Re/Simulate

have debts, dress like a rich person, do all the stuff and probably you're going to be rich.

I have exhibited, or my work has been presented in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, well, also Spain and the United States. Well, that's kind of my job. And Anna, I've known her for a long time. And here, Anna.

I know all his work, his artwork, and also his interests, uh, about, uh, economics and, and data. and processing data. And this is how I met Felipe that is part of this team. And we just try to cross our knowledges and practices to get, uh, resimulate.

So I'm curious how this collaboration, because Three of you come from three pretty, pretty different worlds intersecting, but research, art curation, and really urban planning. I'm curious how you all came together to create this project and where that idea was born.

I think Philippe is sensitive to that, apart from he has been developing his artistic practice in a very particular way in, in, in the sound area. He also has experience with other projects. So I think we started to have dialogue. And I think the summit fits perfectly with our experience. And that is how we began thinking about the future of the economy of financial inclusion, each one from our spectrums of how we understand it, but also from trying to find common reality.

So that's how the collaboration began with Anna and with Philippe. I don't know if you want to contribute anything more here.

And then it turned out to be that it was like some study that Foncarlo had done many, many years ago about kind of like, I think he used to study not that much anymore, but a lot about how oil processes and exploitation used to work in terms of exploitation of resources in Ecuador and Latin America. And that was very, very nice to see someone doing something related to economics. When I met him here, when I moved here, I actually met him here. He changed what he was doing.

He was no longer doing data related stuff. Uh, actually, like the works that he's currently working on are not related to this at all. But at some point we started talking about doing maybe something that intersects, even though it's not Some of his old work that intersects kind of what I do with data analysis and what he does with the data analysis as well.

And with Anna, we met through the project, but it was really nice to also see how the way that she would think about how to even conceive the project was very rigorous as if we were doing research. So we had like these really nice classes where Anna would like We were like, okay, let's think about what is the definition of data. And let's, let's go through like philosophical discussion about what data representation actually means in terms of politics and stuff like that.

So it turns out to be that like the methodology we all shared had a lot of like commonalities that could be complimentary.

And, but normally in art processes, most of the time you are, um, making, making these part, like an obvious part that we don't need that part, then we don't need these time of thinking and researching and reading and sharing concepts and discussing about concepts.

So, um, what it was great for me is that they were, uh, both of them, Felipe and Juan Carlos open to have this kind of discussion, uh, to have this kind of, um, you know, making like a, a deep processes that is part of the creation process. So, um, this was really nice because in a conceptual way or philosophical way, we put some things on the table that we needed to be together to have like common questions about, for example, that data is something that we need to redefine.

that, uh, is a problem in, um, uh, research, even if it is, uh, scientific or very, you know, like very, um, hard science, even in hard science, there's a problem about how to process data, uh, in, I don't know, medicine or, or economics or financial. But also that was why we were able to play with data.

And in the same time, these game needed to be very settled on, uh, good base so we can, you know, uh, exploit and, uh, explore different ways and different questions that could bring us to our first need or desire in the, in the process that was working with these common understanding of what is financial knowledge and self financial aid.

And to do that, We were, we were going to play the game, but by knowing very well the rules of that game and understanding how these epistemological questions are, were going to be put in the base of our work. So, um, to have an economist that is researching and teaching in Mexico. Me going from Quito to Mexico, Juan Carlos got, we, three of us are moving between Ecuador and, and Mexico city.

And then it was like a nice way to, to, I don't know, to do something together with a very interesting, you know, result. And also with a perspective of future that was, uh, also. something interesting. There was a work, a piece of art that was going to get out of this discussion, but also like a, like a future thinking about data and how to represent, like, you know, physical object, these, uh, these kinds of questions. So it was really nice to have an economist, an artist working.

And I'm like, I'm not really a curator here. I'm, I'm like a, like a bridge, you know, like an, like a connector. of ideas and, uh, not only ideas, I mean, in a very symbolic or ethereous way, but in a very practical manner of representing things also in the space, you know, like in the gallery, in the room, in the mediation of the senses it can take. So,

It's this shape, but this is also like all the sides of the information that we're going to measure the data, but there's also a part where you have to. mediated a lot, which is this speculative part that has to do with self help and with all these texts, which serves to structure the revision of the data. I think we have been finding dynamics of how to use this data. We continue to structure it.

