HacTe is part of the S+T+ARTS Buen-TEK consortium, a new project within the framework of the European S+T+ARTS initiative that will run until June 2026, and which reaches South America for the first time with the aim of promoting collaboration between arts, cultures, sciences, technologies and ancestral knowledge to foster innovation with a strong social impact.
Buen-TEK is committed to creating a broad network of interdisciplinary relationships that merge local knowledge and global technological innovation to provoke debates on forms of regional development. The project promotes experimentation, creation and learning among diverse knowledge, cultures and technologies, to address specific challenges that affect the communities involved, related to the climate crisis, human and more than human relationships, resource depletion, appropriation, globalism or the creation of accessible technologies.
The S+T+ARTS Buen-TEK project is based on 4 fundamental pillars:
- Residency Program: promotion and funding of 10 artistic residencies in 6 countries in South America through collaboration with regional host institutions, translocal experts, local communities and other relevant actors.
- Buen-TEK Learning Programme: a collective peer-to-peer learning programme that seeks to form meaningful reflection on the conceptual framework of the project, while enhancing the exchange of knowledge between resident artists, translocal experts and the network of partners in South America and Europe.
- Buen-TEK Sylloge: repository of critical resources that compiles the knowledge generated throughout the project, including the results of residencies, prizes, local workshops, public activities or the learning programme. It aims to develop the Buen-TEK concept through a sustained and integrated collective learning effort. The online platform will include a series of videos/podcasts that distill collaborative effort and disseminate knowledge.
- S+T+ARTS Award: the first S+T+ARTS Award for South American artists, an award that will recognize innovative art-driven projects that celebrate traditional knowledge, indigenous wisdom and the concept of degrowth, and that show how art can foster positive change and propose innovative solutions for a better future.
In addition, Buen-TEK will promote a dissemination program that will include a set of 15 public activities in different formats that will take place both in South America and Europe, in order to foster dialogue between cultures and traditions.
Buen-TEK seeks the creation of a transatlantic network of collaboration and alliances between cultural, scientific, academic and technological institutions from both continents. It is promoted by a European consortium that, apart from HacTe, includes 5 organizations from all over Europe: IMPAKT (Netherlands), SONY – CSL Rome (Italy), TBA21 (Spain), Barcelona Supercomputing Center (Spain) and GLUON (Belgium). These entities work together with 11 host organisations that play a central role in the implementation of the artist residency programme. These entities are: Alta Tecnología Andina (Peru); Amaguaña Transit Community Intercultural Center (Ecuador); Laboratory of Ocean Art and Science of the Oceanographic Institute of University of São Paulo (Brazil); Art and Research Pivot (Brazil); Liquenlab (Chile); Más Arte Más Acción (Colombia); Museum of Tomorrow (Brazil); Platohedro (Colombia); High Performance Computing Center of the UNC, CCAD-UNC (Argentina); Universidad del Desarrollo (Chile) and Universidade de Fortaleza (Brazil).
Conceptual framework: “Good Living” and “Lo-TEK”
One of the central concepts of the project is Buen Vivir, a holistic indigenous philosophy and Andean cosmology that promotes harmonious coexistence with nature and communities. This concept eschews the dominant ideologies of economic growth and consumerism to advocate a vision of life based on interconnectedness and sustainability. Through Buen Vivir, the project seeks to offer alternatives to destructive development models and explore more balanced ways of living in community and in balance with the environment.
This vision is complemented by the theory of Lo-TEK (Watson, J., 2019), which explores the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of indigenous cultures and how they have developed sustainable solutions to environmental challenges, using vernacular engineering that is as sophisticated as it is resilient. The application of Lo-TEK in this project allows us to recognize the richness and potential of traditional technologies in the design of modern solutions that promote sustainability.
