Born in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, digital artist, writer and curator Regina Pinto has been creating innovative work on the Web since 1997.
In her recent project, AlphaAlpha, she uses a variety of software
applications to create a dynamic work of visual poetry that -- in this
screen-viewed medium where text can be encountered in a visual manner -- focuses
attention on the representation of the first letter of the alphabet, resulting in
a work of collaborative art that, with its evocative connotations of "first letter",
also imagines and illustrates how words and text can be represented on the Internet.
Regina Pinto believes that one of the good characteristics of globalization
is that it allows the exchange of national and international artistic experiences.
She "lives, loves and believes" in net art, and her work as artist or curator
is primarily done for the Web. She was a finalist for the 2005 Leonardo Global
Crossings Award, and recipient of an honorable mention from the 2007
Art on the Net, Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts, Tokyo. Her work has
been exhibited internationally, including the UTS Gallery in Australia, Galeria
Mezanino, FILE - Electronic Language International Festival, ARTfem TV, and Rhizome.
Projects include The Museum of the Essential, and Beyond That, a virtual
museum that exhibits the work of international artists, with an emphasis on
South American digital art.
Much of her work uses humor, unusual juxtapositions and interesting ideas to look at
global trends, for instance, The Snowmen Congress in Rio in which conceptions
of snowmen were solicited from all over the world, exhibited on the Internet,
and presented in lectures and performances on a stage on Ipanema Beach -- with an emphasis
on Global warming and its impact on the fate of snowmen. More information about her
work can be found at
The Museum of the Essential and Beyond That,
The Library of Marvels and on her blog at
http://pintor.tumblr.com
The AlphaAlpha project is a classic collaborative work in that participants
were invited to create within the context of an interesting idea, and the producer
incorporated their work in a social media_redolent framework, that, in this case, includes texts and visual
implementations of the letter "A". The project both alludes to the vibrant
South American tradition of visual poetry and calls attention to how text can be
represented on the World Wide Web. Participants were from all over the world
including Brazil, USA, Canada, Chile, France, UK, Argentina, Finland, Croatia,
Serbia, Germany, Uruguay, Spain, and Mexico.
Regina Pinto: AlphaAlpha
The concept of this netbook is the proper "history of writing, which is, in a way,
the history of the human race, since in it are bound up, severally and together,
the development of thought, of expression, of art, of intercommunication, and
of mechanical invention." [1]
AlphaAlpha is composed of 365 instances of the letter "A" plus one more for the
leap year. The letters are collected in groups of about ten. AlphaAlpha is a
collaborative work and includes participants - artists & poets -- from all around
the world. AlphaAlpha is a good example of the possibilities of net art.
Net art is being simultaneously conceived and created by many artists from various
terrestrial coordinates. To make collaborative work with artists from different
coordinates is one way to proceed -- a very interesting way for someone with my deep
interests in art and anthropology. A project such as AlphaAlpha, for example,
which started with a simple call for a letter "A", received a great variety of
pieces, pieces that tell us about the individuals and about their cultures.
The amazing success of the project, I am sure, was to ask for the letter "A".
Who does not know how to make an A? It is the first letter that we all learn,
and as Patrick Burgaud wrote on his inspired work --
http://www.arteonline.arq.br/a/p_a_trick_burgaud.html --
"Avant le A l' humanité n' existait pas" ("Before the A, humanity did not exist".)
Working together demonstrates our shared humanity.
Using Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0, Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0, Dreamweaver 8.0,
Flash 8.0, Photoshop 7.0 and Sound Forge 9.0, AlphaAlpha was produced by
Regina Pinto. Participating artists were:
Joesér Alvarez (Brazil)
Bruce Andrews (USA)
Jim Andrews (Canada)
Paulo Aquarone (Brazil)
Isabel Aranda - YTO (Chile)
Isabelle Arvers (France)
babel (Canada & UK)
Vera Bighetti (Brazil)
Bruno (Brazil)
Patrick Burgaud (France)
Josely Carvalho (Brazil)
Steve Dalachinsky (USA)
Martha Deed (USA)
Rodolfo Franco (Brazil & Spain)
Marcelo Frazão (Brazil)
Muriel Frega (Argentina)
Sabrina Gledhill (Brazil)
Lisa Hutton (USA)
Satu Kaikkonen (Finland)
Maja Kalogera (Croatia)
Roberto Keppler (Brazil)
Manik (Serbia)
Brigitte Neufeldt (Germany)
Millie Niss (USA)
Clemente Padín (Uruguay)
Margaret Penfold (UK)
Yuko Otomo (USA)
Edward Picot (UK)
Regina Pinto (Brazil)
Isabel Saij (France)
José Roberto Sechi (Brazil)
Reiner Strasser (Germany)
Jurgen Trautwein (USA)
Myron Turner (Canada)
Susan Turner (Canada)
Paulo Villela (Brazil)
Miguel Jimenez - Zenon (Spain)
Araceli Zúñiga. (Mexico)
________
1. Frederic W. Goudy, The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering,
Chapter 1: "The Beginnings of the Alphabet"
