"A work of art is not an object, it is not a thing, it is a proposal for man, a proposal for society."

Vast, prolific, visionary. Waldemar Cordeiro (Rome, 1925 - São Paulo, 1973) explored from concretism to digital art in his works, transitioning from artistic production to theoretical reflection.

His early works are in the expressionist spectrum, but the artist would soon escape to abstract production, distant from figuration, distant from naturalism and art for art's sake. He wanted to change the world through it, through the artistic production of the new.

"Electronic artworks are interdisciplinary. Taking advantage of discoveries in the field of neurology and Gestalt, we can highlight direct similarities between Concrete Art and Computer Art."

Waldemar Cordeiro was politically engaged and a defender of art as a fundamental element of the social transformation process. Faced with the military coup of 1964 in Brazil, he incorporated a strongly critical dimension into his works, such as the series of Popcretos, with poet Augusto de Campos. Artist Hélio Oiticica (1937/1980) attributed to Cordeiro the pioneering of the appropriation of everyday things in his works.

In the early 1960s, Cordeiro experimented with splotches and organic shapes of multicolored geometricity – called “informal concrete art.” ©www.waldemarcordeiro.com

Cordeiro saw in the traditional forms of concrete art, in geometry, elements that could induce organization through new codes. For the artist, "electronic artworks are interdisciplinary. Taking advantage of discoveries in the field of neurology and Gestalt, we can highlight direct similarities between Concrete Art and Computer Art."

The Computer Art Phase

The social and critical dimension was also introduced into his artistic achievements using the computer. For Cordeiro, "a work of art is not an object, it is not a thing, it is a proposal for man, a proposal for society", as he explains in a recorded statement.

"Digital art responds to the technological and cultural evolution produced by population growth, large urban agglomerations, the decrease in physical distances, and the development of telecommunications. Computer art is the realization of ideas through arithmetic and logical operations, covering psychological, ethical, sensory, ideological, sensitive, and intellectual variables."

The artist created images with interest in both their style and their pattern. In "Pirambu," for example, where a local artist used geometric design, Cordeiro anticipates in a certain sense the design carried out by the computer, says Rachel Price, a teacher at Princeton University (USA).

New Tendencies and Arteônica

From 1961 to 1973, five international exhibitions were organized under the title "New Tendencies" in Zagreb, Croatia. It was a continuation of the development of ideas from Exat51, during the 1950s, and was part of the post-informal art movement in the 1960s and 1970s in Europe.

New Tendencies 4 (1969) poster by Ivan Picelj. ©monoskop.org/New_Tendencies

In 1968, Waldemar Cordeiro was instrumental in introducing computing to the arts in Brazil. Additionally, he played a pivotal role in the New Tendencies movement, legitimizing the "electronic brain" as a tool for creating artwork, as noted by art historian Margit Rosen.

A year later, for the 1969 exhibition, Cordeiro did not present a visual work, but rather a computer-generated poetry work. It was called "Informative Content of Three Consonants and Three Vowels."

"All the effort of the vanguard is characterized by digitalization of artistic language, the difference between the vanguard of the first industrial revolution and the current vanguard is a technological difference, not a methodological difference. Both aim to translate the work into numbers."

Cordeiro was also interested in the ontological promises of this new digital era, and he was prescient in a few ways, says Price. In 1971, he organized ARTEÔNICA, an exhibition of computer art for which he wrote an essay on some of the coming challenges and possibilities of digital culture.

Derivadas de uma Imagem: Transformação em Grau Zero. Artist: Waldemar Cordeiro. In V&A Museum Collection. ©collections.vam.ac.uk

He comprehended, contrary to common belief, that the body and the computer are closely aligned, rather than being opposed to each other. He believed that both artists and computers were not simply producing objects, but rather creating templates for understanding and processing information.

The Woman who is not B.B. Artist: Waldemar Cordeiro. ©www.waldemarcordeiro.com

In 1973, Cordeiro sent his visual experiments made through a computer to Zagreb, the series "Derivatives of an Image", "The Woman who is not B.B.", and "People."

In a letter from Waldemar Cordeiro to the organizers of New Tendencies, in August 1968, he wrote: "All the effort of the vanguard is characterized by digitalization of artistic language, the difference between the vanguard of the first industrial revolution and the current vanguard is a technological difference, not a methodological difference. Both aim to translate the work into numbers."

Cordeiro's propositions were important, at the end of the day, to stabilize the idea that the arts should embrace the computer, a machine believed to bring a revolution more important than "the revolution of the machines that inspired Karl Marx."

Art critic, cultural promoter, landscaper, and urban planner. Artist, designer. Brilliant intellectual, self-taught, honorary doctorate from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP). But Walter Cordeiro was, above all, a humanist.

PHYGITAL MAG: ART | FASHION CULTURE | WEB3

DIGITAL ART HISTORY: Waldemar Cordeiro