I think that the last time with Philippe and with the experience with the printer and now the experience with the printer these days, the situation of the data, and again, we are going to rethink, but always under the line, which is the line that I think unites us.

I'm going to repeat myself where the philosophical part that Anna mentioned unites us with the data experience by Philippe, which is speculation in terms of the experience and of the text that we are using, the types of profiling that we are using for the data, which is very speculative and also to imagine possibilities of the future. But also to enable us to review realities, the data is being worked on.

So we didn't have any prior of what should be the answer, but I thought that there should be some answer and trying to then link this into how to translate. These type of simulations into artwork.

I feel that that's kind of a place that we still need to even further explore in a way that like the artwork doesn't become just this didactic thing of like, let me teach you something in a way that is like, like a school, but somehow that it transcends that and like brings up something that couldn't be seen without the artwork. And I think that's the part where the methodologies are kind of all in the in conflict. Um, and I think that's kind of where we haven't resolved it yet.

And, and that's maybe that's why we haven't, at least I don't have a correct, kind of fully fledged answer for this.

So we were thinking about how this IA can. take the place of the human, but only in a partial way because of this conscience problem. And when it is related to art, and I think also to politics, uh, there's the question about the relation, uh, between imagination and conscience.

So, uh, For me, and I was telling them, when you do all the way like in a very West philosophical tradition that puts data in the place that occupies now very important and data producing data by artificial intelligence, you also can say from this same place and tradition that you can put these, uh, in, in kind of, uh, open question. that has these issues.

For example, the time that we are living, that is a very hard time, let's say, this is a catastrophic time, put us in the way to make those questions. Also put us in this particular project in the, in the condition of thinking about the way of how imagination is going to reshape our concept of data and I think this is the relation between one, uh, like rigorous methodological way of processing data and a very artistic and political way of doing this processing.

So it's a place of how we put this imagination path in the method. So you're questioning the ontology. Yes. One of the articles we shared, uh, that I found was, uh, based on Virilio thinking about these kind of things and, uh, research made, uh, you know, asking a survey in different kind of, of, uh, ways of using data. And all the scientists were saying that, that They pass 80, 70 or 80 percent of their time processing data that in the final moment is not really processed.

There's a subjective part of this processing and in the last part of their work, they are saying, Our questions or our first hypotheses are the same and data finally, it's only illustrating in a lot of cases what we already knew and this way of having those answers. tons of data now are not as useful as we thought. It's a lot of time put on this that we need to to contest or to have new questions about how we process and how we produce data.

So we were reading about that and that was a very important part of the of the reflection. Because, uh, you cannot only play with data, saying that you are in an artistic process, so you have the right to play with no rules. This was a game with rules, because we needed to think about rules and how to change these rules, or this kind of thinking about data. Talking to economists or to financial experts.

That was our really nice part in Costa Rica because we had all this feedback coming from this kind of, of thinking that is not only, oh, those are artists that are playing their game in their field. We were trying to have some kind of of dialogue in this sense. So this was important also because of that.

And what I heard with, um, what Juan Carlos said, and what all of you are saying is that, you know, Oftentimes there's this kind of, um, this false sense of certainty with data. Like, Oh, this is the way things are. And data is King. And even what you were saying on it, that there's, there's some sort of merit in a dehumanized way of presenting fact finding versus acknowledging and embracing there is fiction in all of this. And how are we using data?

not just to create other fictions, but also to think about simulations and speculations, as Juan Carlos was saying, um, and to think and to ask questions rather than to prove points. Um, and I think before we continue, so I have a question for you, Juan Carlos, and for all of you, um, I'd love for you to explain the experience Resimulate for those who didn't have the opportunity to see the art in person.

Lowell and I had the opportunity to experience it in person in Costa Rica, um, but for those who have yet to have that opportunity, could you explain what is Resimulate, what is the installation, um, and what was it like for the viewer to see and understand this work?

