Week 2: Zapata Reading

 Question: Do technological strategies take away the message from the poster making process?

Answer:

I think that although the technological strategies for making new art may seem like it removes a personal connection to the art-making process, I believe that it is preserved and made more efficient. The importance of poster-making as described in the reading is, "Chicano poster artists[in the 1960s and 1970s] functioned as the unofficial conscience of the country." For many of these artists, poster making was more than a tool since it had allowed the furthering of activism in a way that it could engage many without having to speak. The reading also highlights the views of Rupert Garcia who believed that digital strategies would commercialize the art and therefore "corrupt the purity of fine art." Garcia later incorporated digital strategies and replaced printmaking for digital posters. I think the main goal of Chicanx art is the one given in the reading, "to shaping a decolonial consciousness, to infiltrate and dismantle systems of oppression by whichever means necessary." Therefore, digital strategies allow for artists to more efficiently create art that takes less time to produce and allows for more effort to be placed into a singular work of art. It also allows for new and better methods of outreach that reach more people such as Alma Lopez's use of emails to send her artwork to personal friends. It further encourages the idea that Chicanx art is not defined by printmaking or poster-making, but rather it is defined by the message it intends to send. Therefore, it allows Chicanx art to have survivability against the tests of time and technology due to its fluid and adaptive nature. Most importantly, in order to stay true to the message of decolonization, Chicanx art must not be defined or forced to conform to a single medium because it is perpetuating the same idea it is meant to fight.