Week 7 Claudia Zapata

 This last week we read “Chicanx Graphics in Digital Age” by Claudia E Zapata which addresses the impact of digital revolution and highlights the transformation it has had on Chicanx artists.  As a Genxer, I was in early college when the internet and personal computers began to boom so Ive seen first hand how new the technology brought forth in the digital eras changed the ways in which we search, find, and disseminate information and ideas.  In the pre-digital era, artistic influence could only go so far as the audience was limited.  The digital age has created platforms that allow artists to produce and distribute content at anytime, anywhere, and anyplace.  No longer having their messages culled and controlled by a one way method of communication, artists now have the luxury to reach an unlimited audience through platforms that are free or low cost.  The new digital platforms and methods  also give artists the ability to coordinate more efficiently and effectively which is integral to the underlying activist nature of their work.  Additionally, artists are no longer subject to the strict censoring that occurred pre digital era, because now the artists are producers and promoters of their own works on platforms like instagram, twitter, and personal websites. However, digital methods and platforms do not replace or merely compliment the traditional activist print methods of the past, each is important and integral in their own right.  As the book states “new medium is never and addition to an old one, nor does it leave the old one in peace….digital modalities offer new opportunities to visualize political resistance, and they define the ongoing adaptive role of the artist as cultural agitator”