How 15 international digital artists opened a window into Cuba’s 15th Havana Biennial with a joyous act of collective artmaking
Cuban artist Novus Sphynx — director of the live drawing performance Conversaciones Visuales — reflects on the challenges & cultural significance of this historic feat.
As evening fell in three late January evenings at the 17th-century Plaza de la Vigia — the heart of Mantanzas, Cuba — artists from Cuba, Chile, Argentina, Spain, Mexico, Italy, Colombia, Croatia, Peru, the US and UK converged on a single shared canvas to draw live to the pulse of electronic dance music.
The event was a historic first. Never before had there been a livestreamed coordinated digital performance of artists at the esteemed Havana Biennial — or indeed in Cuba. It felt almost outrageous to be allowed to paint freely in a public square in a country where freedom of expression is famously restricted — not to mention during a moment of rising authoritarianism in the rest of the world.
We managed to pull this off despite terrible weather on the ground, periodic blackouts, and having to work across a multitude of time zones and languages. I say we, because I was one of the artists. I live in the UK, and the performances began at dusk Cuban time, so I stayed up to draw between midnight and 4am every night — not only on the three live performance evenings of 26–28 January, but for most nights in the week leading up to them, in preparation. (Thankfully, I’m a night owl.)
We organized via a text group chat in Telegram, keeping track of our plans using online spreadsheets. On rehearsal and performance nights, we convened in Google Meets to talk while we signed into shared-canvas platform Magma to draw. Working this way is an exercise in improvisational cooperation and trust, sort of like playing in a jazz band, but with (digital) pencils. Each of works in our own layers and contributes to the whole, often overlapping each other, while never destroying the spirit of what the other artists are trying to achieve.
Cuban artist Novus Sphynx — the visionary, producer, creative director, conductor, and tech wizard behind the event — also drew live from the square, occasionally risking his limited bandwidth by appearing in a chat window to keep us posted on power outages and to cheer us on. The folks partying next to him waved to us through the open window of our screens. We waved back blearily, clutching our styluses. This is as close as I’ve ever come to Cuba.
Exhausted and euphoric, he wrote to us all in Telegram on the final evening: “Good night brave soldiers of art. I know we are exhausted from fighting against the inclemency of the weather and the elements. It was never said that it was easy to fight against dystopias. But you, loaded with your creativity, laptops, tablets under the power of art, will know how to conquer the glory reserved only for a few… I would tell you all this if I knew that you were not having fun accompanying me on this magical journey.”
It was fun and magical. But what next? I asked Sphynx to fill me in on the context of what we’d just experienced, and for his reflections on this extraordinary event.*
You told the artists that we were making history with this event. What made it a decisive moment, from a technical, political, or artistic point of view?
In terms of innovation, in the 40 years of the Havana International Biennial’s existence, no individual or collective artwork had ever been presented involving a performance of creating digital art — whether collectively or individually — in real time, and using the Internet as a communication channel to unite disparate locations across the globe into a single spatial point. It was also an extraordinary first in the creative freedom allowed us, in the use of social media as a parallel dimension for exhibition, and in opening a live window to the world from within the dystopia of present-day Cuba. Finally, if you take into consideration Cuba’s current technological challenges, operational needs, and lack of control over electricity and Internet connectivity, you can conclude that the effort was extreme.
Politically speaking, open forums and individual free expression are not exactly what distinguishes the totalitarian sociopolitical system that governs my country, Cuba. There are many cases of people imprisoned simply for expressing disagreement, for displaying beautiful words on posters that should be shouted with pride. Having the opportunity to create in real time with free discourse, even though I have knowledge of oratory and semiotics to defend our creation so that it isn’t distorted or taken out of context, could have been subjectively interpreted by any censor and ended badly for me.
From the artistic perspective, we made history because the collective curation of the participating artists succeeded. I presented the Biennial’s Organizing Committee with the project plan and some examples of work by the participating artists for review and approval — and we know how selective these events tend to be. But the real test — and risk — would be the execution of the creative process, the narrative, and the symbolism that would emerge from the interaction of such a diverse group. And yes, it worked.