This was like, it was really like a very small taste, like a small experience of how we are using the 3d printer and how we are using the matter and how we are interested in the viewer can reach it to it. We just, um, with Felipe and Ana and, and after the trip to Costa Rica, we met and we had a little feedback on how the viewer would approach the data. And hey, what are we missing precisely within the artistic experience? Understand the data.

It's like, I think the levels of planning, the artistic experience have varied a little, which is preparing us for the future. We're thinking about the shape of these empty ceramic towers and what they will look like in space. And what we try is fair. And that is part of the artistic, uh, experience, uh, from the aesthetic experience. And it's about building. How to generate that sensitivity in the viewer. How can we do that?

That the viewer not only sees an object, but also is able to understand that dynamic. And I think we are building, I think it is part of the next challenge due to these artistic experiences.

So we had to pivot what we can do for the first exhibition and everything because Like the process I think has been extremely like thorough there's been like Thorough discussion, thorough research, uh, like thorough experimentation with the materials that, um, By the time that we had, we decided that it was going to be better to have some of like proof of concept type of thing of like, okay, we want to discuss, something related to financial inclusion.

We want to discuss something related to these self help books, uh, using data in a way that is somehow poetic, but also somehow still rigorous in the sense that like, we don't lose Both sides and the 3d printing of objects allow us to kind of have control, right? Like machines have minute control over everything. We can control them through code. We can let the code talk by itself, and we can also try to let the machine talk by itself. Um, Or the materials.

So we ended up creating these vessels that would be 3D representations of these complex simulations. And in the exhibition, we decided to have some reading guides that would allow people to Be able to decode these objects if they wanted to do so. Um, and we also decided to showcase kind of like the, through a video, what was the, the process of this, of this creation. So I think that was what we were doing as Juan Carlos said, this was like literally just a proof of concept.

Uh, after it, like all of us had a lot of takeaways of where we can go. Um, so we're, we're excited about next steps on how to kind of keep pushing those boundaries of what is feasible in terms of like translating this digital realm that is not even a true representation as I was mentioning of, of reality, uh, and these speculations about futures in a way that it's, allows for the sensibility of the viewer to be kind of like taken.

And, um, you know, the black, uh, curtains and, and all the stuff and the lightning, the, the drama, the, the, the, the dramatic part we uh, arrived, uh, was really nice. I was very happy with the setting up. It was a challenge for all of us, but, uh, what happened with the space was, was really interesting because, uh, those, this couple of, of, for us, of totems illuminated like flying in the space.

in this very dramatic space, because it was also nice at that moment that it was not a white space, but a like room, like a dark room, you know, where, where these images were appearing. And the video was like telling the story with sound. The image was very important in the video, but I think the sound. was much more important in that case because it was the, like the context of these totems flying and, and the others on the table.

And I think that finally what we could do, uh, was, was very interesting to see in, in this eye regime we were criticizing, you were like very, uh, uh, appealed by this image, but also then the mediation. the room could, uh, you know, offer. That was really interesting. So I, I think this transformation from, from the beginning of the setting up to the end was, was really like, uh, you know, like this miracle of the setting up of an artwork. I

We have worked with a substrate very similar to the 3D printer, and I, now I think about that exercise, or that translation, or representation of that data, uh, also kind of asked us for something very similar. We can work on data translation. Well, in this case, we would have ample, stronger data, and, and we set ourselves up for that challenge. So yes, I have worked with data and printing systems, but not specifically with a professional printer.

Everything before was rather low tech, and this was already like another level experience. So yes, I like to work with various systems or media that allow for the proper translation of data. We also wanted this experience of data translation, uh, to have certain levels of conservation. It was like another challenge we discussed, uh, initially. It's not like the sporadic action of seeing the information and then, and then can it be maintained?

And, and is there, there was a decided to go towards a 3D printer made of ceramics so that we could just put it in the oven and, and preserve it, these pieces. So it was like, how are we going to preserve those experiences? 3D printer.

You're gonna, you're gonna share an aggregate statistic that somehow represents distributions, but it's not gonna be telling the underlying story. And that's kind of what's different from when you do anthropology. And when you do anthropology, you're gonna do ethnography and actually gonna tell little stories that are actually gonna have a lot of meaning, but maybe are not generalizable. in the same way.

