This is a mousepad from “REDES: bread and justice, peaches and bananas”, a browser-based project by interdisciplinary artist Camila Galaz exploring the history of networks as tools of both control and resistance.

"Redes" means "networks" in Spanish and the design is directly inspired by Project Cybersyn, which was a bold, state-run cybernetic experiment developed in early 1970s Chile under President Salvador Allende. Cybersyn aimed to manage the economy in real time through a network of telex machines and a futuristic control center known as the Opsroom. It was designed in collaboration with principal architect and cybernetician Stafford Beer, and envisioned a socialism supported by feedback loops, real-time data, and distributed decision-making.

This mousepad reinterprets Beer’s original materials with arrows adapted from his hand-drawn system diagrams and typefaces reconstructed from his handwriting and early Telex fonts.

“REDES: bread and justice, peaches and bananas” connects Cybersyn’s centralized, cybernetic vision and the decentralized digital organizing of Chile’s 2019 Estallido Social uprising, when protesters turned to Instagram and digital platforms to coordinate, archive, and resist.

Using this mousepad invites us to question the networks we build, who controls them, and how we navigate digital space today.

Every purchase includes a printed zine with more info about the project.

https://externalpages.org/#camila-galaz