How did you choose this particular group of artists to work with?
I chose all the artists from a group originating from DADA.art, a digital platform for collaborative artmaking, and a pioneer of art on blockchain, seeking to build an alternative economy for artists. These artists know how to draw collectively while not imposing their own individual styles over the collective whole. Over the years, we have met within the exquisite dynamics of DADA conversations, where stories are told or ideas argued entirely through digital drawings. Some of the artists have a tremendous imagination, others are excellent illustrators, and others have the ability to philosophize for hours without tiring on almost any topic. Because we’ve previously communicated mostly visually, I didn’t even fully realize we spoke different languages until Adrianna Genel created the Telegram group to coordinate us!
I share the vision of DADA’s founders, Bea and Judith, of a concept as utopian as the Invisible Economy, and this is my way of making that concept visible. The idea is to add value to the artists by showcasing their work through a collective project.
Tell us more about the Havana Biennial. How did you get involved?
The Havana Biennial, in its 40 years of history, remains the largest event for the arts on the island of Cuba. In 2019, during a Tourism and Culture meeting, I met Dr María Magdalena Campos-Pons and experienced her project Ríos Intermitentes (Intermittent Rivers) in Matanzas, in its first iteration. This project is an extension of the Havana Biennial to the port city of Matanzas, taking artistic projects to the heart of neighborhoods and into direct interaction with all social strata, especially the most disadvantaged.
I joined the organizing committee as a graphic designer, assisting in creating the visual identity and promotion of the event. I later distanced myself, seeking a path toward artistic freedom via the decentralized metaverses of NFT art, which I consider the right dimension, the present and future of art and individual freedom. However, I realized last year that — having been among the first participants of the globally historic digital NFT art movement from within the island of Cuba — it was important to come out of anonymity.
That is why a year ago, I proposed the collective drawing idea to the organizing committee. Some of the concepts we explored in our works spoke to Intermittent Rivers III’s theme of Afro-descendancy. The theme of the presentation, the dynamic between the artists, and the concepts behind the created works aligned perfectly with the theme of the Biennial itself: Shared Horizons.
The event seemed quite complicated to carry out. Tell me about some of the obstacles you faced, and how you overcame them.
Production was difficult due to the energy collapse on the island. The project was originally planned for five days of painting four nighttime hours, to only two daily hours over three days. At the moment, it’s Saturday at 11:40 PM, and we’ve been experiencing an eight-hour continuous blackout with no idea how much longer we’ll be in the dark. We’ve been suffering blackouts for over a year, lasting eleven hours a day, sometimes 24 and even up to 72 hours — real chaos.
To maintain communications during the coordination stages with the artists who accompanied me, I sometimes had to pedal twice a day, 15 or 19 kilometers outside the city to find coverage and internet connection. Other times, I simply had to take a taxi to Varadero, 27 km away, the “Sun and Beach” tourist paradise where most of the hotels in my province are located, and spend the day working in a cybercafé I call “my office.”
With the blackout comes the absence of internet communication, lack of water, and the collapse of almost all systems. Social stress is evident in the lack of joy among the people. It’s like living in any extreme post-apocalyptic survival series, where someone left the propaganda channel broadcasting to the outside world saying, “We’re fine, we’re strong,” while inside, communities survive on the black market and neighborly barter with only six daily hours of electricity, exacerbated by the internal economic corralito, which only allows you to use $120,000 pesos ($347 USD) monthly from your personal accounts via transfer — yes, less than $350 USD per month!
The biggest obstacle was financial. You can do almost anything anywhere if you have funds. At first I looked for backers among prominent NFT collectors. I thought if the artworks have a good story, a solid conceptual foundation, and an interesting context — like 15 artists creating a live, collective work at an international art biennial within a totalitarian system — are at the very least intriguing.
But in the end, it was my cousin Luis who believed in and bet on me, and my friend Roberto, who, when my laptop and tablet broke down in the same week just a month before starting, lent me his equipment. Also decisive were my scarce cryptocurrency funds and a small donation from the Biennial Organizing Committee, who saw the potential of the project. That’s how this madness was made possible.