And I think by doing, um, the 3d printing, we were trying to be able to bridge those two things, be able to tell print one line, be one person. It's something that generally you wouldn't be able to do if you're doing it. Maybe if you're doing it by hand, maybe you can tell it, but like, would you be able to tell all the salts, the subtle differences in different stuff? So I think like the, the medium of doing 3d printing.

allow us to be able to kind of break the concept of statistics in a way that still we can do big data like our data set collects 10 million observations we can print 10 million stories but in a way that it still kind of like talks to the idea of an individual. And still, it's also very funny because these people, these are not the story of people. We're telling the stories of simulated futures for these peoples.

And then it gets kind of funny because it seems that the individual is losing all their agency over what to do and the machine is just pushing them over and creating the stories for them. So I think there's a lot of like, and that goes into kind of a lot of discussions that we have.

about kind of what is the role of capitalism and even and kind of like jump maybe jumping ahead the the idea of thinking about self help books into like how can we hack the system how can we create something that we are in a capitalist system let's not try to create an alternative system let's try to let individuals hack this system and I think that that kind of like balances and like talks directly to the use of the 3d printer because basically the

system is just creating these stories for you and the agency even if you take the most capitalistic guide the stories are going to be limited in what is the agency that a human has within this whole economic structure and I think it's like a nice parallelism between The system of capitalism and a 3D printing system that is trying to create these individual stories, but it's somehow hacked.

And so I think there's a lot of narratives on also something that Juan Carlos just said about trying to think about making data hard. Whereas data tends to be in these clouds that are not tangible. So I think there's also some nice discussions that we could have related to, to, to that contrast. So I think the medium is, is extremely interesting because you can go multiple ways into why it's actually relevant.

Um, I'll tell you that like of navigating these very complex capitalist financial systems and that one individual's choices can determine one's fate. And I'm curious, like, obviously there was a level of like critique and questioning all inherent in the beginning of the process. So I'm curious, like what you all learned and on a, like, maybe you personally learned through doing this data visualization into art? Um, or speculative, um, data generation into art.

Like what learnings you had about this notion of hacking the systems that are through a type of self help?

Uh, we were, it's normally you will think that we are losing time, but in the same time we were getting deep in the question and this had for me at least two, uh, let's say paths that were opening. The first one was like very anecdotic and personal, and I learned that the only thing that was interesting, and we agreed, three of us, was like, we need to make savings. Like, you know, the common thing between what they are saying in self financial self help, it was like you need to do saving.

There's a lot much more that can change the way of defining savings in each case, but, um, they were saying you have to spend, you have to use a credit card, you have to. Dress like a rich person. To be rich, you have to feel rich to be rich. Uh, you know, you have to take huge depths because then you are going to get rich and all the stuff.

Um, but basically it was saying like, when Columbus arrived to the Americas, the indigenous people didn't see them in boats. They thought they were walking on water because they had never seen these things happen. So they, because they had never imagined it to be happening, then their own explanation that is that they were like gods or something like that. And that, that was on the book. And I was like, first, that's completely inaccurate.

Like, Indigenous populations are extremely good navigators. They went to like Easter Islands. They knew how to trade. So there were some very outrageous and, and misogynistic and racist ideas in these books. I'm sorry for interrupting Ana, but that was like.

And if you make a summary, it's. Uh, feel rich, have debts, dress like a rich person, do all the stuff and probably you're going to be rich. And they are hoping you buy those books so they can get rich. Uh, so in the personal part for me, it was like, okay, I need to start doing savings. This is, this was my, my personal learning experience. It's time for me. I'm, I'm, I'm old enough to do that.

And if Felipe, that is not, you know, a financial expert in these ideological contexts is saying, yeah, perhaps this is the only thing we can share. I would say, okay. Opening like a saving account and in the, let's say in the collective, uh, more reflexive part of the, of the work, what, what we expected happened that it was like a very neoliberal, ultra capitalist, uh, way of saying things that is very, is shared.

I, I think most of the people that is buying and sharing this kind of, of advices and are. Uh, most of all, not sharing a condition of richness or other related to financial conditions, but an ideological, uh, way of seeing the world and their expectations and desires.

