MARAKKA 2012
curated by Magdiel Aspillaga and Ernesto Oroza
December 7, 2012
Buenavista Building, 180 NE 39 St. Suite 204, Miami FL 33137
Buenavista Building, 180 NE 39 St. Suite 204, Miami FL 33137
Since 1983, Waldo Fernandez has been assembling an archive of Cuban audiovisual memory. The collection--which functions commercially under the "Marakka 2000" brand--relies and exploits a loophole created by current Cuba-U.S. diplomatic relations, and is sustained by a precise and astute understanding of current procedures regarding the protection of copyright in the U.S.
Each generation of emigrants has put its own nostalgic claims to the archive, which has more that 14,000 objects. Waldo has processed all this material in order to add new credits, remove sensitive copyright issues, and even re-edit the dramaturgical time and pace of serials and soap operas in order to adjust them for suitable commercial formats. The pinnacle of the archive lies in the documentaries that Waldo himself has directed and edited using video clips and sounds from his collection.
"Marakka 2012" is a revision of "Marakka 2000". From our perspective, Waldo's archive is above all else a registry of its own constitution. A repertoire of source formats, a history of the transfers produced and the copying technologies employed. A deposit of all the available resolutions of the last 70 years. A monument to piracy, to the glory of anti-macrovisions.
