PL: I think definitely yes, but not just video art but visual art in general. Proof of this, specifically in the case of Mexico, is the quantity of exhibits about Mexican art that in the last months have attacked the principle cities of the world, including New York and Berlin. Recently for example, in Barcelona an exhibition of contemporary Mexican art opened at La Capella. This exhibition is an exchange between Barcelona and Mexico, and in February we held an exhibition of Catalan artists here at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda. Therefore, yes I think it is part of a general interest in knowing what is going on in other parts of the world. However, this curiosity with Mexican visual arts in a broad sense was preceded with an interest within the little circle of electronic arts. I have spent the past three years being continually invited to present and introduce electronic arts at international forums in Greece, in France, in Brazil, in Columbia, and in Peru. Therefore one of the aims has been to unite forces in Latin America; to know what work is being done in the region. In the last 3 years there has been an interest in collaborating, for example with Venezuela, Columbia, Peru and Brazil, but this is something that has happened only in recent years.

LA: As a very young media the history of electronic arts is only just being written. What are your thoughts concerning the way that this history should be approached, particularly with regard to electronic art being made in Latin America?

PL: All stories have their counterparts so I think it is important to write many histories; to not just represent one perspective or line, but to reflect the difficulties that existed in the beginning to get recognition and spaces to exhibit. I think this always happens when there are new tools or new media. It is always difficult in the beginning. But if you take a look around the contemporary art museums of Mexico City you will see video everywhere. I think we can take this an indication of a certain advance in this sense. But the battle never ends, so therefore more than video I am fighting to present works that fuse biological systems with artificial systems: interactive works. I find myself facing the same obstacles that existed when video first appeared: the equipment is expensive; you caní­t afford to buy it. Therefore it is a continual process where new tools appear and new obstacles to overcome - this work will never end.

LA: Finally could you tell us what we can expect to see at the Arte Alameda in the future?

PL: We will be presenting the first solo show of the work of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer who is a Canadian / Mexican artist, who has just won the Bauhaus prize in Germany for his work Body Movies. We will show his work Body Movies along with a series of works that he has produced in the last four or five years. It is interactive art. We will also be showing a selection from the Jumex Collection. The Jumex Collection has been creating an important collection of video installations and we are going to make a selection and present them here. Then in September to November (2003) we will hold an exhibition about the New North, this is a project which will reflect artistic production in the North of Mexico, South of the United States. It plays a bit with this dislocation of the north and south: south for some is the north for others and vice versa. This is a project that I am curating with Diana Pimentel and the editorial project is by Rodrigo Fernandez de Gortari. We have just begun the research for this project: we made a first trip to Monterrey and Tijuana in October. At the end of next year we have a collaborative project with ZKM and the Centro Multimedia about the sound image. We are going to have a retrospective look at the use of sound to create images and sound landscapes, and privilege a little the auditive over the visual. We will also represent aspects of popular culture, such as DJs.

www.artealameda.inba.gob.mx
www.vidarte2002.com