Gilbertto Prado outlines a chronological summary of events, from the 1970s to the early 1990s, that used telecommunications and telematics (data transmission networks) for artistic exchanges, including Brazilian initiatives during that period. He explains that the summary focuses on exchanges via fax and modem, slow scan TV, telephones, satellites, or television. As the World Wide Web (www) gained in popularity in mid-1994, the internet was the medium for another project by this author, who reminds us that Postal art was the first movement in the history of art to be truly transnational because it involved communication on the net and on a large scale. Prado believes that the origins of this movement can be traced back to Neo-Dada, the Fluxus Group, New Realism (nouveau réalisme), and the Gutai group. The artist Ray Johnson founded the New York Correspondence School of Art in 1963, which came to be regarded as the year when Postal art was born. Prado stresses that the electronic nature of the transmission is what distinguishes Mail art from Telematic art on the net. Electronic data transmission is associated with the idea of “technology”—that is, progress and the future—which suggests a positive view of our current technological phase.        

Gilbertto Prado (b. 1954) is a multimedia artist; he is also a curator and energetic promoter of electronic art, a field in which he is both an artist and a theoretician. His art is featured 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 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, São 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).

This article reflects a profound interest in subjects associated with data transmission networks, and in the decentralization and viability of new exchanges. On this same matter, see by Suzete Venturelli a complementary point of view in “Mundos virtuais e vidas artificiais” [doc. no. 1111136]; also see another essay of interest by Prado entitled “Utilizações artísticas de imagens em direto na world wide web” [doc. no. 1111125]. In 2003, Prado published the book Arte telemática.