Ruth Martinez Yepes: El papel aguanta todo
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Exhibition Abstract
The accumulation of data has become a capital that influences knowledge, culture, and political landscapes. Creating art with data can be understood as a form of data analysis that transcends traditional interpretations. By 2024, the Colombian government has registered around five million women as victims of forced displacement due to the Colombian armed conflict. The performance and interactive installation aims to bring audiences closer to the materiality of data from the long-lasting Colombian armed conflict. By visceralizing this information, the project seeks to remind viewers that behind the datafication of traumatic experiences, there are real people.
El Papel Aguanta Todo constitutes a representation of how to approach data from traumatic experiences while constantly iterating on questioning the entanglement between embodiment, data, and automation. Martinez-Yepes's installation provides a space and time for the audience to engage with the narrative of forced displacement, transforming them into active participants in the reflection of the datafication of this subject. By interacting with hand-made paper bowls, they can discover a collection of projected sentences that portray both collective and personal memories, reflecting the profound sense of uprootedness that comes from the experience of displacement.
Exhibitor Biography
Ruth Martinez-Yepes (Ph.D. '27) is a Colombian transmedia artist and Ph.D. student in Information Science at Cornell University. Her work explores the relationships between automation, the body, information, and subjectivity, challenging the idea that technology is neutral and immaterial.
She has exhibited at the Voltaje: Art and Technology Salon, Interdisciplinary Laboratory for the Arts (LIA): El Faro del Tiempo, and The Soil Factory. Her article, "Artificial Intelligence, Racialization, and Art Resistance," was published in Cuadernos de Música, Artes Visuales y Artes Escénicas, examining contemporary art's engagements with racism and racialization through the critical application of AI.
Martinez-Yepes holds a B.A. in Visual Arts from Universidad Javeriana and an M.F.A. in Electronic Arts from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá. She is also a member of the Redistributive Computing Systems Group and the Interplay Research Studio.
