Digital culture can help promote political change, claimed Brazilian Minster of Culture and Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil in a lecture last Friday at the Omni Hotel. Speaking about the role of mass media in today's society, Gil offered a refreshing perspective on Internet rights, copyright and digital culture. The lecture was sponsored by Media@McGill and the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.
"There is a general feeling of there being no hope on the horizon for humanity, particularly when we see so much violence and corruption everywhere, in communities and in governments," Gil said. He countered such pessimism, however, by insisting that new forms of culture can advance political change.
"Radical changes are only possible at specific historical moments," he said. "Cultural, environmental and digital policies can play a fundamental role in the reshaping of traditional political systems."
As the Brazilian Minister of Culture, Gil has made efforts to combine digital technologies with social capabilities, such as the construction of hundreds of "cultural hot spots," where under-privileged people have access to free computers, software and the Internet. According to Gil, the Internet has created a space where people have the ability to be autonomous and free from government control.
"Many cultures need to learn that digital technological devices are tools for better cultural performance," he said. "Social change starts when we can all understand cyberspace as a territory of our own."
As a musician, Gil is a long-time proponent of political activism. During the 1960s he was an integral part of the Música Popular Brasileira movement and was arrested in 1968 for 'anti-government activity.' Today, Gil is a supporter of artist's rights, but still strongly advocates more leniency in digital property regulation. By his reckoning, the ability to publish and to share one's own creation is essential in achieving self-empowerment.
"A person should learn to upload before they learn to download," he added. In Brazil, he explained, many talented individuals, such as musicians and athletes, are not given the recognition they deserve, while fame and fortune goes to producers, agents, and other business people. This kind of exploitation can be avoided in the digital world, he proposed, by putting artists more directly in the spotlight.
Even digital revolutions have seen enormous resistance, however, and corporations and governments have tried to block new possibilities. Gil did not deny the negative sides to these technologies and the fact that they can be used against social interest, but stressed the importance of both humanizing and politicizing them.
"We must make them available," he said, "otherwise they might fall into politician's hand, and we all know what that means."
2008 Woodie Awards
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