Roberto Echen
Since the beginning
Works in Rosario Argentina

ARTBASE (4)
PORTFOLIO (1)
BIO
Roberto Echen -rechen- was born in Rosario, Argentina. Rosario is a city near Buenos Aires (300 km) with about 900,000 habitants.

In Argentine TV was born a few years before him. When he was a child TV was a kind of ghost.

He studied engineering till 5th (6th was the last) but he gave it up to devote himself to art. It was about 1980. Since then rechen has been working on art (on disciplines like painting, etching, video, etc).

He is a self-taught artist (this is never really true). He's received some awards (mostly with his paintings but some other with digital works).
Since 1987 rechen has been teaching at the School of Fine Arts of the National University of Rosario. He was reticent to incorporate computer technology (because he had some negative thaughts about the relationship between power and technology) but in 1997 (more exactly in november) he had his first computer and he changed his mind about it. Some time later he incorporated internet with the aim to make art on the net. He made his first web-art exhibition in the year 2000. This first exhibition was placed at a site devoted to art in Rosario named rosariarte (http://www.rosariarte.com.ar).

Since then he devoted to build his own site (http://www.rechen.com) with his net art works and some articles on art.

He recently joined a group of research on art and technology which belongs to the University of Rosario and the University has aproved the constitution of their own center of research. Their idea is that the Center works through internet instead of having a phisical place. He is now building the site for the Center.
Discussions (107) Opportunities (1) Events (4) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

Re: finding net.art in the rhizome artbase


hi erik
i'm shy [and argentine, that's to say doubly shy] to post to this list
but i have some things to say.
i think that subjectivity is a condition [as much as objectivity] in any
kind of decision. even more, the splitting between subjectivity and
objectivity belongs to the metaphysical culture that the authors of the
book the name of rhizome comes from fight against.
i think you put some very interesting points that i'd like to discuss.
my works have been in both situations -accepted and not- and it would
have been interesting that you made a statement [as you ask for to the
artists] about the acceptance or rejection of the work [instead of the
automatic 'congratulations' or 'the work doesn't fit the criteria of
selection' [i don't remember the exact terms]

Eryk Salvaggio wrote:

>
>Your point that the rhizome admission process is pretty much arbitrary and
>defined by a rather dynamic set of criteria is a good one, and part of the
>artbase's problem has always been figuring out what is and is not
>"historically relevant".
>
well, i think that is some kind of riddle. what means 'historically
relevant' is hard to guess. either you have to accept works that history
[that's to say some important peiod of time] made relevant [what remains
argumentable] or you have a concept of history that [even if it could be
the best we can imagine] has to be checked out.[i say you because you
were part of the staff and therefore accepted this criteria]

> I've moaned about how I believe the submission
>process should be done, but to little avail and it doesn't matter I suppose.
>I stinted as an artbase intern, which did give me a lot of opportunity to
>figure out what got in and what didn't. I was personally very selective but
>fair- it was based on a measure of A) how much discussion the work merited,
>and how often I had seen it brought up,
>
apologies, it must have to do with my poor english but i don't
understand the point. discussed by whom? by the staff of the artbase?
and the same for 'brought up'. i think that, dispite of my poor english,
it remains subjective [except that you think subjectivity as a sinonym
of individuality]. if not, you remain very subjective because some works
[by some artists] have very much more opportunities to be discussed than
some by other artists, you know. in that sense i have to recognize the
crew of artbase [i don't know if you were part of it at that moment]
took my work in consideration [indeed alena made me notice that one of
my works didn't work well on some systems] but it had have to do with
some other item of the criteria because my works were too much recent at
the time to be 'historicaly relevant'. even now they aren't [at least i
wish ;-)]

> B) date of creation- my rule was,
>all net.art prior to 1997 was accepted.
>
i can't agree with such a point. you think that all past time was
better? if not which authority does time have to legitimate a work of art?

> The rest was judged by standard a
>and: C) How new the aesthetics or concept of the piece were for net art of
>its era, and how many spin offs or variations on code, technique or concept
>it inspired.
>
i think it's a good point [and of course, subjective-objective], except
for the concept of new. is it a value to decide about art [in a
after-postmodern period]? i don't know because it might mean so much
different things. and if you think about the period in which new were a
fundamental concept, one of the most 'historicaly relevant' artistic
movement was built upon the discovering of the african sculptures by
picasso and friends which were anything but new. ok, cubism was 'new'
but at least it should make you think about it. and, of course, it
relates to the concept of 'originality'. i liked so much a very
educational discussion in this list about two works that looked very
similar [even the same]. nevertheless, i don't think i'd like so much to
see the same work repeated a thousand times in the artbase signed by a
thousand different artists [well, i'm not quite sure].

perhaps all what i said is bullshit, but that's it.
best
rechen

DISCUSSION

[Fwd: portrait]


i feel so uneasy [portrait] has been updated with some portraits you
have sent.
see it at:
http://www.rechen.com/portrait

if you'd like to take part of the project please click on <your
portrait> and follow the instructions. if you don't know how to do it
send me an image [not a havy one] to:
rechen@rechen.com

i feel so uneasy [portrait] ha sido actualizado con los retratos que han
enviado. si quieren pueden verlo en:
htpp://www.rechen.com/portrait

si les interesa participar en el proyecto cliquen sobre <your portrait>
y sigan las instrucciones o envienme una imagen liviana a
rechen@rechen.com

rechen

DISCUSSION

portrait


if you like to visit my most recent [and most obscene] work go to:
http://www.rechen.com/touchme.cgi

visiten mi ultimo [y mas obsceno] trabajo en:
http://www.rechen.com/touchme.cgi

some portraits sent by you have been added to <i feel so uneasy [portrait]>

See them at
http://www.rechen.com/portrait
if you want your portrait to be part of the project click over [your portrait] and follow the instructions.
best
rechen

los retratos enviados por ustedes han sido agregados a <i feel so uneasy [portrait]>
si quieren verlos vayan a
http://www.rechen.com/portrait
si quieren agregar su retrato cliquen sobre [your portrait] y sigan las
instrucciones.
saludos
rechen

DISCUSSION

portrait and other work of mine


if you like to visit my most recent [and most obscene] work go to:
http://www.rechen.com/touchme.cgi

some portraits sent by you have been added to <i feel so uneasy [portrait]>
See them at
http://www.rechen.com/portrait
if you want your portrait to be part of the project click ove [your
portrait] and follow the instructions.
best
rechen

visiten mi ultimo [y mas obsceno] trabajo en:
http://www.rechen.com/touchme.cgi

los retratos enviados por ustedes han sido agregados a <i feel so uneasy [portrait]>
si quieren verlos vayan a
http://www.rechen.com/portrait
si quieren agregar su retrato cliquen sobre [your portrait] y sigan las
instrucciones.
saludos
rechen

DISCUSSION

portrait


some portraits sent by you have been added to [portrait]

See them at
http://www.rechen.com/portrait
if you want your portrait to be part of the project click over [your portrait] and follow the instructions.
best
rechen

los retratos enviados por ustedes han sido agregados a [portrait]
si quieren verlos vayan a
http://www.rechen.com/portrait
si quieren agregar su retrato cliquen sobre [your portrait] y sigan las
instrucciones.
saludos
rechen