The artist Suzete Venturelli discusses the different typologies of electronic art designed to create virtual environments that generate multi-sensory experiences. In her opinion, this new horizon in the field of artistic creativity radically challenges the eye’s dominance in the visible world, and suggests that other parts or functions of the user’s body (hands, gestures, breath, voice, and movement) might also be channels for aesthetic perception. Artists should try to make the user’s access to this kind of art as intuitive as possible (via interactivity and sensory motor functions); that is, in terms of a human being’s natural abilities without requiring any kind of learning process. An initial playful exposure would then lead to deeper layers of meaning. Venturelli describes the emergence of works of art in cyberspace as far back as the 1980s, in the early days of computer graphics, when simulation and synthesis imaging were just coming into vogue. In other words, a process that uses images that are not derived from a digital aesthetic because they are not based on a real referent. This involves using genetic algorithms that can produce synthetic creatures, and dabbles in nanotechnology and its artistic potential. Avatars are used in the interface; that is, virtual bodies that assume multiple identities in the interaction between mankind and virtual worlds.       

Suzete Venturelli is a professor, researcher, and computer artist at the Instituto de Artes at the Universidade de Brasília (UnB), in Brazil’s only Art & Technology master’s program, which she instigated and organized during its first few years of operation. In 1987 Venturelli began researching computer art and design in a wide range of technologies. She was the major organizer of a group of artists, all of whom lived in Brasilia, which became the experimental hub for Brazilian electronic art, and which led to the creation of the Infoestética group. Venturelli published the following books: Arte: espaço_tempo_imagem (UnB, 2004), and Imagem interativa (UnB, 2008), a collaborative work with Mário Maciel. Her scientific, technological, and artistic work involves computer art, art and technology, virtual reality, hyper-media systems, animation, digital art, virtual environments, interactive images, and immersion in real time.

This text reflects her profound knowledge of digital art and technology, digital poetics, and the concept of decentralization and viability in new exchanges. As complementary material, see the study by Gilbertto Prado and Luisa Paraguai Donati “Utilizações artísticas de imagens em direto na world wide web” [doc. no. 1111125].