TECHNOLOGICAL DISOBEDIENCE -ERNESTO OROZA

For half a century the economic, if not the political situation, has obliged Cubans to make up for the inadequacies of their industry and ensure that industrial objects last for longer than one could possibly imagine. They have had to be shrewd, to imagine ways around problems and find ingenious solutions – in short, they have had to invent a family-level industrial system.

“After cutting open so many bodies, the surgeon become insensitive to the visual aspect of wounds, blood and death.” And this is the first way in which Cubans disobey and betray the object; they disrespect its original identity, the authority this identity holds and the truth it conveys. Since the economic crisis in the 1990s, people have taken control of their lives and this decision also marked the start of a movement of consumer revolt.

In contrast to the concepts of innovation favoured by industry and its dominant logic, the fact of repairing, restoring functionality and reinventing can be seen as a great leap of imagination. Such practices may appear retrograde or simply a necessary response to the realities of poverty, but they are in fact a way of escaping from the dreamworld of idealistic consumerism and setting foot in the real world. If this insurrectional phenomenon is indeed born out of necessity, its persistence confers upon it a significant level of autonomy and consistency.

By studying how Cubans invent and manufacture objects to overcome economic restrictions, Ernesto Oroza showcases models of behaviour and reactions to technology itself, but above all to the authority and veracity that these capitalistic products supposedly embody. These practices and gestures are grouped together under the concept of « technological disobedience ».

Ernesto Oroza’s practice channels the tradition of Radical Architecture into his own analytical employment of contemporary object typologies and productive forces. In lieu of functioning within the realm of manufacturing, he produces and distributes speculative models and research through various publication methods, exhibitions, collaborative practices, documentaries, and unorthodox forays into more conventional modes of architecture, interior and object design. Oroza’s work has been presented at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Groninger Museum, The Netherlands; LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Spain; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City; Institut de Cultura La Virreina, Barcelona.

http://www.ernestooroza.com/bio-cv/