Critical attitudes regarding controversial social contemporary issues could take the form of art activism. The Cluj-based collective MindBomb is a hybrid critical voice, combining political art and activism. Initiated in 2002, following the model of the San Francisco Print Collective, it reunites professionals from creative industries, who refuse to reveal their individual identity. MindBomb has conducted a series of public actions in the city of Cluj-Napoca, and also in various other cities in Romania, on topics such as democratization of the public space, aesthetics of the public space, corruption practices of the political class, as well as ecological matters related to the cyanide extraction of gold in the Apuseni Mountains. If the first series of actions consisted in the production of visually poignant posters illegally scattered all over the city, the last actions took place mostly – and legally – in the digital world, on social networks such as Facebook.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the process of ‘digitalization’ of art activist practices of MindBomb, i.e. to investigate the collective’s use of Internet technology and social media in comparison with similar worldwide art activist initiatives and in the broader context of contemporary social movements. It can be asserted that the use of Internet and social media by art activist groups or collectives could be simply understood as means of increasing activist art’s effectiveness in terms of producing social change. However, what we argue is that the improvement of effectiveness – reaching larger and global audiences – generated by the ‘digitalization’ process is not only scope broadening, but it has an impact on the very nature of art activism. Subsequently, along with analyzing the types of images MindBomb creates – via appropriation, recycling, detournement or cultural jamming –, we examine the thin line between art activism and political activism.
Mara Raţiu (born 1978) is a senior lecturer within the Department for Theoretical Subjects of the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, Romania since 2009. She holds a PhD in Philosophy, conferred by the Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca. Her main research interests are in contemporary artistic practices and institutions and their socio-political implications. She has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals and the book Arta ca activitate sociala / Art as social activity (2011). She is a GETTY – New Europe College Bucharest alumna (March-June 2010; October 2012-February 2013), as well as a Rave Stipendium – IFA Stuttgart curatorial fellowship alumna (2003). Mara Raţiu is a member of the Romanian Society of Philosophy and the European Research Network Sociology of the Arts.
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