The Brazilian artist Gilbertto Prado explains that the World Wide Web (WWW)—which has its own kind of interconnection and synchronicity—generates new technical possibilities of a participant/information/support nature. The internet provides an interactive communication space whose infinite number of pathways allow people to participate in events—to experience action and personal involvement while at a distance (“tele-presence”)—and explore sensations of ubiquity and simultaneity. The internet also expands the “tele-connectivity” of the telephone by facilitating an instant exchange of texts, images, sounds, and videos. Some cameras (webcams), which can project images directly to the web, can be attached to computers and used as “wearables.” Tele-presence, meanwhile, creates a space that encourages a form of reciprocity that does not rely on mass communication media, in which the users’ options and actions affect the remote environment. The authors of this document propose classifying works of art in environments that rely on new technologies according to three different situations: 1) direct observation of remote physical spaces; 2) synchronized exchange of information; and 3) remote action in different physical spaces. Examples of artistic “sites” for each of these categories would be added, as for example the works of Eduardo Kac.         

Gilbertto Prado (b. 1954) is a multimedia artist, and is also a curator and a great promoter of electronic art, as an artist and as a theoretician. His work is highlighted by the Czech theoretician Frank Popper in his book Art of the Electronic Age (Thames and Hudson, 1997). Prado was a member of the Art-Réseaux group (Paris) and, since 1981 has been involved in exhibitions and sundry projects in Brazil and elsewhere, including: Doppo il Turismo Vienne il Colonialismo (Centro Lavoro Arte, Milan, 1989); Moone, Atelier des Réseaux - Machines à Communiquer (La Villette, Paris, 1992); Mutations de l’image (Vidéothèque de Paris, 1994); Arte e Tecnologia (MAC/USP, São Paulo, 1995); Mediações (Itaú Cultural, Sao Paulo, 1997); 2ª Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul (Porto Alegre, 1999); Link_Age/MECAD (Barcelona, 2000), and Interconnect@ between attention and immersion (ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2006).

Luisa Paraguai Donati is a professor in the Comunicação e Cultura postgraduate program at the Universidade de Sorocaba (Uniso). She is a contributor to the Leonardo Digital Review, the magazine published by MIT (Cambridge, MA). She is active in the field of art and technology, and has taken part in countless Brazilian and international exhibitions. She is currently working with mobile technologies that monitor perception and experimentation on the body and space in communication processes.   

This document reflects a profound interest in matters related to telematics and their networks, and in the decentralization and viability of new exchanges of artistic data. On this subject, see by Suzete Venturelli a complementary view in “Mundos virtuais e vidas artificiais” [doc. no. 1111136], and a summary of telematics networks written by Prado, entitled “Cronologia de experiências artísticas nas redes de telecomunicações” [doc. no. 1111289]. In 2003, Prado published the book, Arte telemática.