6xdvd, Laboratorio Arte Alameda
Celebrating ten years of activity, LAA (Laboratorio Arte Alameda), a prominent art, media and technology institution based in Mexico City, has released this superb collection of six dvds containing audio and video material mostly produced in the late-nineties and two-thousands by Mexican artists. LAA first established a documentation centre in the usual way: documenting artists’ work and establishing an international dialogue with other institutions exchanging or purchasing materials. Next they commissioned a number of experts to curate a few exhibitions, drawing on the accumulated works. (ready) media is the result, investigating Mexican media art over the last decade or so through different sections; there's a rich sound art section, including experimental music, radio art and sound poetry; different programs focused on video and short movies (including one with interviews on curating video projects); another on audiovisual experimentation; and finally one of video essays made by the two main curators behind this collection: Tania Aedo and Karla Jasso. Both the quantity and quality of this work is impressive, a contemporary/archeological research that can be considered more like a curated introduction than an exhaustive collection. Navigating through the content is opening a window on recent Mexican media art, offering exposure to many interpretations of aesthetic, social and political issues, and relating something of the local and international specificity of these works.