MARIO NAVARRO
(Santiago, 1970)

Mario Navarro investigates characters and projects that embody the rise and fall of utopian ideals in the history of Chile and Latin America. Taking the form of installations, some of Navarro’s works focus on forgotten figures that once belonged to pop culture. Red Diamond (2006) examines the Cybersyn project of the Unidad Popular socialist government. Designed by British scientist Stafford Beer, the idea behind Cybersyn was to administer Chile’s economy in real time from a central operations room: using strategies that are now made familiar by Amazon and Apple, the project’s purpose was to connect the entirety of Chile’s homes through a single computing center. Located in the country’s capital, the center would have been responsible for evaluating and responding to the needs of Chilean citizens. Reproduced in inexpensive materials, Navarro’s Cybersyn evokes the nostalgia, melancholia, and frustration surrounding the project’s failure, as well as the dystopian aspect of its paradoxical materialization.