Daring to imagine a collective art project of this scale in the context of such scarcity is the greatest exercise of imagination and creative introspection I’ve achieved in 43 years of life. Truly, there were so many unforeseen challenges that, after we finished the last day of drawing, I had a small anxiety attack mixed with joy and euphoria for having achieved such a feat.
While we were drawing, Germany and the United States were experiencing paroxysms of political turmoil, including marches in the streets against right-wing authoritarianism. Our act of global, collective artmaking in Cuba felt like an act of solidarity. Did you feel that way too?
The world is shaking, from right to left, and losing its center. It seems that the trends on the right point to neofascism and flirt with dictatorship, while those on the left tend to dissolve into camouflaged oligarchies in a post-Soviet style or into free-market socialism in the Chinese style. We all have our own war against “isms.”
Mine, within the socialist dystopia, is about empowering the individual through their creativity and knowledge of decentralized systems. That’s where I feel the resistance. I can’t speak from the same position as you — where I understand that individuals have the freedom to say what they think, to group according to their interests, form parties, and defend their basic human rights from a rule-of-law state. My context is completely different. I feel powerless when I can’t delve deeper into this question.
It’s clear that collective artistic creation can be interpreted as a political activity. Of course it is within totalitarian systems. For me, it always has been, but also as a necessary communal spiritual retreat. It all depends on the context, the forum, and the approach you give to the concepts you work on in the collective, and the message the resulting artwork will communicate.
I don’t delve further into this topic for obvious reasons of self-preservation. I’m inside the bubble. Any opinion that involves politics, freedom, and creation can be misinterpreted.
What was the driving force behind staging a collective drawing event and exhibition in Cuba?
My greatest motivation, from the very beginning of imagining a real-time collective work, was to show my fellow countrymen, artists, and students from art schools that there is an artistic world out there waiting for us. A world of free thought where hundreds of ideas converge into communities, not biased by institutions or dogmas that seek to ideologically guide creative processes. And that — sometimes — even one’s own language doesn’t matter, if you speak the language of art correctly.
I wanted to show the scale of what digital art can achieve when supported by a community, regardless of how diverse it may be — to break down geographic and language barriers, to elevate and empower our creative processes by presenting them at such an important biennial for Latin America as the Havana Biennial.
Now that it’s over, has your perception of what’s possible in the future changed?
In a few years — perhaps months — when AI becomes the brush of almost anyone with the desire to create, and art critics and historians call anyone capable of writing a prompt and generating thousands of iterations a “digital art specialist,” maybe a moment of critical awareness will arise. Perhaps then people will remember that art is a creative process, a journey of discovery, exploration, correction, and enjoyment. And they will come to appreciate human art again. Perhaps our collective, human, real-time presentation at the Biennal will then be seen as a necessary shift in the curatorial or exhibition paradigm.
Despite all the unforeseen challenges and setbacks, the truth is that it went very well. We managed to broadcast to the world in real time 15 artists who were projecting collaboratively created art in constant feedback, participating in a 40-year-old Art Biennial, right in the heart of the historic district of the city of Matanzas, Cuba. It’s the step I envisioned for the future of local artists, a bridge for true international cooperation. You can’t assume that support for artistic creation will come through institutions biased by agendas defined by the system. If you want to collaborate in empowering artists and expanding the arts in resource-limited spaces, I believe this is the right way.
CONVERSACIONES VISUALES CREDITS
Novus Sphynx (Cuba) director & producer
DJ Yorm (Cuba) music
Claudia Padron (Cuba) media
Adriana Genel, organization
ARTISTS
Adriana Genel, Spain
Boris Z, Peru
Cromo, Chile
Daveed, US
Francis Maduro, Venezuela
Germán Herrera, Colombia
Lissette, Chile
Lorena, Argentina
MarE, Spain
Novus Sphynx, Cuba
Marko Zubak, Croatia
Massel Blue, Peru
Mr Monk, Mexico
oculardelusion, UK
Otro Captore, Chile
EXHIBITING ARTISTS
Ilan Katin, Germany
Isa Kost, Italy
DADAGAN
*This conversation was conducted across two languages and translated with the help of AI.
