HUMAN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Director of International Museum of Eletrography. [MIDE]. José Ramón Alcalá

HUMAN ALL RIGTHS RESERVED: is a project of exemplary nature. It is linked with our current concerns, and does so narratively, in a manner which interests and refreshes us. The way we perceive ourselves and how do we project that personal, subjective, exclusive vision in a modern, renewed way.

Besides, Montse and Joseba developed their work from an equally exemplarily renewed concept. They understand the value and necessity of transdisciplinarity, they approach their work in project as if a in charge of a marketing, merchandising and R&D agency; they are aware of the importance of shared resources to carry the scheduled goals out. Moreover, they posses the gift of physical ubiquity, (the virtual one is taken for granted), which is the outcome of their determination of becoming visible, and their wish to dwell in the transparency and insight of the present day world with utmost efficacy. That is why Human: All Rights Reserved is in the best possible hands. They define themselves more as orchestra conductors rather than self-centred geniuses. That is why this project has been-if I may say so- so joyous. Every one of us, related one way or other to its development, and there is not a small amount of people involved in it, has been elated with its evolution, adaptation and expansion. We all had the chance of modelling a part -however small- of it, be it part of its semantic or structural body; all this thanks to the generosity and lucidity of its conductors. Programmers, skilled technicians, designers, coordinators and exhibition organizers, all of them had the opportunity of giving their points of view, their particular way of confronting the problem posed by this project.

For those of the Grupo de Investigación en Arte Electrónico (Group of Research on Electronic Art) at the MIDE in Cuenca, it has been a real challenge to their technical and creative skills. The first time we met, both sides thought we could simply collaborate with the editing and visual postproduction of the final piece, but as we discussed the project in the following reunions with the assembled members of the team, new tools, new points of view were appeared, which had to be implemented in a way that meant an exercise on recycling our previous work.
Redefining the original application into a 3D designed and modelled bodily geometry based upon Montse and Joseba's very own physiognomy meant the first conceptual expansion of Human. Fortunately, we can boast of our young creators-product of the Facultad de Bellas Artes de Cuenca-who have been able, joining efforts with some MIDE resident artist-researchers (not to mention Chilean artist Sara Malinarich or our grant holder student Fernando Fuentes), to materialize and formalize those intentions with a lush and exquisite and virtual topography.

But Montse and Joseba's limitless creative ambition led them to a further leap when they knew of our interest in remote digital sensorization through the Motion Capture system we had already implemented in the last EC-funded project developed by the MIDE, thanks to the talent and technical skill of our Czech and French partners. They went to Marseille without second thoughts, accompanied by some members of the Cuenca Lab, where they were expected by our colleagues of the European project. Again, as it would be expected, they became enraptured by the techno-expressive potential of the system. It was a creative-and also quite human- case of love at first sight, and allowed Human to grow a bit more. I would like to compare it with a rolling snowball on a slope, mostly due to its exemplary metaphoric capability related to the current dynamics of artistic creation.

The Human project is a step further towards the construction and formalization of what until recently was no more than theoretical conjectures and speculation about how we will depict ourselves when we really have the knowledge of what does exactly mean to be digital and how will be the world that those metaphorical approximations will propose us as something materially habitable (or should I have employed the reductionistic term "mentally habitable"?)

Without doubt, Human: All Rights Reserved is a complex and subtle project and, above all, is a feast for the senses, but that is something for the public and the specialized critics to evaluate when the time comes; that is the reason I have used this literary space so kindly offered by Montse and Joseba to discuss those internal, pre-formalization features of the work that could be unknown to the public, but which, in my humble opinion, deserve publicity, because they have been essential in the MIDE historical evolution and they will be marked out in the short-although almost fifteen years long- personal and institutional history.

Writer: Jose Ramón Alcalá. Director of MIDE. International Museum of Eletrography of Cuenca . Spain