Mapping tropicália

Christopher Dunn

pp. 29-42

in: Timothy Scott Brown, Andrew Lison (eds), The global sixties in sound and vision, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

Abstract

One way to approach the extraordinary burst of creative energy in late 1960s Brazil is to map the interplay between image, sound, text, and experience in a context of rapid modernization and the dramatic expansion of mass culture. Among artists and critics, a fascination with highly commodified cultural forms such as pop music coexisted with an aversion to the culture industry. At the same time, new imperatives regarding "participation" and "experience" came to the fore as artists sought ways to engage audiences in the production of meaning. These tensions came to a head in 1968 in association with Tropicália, a short-lived, but high-impact set of events and works that would have a profound impact on Brazilian culture. Within the vast constellation of cultural forms associated with the "global 1968," Tropicália stands out as one of the most consequential adventures in multi-disciplinary cultural production.