PORT: Navigating Digital Culture Organized by a r t n e t w e b MIT List Visual Arts Center January 25 through March 29, 1997

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PROJECT DESCRIPTION Rabinal Achi/Zapatista Port Action is a composite work weaving a history of the Zapatista's use of netwars starting on Janurary 1, 1994, their use of invisible theater (Augusto Boal) and the emergence of the Zapatista's call for speed-democracies (Commandante Ramona contra Virilio) with text, graphics, and sound bits in an enactment of the Rabinal-Achi, a Mayan classic of highland Guatemala. In this work a Mayan warrior Quiche-Achi is captured by the ruler of an enemy city-state, Rabinal-Rahaual Chief Five-Rains and faces his certain death at Rabinal-Rahaual's court. In the dialog that evolves Quiche-Achi dances a dance of death, makes psychic leaps to his homeland and tramples the societal dictates of his captors in his quest to reconcile his death far from his homeland. This drama is presented in segments interlaced with the dialog of live interviews, remote audio and video feeds and the latest news clips from the Chiapas front. The MIT List Center presentation will be: Screen A - a VRML bridge joining several web sites relevant to the concept of the Rabinal Achi/Zapatista Port Action. Screen B - Live CuSeeME broadcast of interviews and discussion groups from the facilities of the Pseudo Online Network. Screen C - transmission of video segments prepared for the Rabinal Achi/Zapatista Port Action . Screen D - Website: textual information from the Zapatista recombinant movie and the Rabinal Achi.

RICARDO DOMINGUEZ and RON ROCCO Ricardo Dominguez and Ron Rocco present a fusion of high drama and social politic in a work which spans eight hundred years of Mayan history. Their eight broadcast events bring news clips from the Chiapas front, interviews, discussion groups and Mayan theatre to the List Center Gallery and the internet. Mr. Dominguez is managing editor of ThingNYC reviews, he is a member of the editorial collective for BLAST5DRAMA and a former member of Critical Art Ensemble. Mr. Rocco, a visual artist, has exhibited his art work and performed in Europe and the United States including his Berlin Project for Berlin's Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, and Zaroff's Tale presented under the rotunda of New York's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

SPONSORS Pseudo On-line Radio (http://pseudo.com) With technical assistance from Dan Melmid and Pseudo Studios, readings by Ricardo Dominguez, Galinsky and Ron Rocco. Images from Thomas Iskandar, Zhang ga, The Thingnyc, Ron Rocco and the National Committee for Democracy in Mexico.

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