ZER01 Partners with T-Mobile San Jose Mariachi & Mexican Heritage Festival Presented by Target to Add Tech Edge and Cantina-Style Shocks

ZER01:The Art and Technology Network today announced its first-ever participation in the T-Mobile San José Mariachi and Mexican Heritage Festival Presented by Target, which celebrates the legacy of Cesar Chavez in his fight for social justice, and focuses on the traditional Mexican village.

ZER01 will be featured in an outdoor Feria del Mariachi—featuring three stages of Mexican regional and traditional music, folk dancing, artisans, Mexican food and more — Sun., Sept. 27, 10 am to 6:30 pm, in Cesar Chavez Plaza in downtown San Jose. Thanks to Target, presenting sponsor for the Festival and project sponsor for the ZER01 installations, admission to the Feriá is free this year.
“This collaboration enables the Festival to continue to honor its mission while showcasing unique works of art that incorporate technology in new and thoughtful ways that people of any background can appreciate,” added Marcela Davison Aviles, president and CEO of the Mexican Heritage Corporation that produces the Festival.

Our goal is to present Latino artists working at the intersection of art, technology and digital culture to San José, and bring a vision of the contemporary Mexican village to the Festival,” explained ZER01 Executive Director Joel Slayton. “Marcela and Festival Artistic Director Linda Ronstadt have given ZER01 an exciting opportunity to playfully engage the public and prompt them to experience the world a little differently if only for one day.”

ZER01’s installations at the Feriá include:

• HOMiNG: The work and writings of architect Teddy Cruz, who distilled elements from shantytowns in Tijuana to create a template for redevelopment in suburban communities across the border, inspires this thought-provoking, interactive space called CANCIóN Courtyard & Chavez Mural House. Composed of two structures that create three spaces―a cyber lounge, a house containing a mural about Cesar Chavez, and a courtyard―the structure is the brainchild of Pilar Agüero-Esparza, the highly regarded local artist and arts educator whose work graces the interior of the Biblioteca Latinoamericana Public Library in San Jose, and H. Dionicio Mendoza, a San Jose-based artist whose work has been exhibited around the globe. CANCIóN Courtyard & Chavez Mural House will serve as home base for ZER01’s efforts.

• GAMiNG: Mexican net artist Arcángel Constantini has created a cyberlounge inside the ZER01 home; three computer stations feature video game projects by Mexican artists. Constantini curated/ programmed the cyberlounge for Mexico City’s Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, and has exhibited his performative, sculptural and online work throughout the world.

• SHOCKiNG: Improvising on an old Mexican tradition, Constantini will also audio-electrocute volunteers with his mobile icpiticayotl box. Náhuatl for electricity, Icpiticayotl uses electroshock to involuntarily contract users’ muscles in sync with sound oscillations to establish synaesthesia. Constantini’s artistic experiment is designed to give visitors the same adrenalin rush los señores de los toques have been giving cantina patrons as a chaser to their cerveza for centuries. He says he intends to shock them into experiencing “the underlying electromagnetic nature of the physical universe through visceral exaltation.” Icpiticayotl is harmless, fun and appropriate for all ages.

• REFUNDiNG: Buenos Airean Gustavo Romano brings his “Lost Time Refund Office”—a performance project using actors, computers and other technology to portray the loss, transfer and restoral of time—to the U.S. for the first time. The work was originally launched in Berlin in 2004, and later produced in Singapore, Rostock, Vigo, Buenos Aires and Mexico City. Working in a variety of media, including actions, video, installations and web projects, Romano has won numerous awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship; had solo and other exhibitions at museums around the world—from the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires to the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. He is a director of “Fin del Mundo,”a virtual platform for circulating net art projects, curator of the Virtual Space of the Cultural Center of Spain in Buenos Aires, and a featured artist on the Museo Tamayo cyberlounge.

About the San José Mariachi and Mexican Heritage Festival
The San José Mariachi and Mexican Heritage Festival, now in its 18th year, has experienced measured growth in terms of attendance and revenue in the past three years and is now the largest festival of its kind in the nation, headquartered in San José (the nation’s tenth largest city) and centrally located in Northern California, which is the fourth largest US Latino consumer market. The Festival annually presents an array of educational workshops, indoor concert events and outdoor music and cultural family activities in downtown San José. Festival revenue supports the Heritage Corporation’s music and dance education programs, which are taught in San Jose public schools, the Mexican Heritage Plaza, Children’s Discovery Museum and local community centers.

About Target
Minneapolis-based Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) serves guests at more than 1,699 stores nationwide and at Target.com. Target is committed to providing a fun and convenient shopping experience with access to unique and highly differentiated products at affordable prices. Since 1946, the corporation has given 5 percent of its income through community grants and programs like Take Charge of Education. Today, that giving equals more than $3 million a week.

About T-Mobile USA, Inc.
Based in Bellevue, Wash., T-Mobile USA, Inc. is the U.S. operation of Deutsche Telekom AG’s Mobile Communications Business, and a wholly owned subsidiary of T-Mobile International, one of the world’s leading companies in mobile communications. By the end of the second quarter of 2009, almost 150 million mobile customers were served by the mobile communication segments of the Deutsche Telekom group — 33.5 million by T-Mobile USA — all via a common technology platform based on GSM and UMTS, the world’s most widely used digital wireless standards. T-Mobile’s innovative wireless products and services help empower people to connect to those who matter most. Multiple independent research studies continue to rank T-Mobile among the highest in numerous regions throughout the U.S. in wireless customer care and call quality. For more information, please T-Mobile.com. TMobile is a federally registered trademark of Deutsche Telekom AG.

About ZER01

San Jose-based ZER01 has served as a catalyst and platform for the world’s most innovative artists since 2000. The nonprofit focuses on inspiring creativity at the intersection of art, technology and digital culture.

As producer of the 01SJ Biennial, a multidisciplinary, multi-venue event of visual and performing arts, the moving image, public art and interactive digital media, ZER01 has showcased the work of 350 artists from more than 40 countries—using such “media” as GPS-equipped pigeons, interactive platform shoe devices, mobile phone and surveillance technologies.

In the process, it attracted 65,000 visitors and generated $15 million in economic revenue for San Jose. Between Biennials—the next is scheduled for Sept. 15-19, 2010—ZER01 nurtures Silicon Valley’s cultural health with events such as the June 2009 SubZERO Festival. Produced in partnership with SoFA, it drew 10,000 people to downtown.

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