The Intermundos website is to be our main window to the world.

It was created in a region which is completely removed from anything to do with contemporary art, technology and communication. This region is the Caribbean coast of Colombia, which, because of its geographical position, has historically always been an important point of communication and exchange. Colombia is the only country which communicates South America by land to Central and north America and also has access to both the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. It is through this region that for millenniums, communication flowed between the indigenous groups of the Americas, and it is through our ports that during the colonial times most of the African population was brought to South America and the gold and silver taken out. Today, it is through Colombia that “drugs” and dollars are exchanged between the Andean region and the first world.

Yet we are isolated from the communication processes that evolve between the experimental movements of the thinking youth of the first world. This is due partly to our status and reality as a third world nation, which implies lack of technology (except for the hi-tech guns) and lack of education. But, this isolation is also GREATLY AFFECTED by a media policy which accompanies all “low impact wars” whereby MEDIA COVERAGE is limited to a minimum information and maximum of disinformation. This is unfortunate because we do have many worthwhile values, ideas, arts and knowledge to share with humanity. We are citizens of this new globalized earth and are searching for means to establish contact with our peer thinkers, activists, artists, musicians etc. from other nations.

Conception of site
The strategy insofar as the conception and design of the website has been to depict indigenous and afro Colombian cultures by utilizing their thought system, knowledge, products, designs, ideas and applying or expressing these utilizing new media technologies.

Because cultural concepts of indigenous ancient communities are non-western and non-linear, the multimedia formats, non-linear and interactive themselves provide the ideal context for portraying their multi dimensional conception of reality. Instead of portraying these cultures by utilizing traditionally western means such as writing and Cartesian analysis, I propose to absorb the local thought system and apply it in the construction of the visual language of the website.

The written content is mainly unedited interviews or transcribed speeches, not interpretations written by third parties, this in order to make possible that the speaker voice her uncensored opinion and for the reader to decipher his own interpretation.

Hiphop - Our urban voice
To develop an interest in, and access to, the arts in a marginal sector of society, we feel it is important to work with a movement, which reflects that sector. Therefore we have chosen to work with a culture created by the oppressed black and latin youth of the first world - hiphop.

Hip-hop has become a way of life for many people around the world. It is made up of many artistic forms of expression such as the “MC” who raps over beats provided by the “DJ” which samples and mixes records; the “B-boys and girls”, that dance and the “writers” or “graffiti artists” paint murals on whatever canvas the urban landscape provides them with. It is an open, dynamic movement - always evolving, changing and letting creativity and new tendencies flow. There are neither limitations nor preconceptions, making hip-hop unique within contemporary conceptions of limiting, naming, and pigeonholing every artistic movement.

In Colombia exists one of the strongest hiphop movements in South America. This phenomenon represents an already established communication bridge whereby Colombian youth and the youth of other nations may establish a dialogue.

Vanessa Gocksch
Vanessa Gocksch aka PatadePerro, was born in the north but opted for the south. Traveling from Brussels to Miami then Mexico, now she resides in Cartagena de Indias on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. She studied visual arts with an emphasis in sculpture in Florida International University, La Cambre - Ecole Superieure de Arts Plastique and Universidad Autonoma de Mexico. She has worked in many different mediums including sculpture, etching, photography, installation, performance, video and documentary. As of the year 2000 she started venturing into the digital realm, self teaching herself the tools necessary to communicate and create in what she calls an indispensable medium when located in a “remote” region of the planet. She is presently performing as a video jockey under the name of Pata de Perro, as well as producing a documentary and developing the project Intermundos and its website.

www.intermundos.org/vanessa.htm
www.intermundos.org

Intermundos presentation at the Dot Org Boom – Activist afternoon on Friday, 13.00–17.00, Nifca project space #1
VJ PatadePerro performing at Club Bundolo, PixelACHE satellite event, on Friday night