HE MYSTERY OF VIRTUAL VIEWING

The first exhibition of digital art convened in Cuba was inaugurated in our cultural center in 1999. More than 30 Cuban creators participated in it and proposed, through their images, an experience of art linked to new technologies.
Today, five years later, already in another century, in another millennium, 130 Cuban artists have brought their viewings to the competitive section of our event and, what a surprise!, 200 artists from 39 countries have decided to join this digital adventure.
To say "adventure" is to say the most corporal intention of its meanings. It is a true risk, a real prowess, an infinite summation of goodness, to be able to exhibit these works, generated and adapted with and from the digital technology, in the Havana of the year 2003. It is an adventure of faith, of believing infinitely in art, in most genuine expression: creation.
Only that faith could convince the participants of this international exhibit and the organizers of these exhibitions, of such a feat. We believe in the friendly souls, in the possibility of uniting, in the confirmation that performs the miracle like a haven of our brief history. We find the only possible fidelity and loyalty in the true vicinity of these impressions, of these virtual works that will interact with you, attentive observers with all your senses open, during the month in which the doors of this exhibition will be open. The work and its artist cannot be separated, but at the same time they will see each other here, through the mirror of their images, in the will of being with us.
Wish and reality that only the artists have made possible in their gesture and decision of accompanying us. As a jungle, as a forest, we wanted to show you how, with what intention, these artists mark the prints with their pixels. Their images, recorded in different digital supports, as in Dürer's incommensurable pieces (become symbols of the Cuban digital art), have travelled the roads, the paths and the questions proposed by art, by philosophy, sincemen'sprimeval zeal to show his world.
The universe, the space, the transit and the print fill with significant and signifier the reason why we do today, here and now, this international exhibition of digital art. Beyond the organizational effort and the above-mentioned will, we shall find certainty in the possible communion of the art that transcends geographies and creeds. Dissimilar and changing communion as demonstrated by the colloquia that, together with the digital art exhibition, we hold every year in our city. The conjunction of ideas, the differences in the ways of assuming creation steaming from new technologies and the debates that have characterized these encounters make up the scenario for which we have bet: diversity.
Infinite gratefulness to those who, from remote or near lands, have integrated their expression to our project so that speech making does not become speech, so that beauty is not transformed into its means, so that illusion does not end.
This is a shared dream
From this small island, founded in the scarce meters where we dwell, the digital universe can be seen today with more light, better optics and new prism. We live on Muralla street, infinite metaphor for a city protected for four centuries that today opens up as destination.
Those who complete our work and share our insular and tiny dream, please receive these abysses, these manners, these transparent eyes in which we guess, together, the mystery of virtual viewing.

Abel Casaus