artist, professor, and theoretician Julio Plaza (1938–2003) was a well-known figure in the world of Brazilian Conceptual and electronic art, acknowledged for his graphic versions of several concrete poems. He worked with the poet Augusto de Campos to produce books/objects such as Poemóbiles (1974) and Caixa Preta (1975). He was a professor at the Departamento de Multimeios do Instituto de Artes da UNIcamp (in Campinas), and the Departamento de Artes Plásticas at the ECA/USP (Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo). He organized the first videotext exhibition in Brazil: Arte pelo Telefone: Videotexto (São Paulo: Museu da Imagem e do Som, 1982), where he was responsible for the new media salon at the seventeenth Bienal de São Paulo (1983), which introduced electronic art to Brazil. In his doctoral thesis (published later as a book), Plaza discussed his ideas for an inter-semiotic translation that converts literary texts into visual and audible codes. 

Zanini wrote two essays about Plaza’s work: one of them was about “Poéticas Visuais” (doc. no 1110585); the other was about the “Primeiros tempos da arte/tecnologia no Brasil” (doc. no. 1111029)].

[As complementary reading see the ICAA digital archive for the following essays written by the author: “77: quase-apresentação” (doc. no. 1110719); “Arte e interatividade: autor-obra-recepção” (doc. no. 1111093); “Arte e videotexto” (doc. no. 1111090); “Busca da dimensão mais firme para a realidade” (doc. no. 1110750); “Câmara obscura” (doc. no.  1110718); “Imagemega” (doc. no. 1111133); “Info foto: grafias” (doc. no. 1111091); “O livro como forma de arte (I)” (doc. no. 1111238); “O livro como forma de arte (II)” (doc. no. 1111239); “Mail-art: arte em sincronia” (doc. no. 1110592); “Manifiesto pro integración” (doc. no. 1110751); “Nem oito, nem oitenta: oi, tô aí” (doc. no. 1111270); and “Transcriar” (doc. no. 1111237)].