Our first #HangoutwithAPOYOnline is with Lino García Morales. He is a professor at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), received a Ph.D. from the Technical University of Madrid (Spain, 2006) and another Ph.D. from the European University of Madrid (Spain, 2011).
1) We believe that a person so consolidated and with so much knowledge in the field of preservation as you does not need to be introduced, but, please, comment briefly about you and your trajectory from your own vision and experience:
Brandi himself unfolded the restoration object into two interdependent parts according to their function: the image, which functions as an aspect, and the support, which functions as a structure (without which the epiphany of the image is not possible). It turns out that the relationship between support and image, in the art of the new media, is extremely peculiar because it is at the very intersection of art, science and technology with the aggravating circumstance that the curricula of each of both fields of knowledge suffer from fundamental shortcomings of the other. In other words, both worlds, that of the image and that of the support, although highly interrelated (without support, there is no image), correspond to a corpus of knowledge as complex as it is different with little or little intersection (from a curricular point of view).
My scientific and artistic training, however, has been quite hybrid, which allows me a more objective approach to the support (which I usually call object-system) and a more subjective approach to the image (which I usually call object-symbol). from a privileged perspective, at least free from the prejudices that grow on the periphery of both disciplines or corpus of knowledge.
2) How would you define the current moment of the Latin conservation and restoration field in a nutshell?
I don’t have enough elements to answer that question. From my experience in Brazil I can say that I perceive a more open and unprejudiced approach, less fetishist, and also a lot of attention to everything that is published and done in the rest of the world.
3) What do you expect for the Latin preservation field in the next 30 years?
I hope that it is not necessary to speak of a Latin preservation, but that there are international collaboration and cooperation networks to protect the heritage that belongs to all humanity. I hope that university curricula will evolve and adapt to address the complexity of not only current art (and all that came before it), but also that of the next 30 years. I hope that there is a figure of Restoration engineer, that the Restorer is capable of coordinating more permeable and less compartmentalized transdisciplinary teams, etc.
4) Could you indicate three publications that guided your career in the field of preservation?
Three books is too few books, but I try. Without a doubt, the publication that has most influenced me in the field of conservation has been The Contemporary Theory of Restoration by Salvador Muñoz Viñas. After reading the “classics” this review is more than timely for its clarity, wisdom and rigor. But most of the literature that has helped me to develop the Theory of Evolutionary Conservation comes from philosophy and communication. If I have to choose two more, I prefer The Language of New Media by Lev Manovich and On the New by Boris Groys. I would like to cite twenty or thirty more publications, but I think these have been the most important.
5) What message for young people working in the field of preservation would you like to leave?
I would tell them, so as not to expand too much, to avoid dogma by all means and to educate themselves, always; that training is essential and never ends.