And it talks also a lot about inequalities and The, the very hard work we have in, in a critical way of artists, of thinkers about the, the different state of the world or, or, or, or a transformation path that it's very hard for us to compete with these kind of, it's a huge, uh, machine of putting these kind of ideas. in the air. And, uh, even if we, if we laugh when we read these kind of things, then when we see the reality, it's How do you say? Oh, angst. Yeah, angst.

Yeah. Yeah. It's the time. Yeah. That and so, yeah, I think this is, this was very important part because I think we share, even if we have differences in our political, uh, views, we share some critical point of view about. ultra capitalistic and neoliberal paths and these things in here. We share that, this critical view of that, and this was very important.

That would lead us into what I should say, um, have a normal investigation of finances. Rather, just to work in the speculative spectrum, and on absolute truths that show us the day to day how we are going to become a millionaire or how we're going to grow a rapidly economy. No, and these traps have more to do with a series of false gurus about the economy. So that was something our, our interest at the time we were discussing how we are going to use this data.

What was going to be the information that we're going to show? I think to be clear that our way of connecting everything was going to be, and it's going to be contradictory to this experience of self help.

I believe that the idea of financial inclusion, well, we wanted to work from the, from the Fictional from the speculative experience, but it was also like reviewing the data And figures of ecuador and seeing exactly how the data continues to resonate For me, I think it was very decisive How the economies are working in a country like ecuador and now thinking about the context and how this is developing Also a very harsh economic reality related

to economic activity Acclimation of inequality that is prominent in Ecuador. So for me, I believe that part of working on that idea of financial inclusion was a little bit of working on how we debunk these myths about self help and financial management. It was a bit about that. How do we work with ideas constantly implanted in us? But how do we make them verifiable with current information? I, I, I think, I think I still, it's still within the data management.

It continues to show us despite using the ideas of self help or trying to make schemes that these, these figures of this supposed formulas of, of sauces. Well, it, it continues to give us very chilling data about the inequity in a country like Ecuador. I think it applies to, to in, in many contexts.

I'm overly generally a skeptic about the possibility of financial inclusion, uh, doing either these micro policies that NGOs or states can try to do, uh, or these self determination actions that individuals can do in the sense that, like, I think the nice thing about following the hyper capitalistic agenda in the simulations is that they were saying, like, if this doesn't work, then what, what can work? Right? And something that was kind of maybe a little bit disappointing is that, okay.

I would have been happy if these hypercapitalistic solutions would have worked. That actually would have been somehow a positive note, but kind of like overall there's not much that can be done and that's kind of like the very dark thing from it in that. Piecewise policies or individual policies will not necessarily be radically life changing for the majority of population. And that's kind of what is a little bit saddening.

So in terms of future financial inclusion, uh, yeah, perhaps it's rethinking about the way that the system is structured, but coming from my own research agenda, politics wise, that's extremely, extremely hard to change. And that also makes it then. kind of nihilistic view on what is the possibilities of future financial inclusion. Yeah. Sorry for leaving on a sad note.

Let's inverse the phrase to say something, something about the future as getting rich means in this financial health aid, how to get rich and be rich for the consuming. So I would say perhaps thinking about other examples we learned in, in Costa Rica in San Jose, uh, microfinancing, for example, how to. Put together other kind of simulations of data, perhaps less humoristic, but more pedagogical and showing what seems not that obvious as for example, alternative finance.

So for example, the Mexico example was very nice. Perhaps it's a challenge for us now to think about financial inclusion in a way of other examples of showing data about microfinancing in a way that is. where imagination and visual proposal can do the difference, you know, can create this fiction that we can think real for the future, something like that, something around that.

Or building things through community instead of like the larger systems. Yeah, I think I'm so thankful for each of you for your work in this project and showing up to discuss it today.

And let's talk to people that are experts. And also try to extrapolate what are non experts going to reach from this. So I think even like the going to Costa Rica on how to think about the material representation and discussion of the artwork through the mediation that Ana was leading during like, uh, one of the opening nights. I think all of that is, is like just, Opening more roads about where we can go from now. So, yeah.