Site-specific video installation, online database
– In collaboration with Steffen Köhn –
Basic Necessities portrays the dynamics of the informal economy in Cuba as played out in Telegram groups and analyzes the eclectic and creative uses of product photography in this digital context.
When the COVID-19 pandemic caused shortages in government stores, the inhabitants of Havana, Cuba’s capital, began using semi-public chat groups on messaging apps, such as Telegram or WhatsApp, to access food, hygiene products, medicines, and other staples. Based on long-term artistic/ethnographic research into these practices, Basic Necessities presents a real-time documentation of the fascinating social dynamics within these groups and the current day-to-day economic situation in Havana. What products are currently in high demand? What is available through state distribution channels? What is impossible to obtain?
This installation provides a visual record of the workings and aesthetics of this digital black market through four of the most active Telegram groups and documents the interactions of some 300 thousand users. For the online version we have developed a meta search engine that allows users to access hundreds of Telegram groups at the same time. Our server will be connected to the TgCuba API. This platform updates its database in real time and has about 476 groups, about 707,000 users and approximately 17.8 million posts.
For the online version of Basic Necessities, we developed a meta search engine that allows users to access hundreds of Telegram groups at the same time. Our server will be connected to the API of TgCuba, an online platform created by Rafael Rodríguez dedicated to the search of information in Cuban Telegram groups. This platform updates its database in real time and has about 476 groups with about 707,000 users and approximately 17.8 million posts. At the end of the exhibition, our server will contain a database formed by the searches made by users during its duration.
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Database developer: Rafael Rodríguez
Commissioned by The Photographers’ Gallery in London.
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