Peruvian artist Teresa Burga created 4 Mensajes in 1974 as a multimedia environment using drawings, diagrams, 16mm video and 35mm slides. The work belongs to a practice in which information, measurement and systems became artistic material rather than simply tools used to document an artwork.
That feels unexpectedly contemporary.
We now live surrounded by dashboards, diagrams, sensors and interfaces that translate reality into data. Burga was already asking what happens when those forms of organisation become the work itself.
A diagram normally promises clarity. It says: this complicated thing can be reduced to relationships you can understand.
Art can use the same visual language while refusing that promise.
The diagram may look objective while making us more aware of whoever selected the information, chose the categories and decided what should be measured.
That is what interests me most. Data never simply appears.
Someone designs the system that makes it visible.
Once you notice that, a chart can become as subjective as a painting.
