BASIC NECESSITIES
by Nestor Sireฬ and Steffen Koฬhn
On the Media Wall and Unthinking Photography
From 14 October to 10 January, 2021-2022
Basic Necessities portraits the dynamics of the informal economy in Cuba as it unfolds in Telegram groups and
analyses the eclectic and creative uses of product photography within this digital context.
When the COVID-19 pandemic led to scarcities in the government-run shops, the inhabitants of Cubaโs capital Havana
begun to use semi-public chat groups on messaging applications such as Telegram or WhatsApp for accessing food,
hygiene products, medication and other basic necessities. During the period of isolation and the government's
#quedateencasa (stay at home) campaign, these groups created digital spaces where people shared information
about the availability of products in the state-owned shops, creative entrepreneurs created online delivery
services, and black-market vendors offered scarce goods for sale. Some of them quickly garnered member numbers in
the ten thousand and became an inescapable necessity for many Habaneros seeking to fulfill their daily basic needs.
First WhatsApp and then increasingly Telegram replaced the traditional black market that had always existed in Cuba,
stepping in when state delivery systems failed to deliver. Instead of relying on a few trusted contacts in their
neighborhood, people now turn to chat groups because they have a much wider reach and are perfectly organized.
Despite persisting internet scarcity, digital black markets are nothing new in the Cuban context. Since 2007, the
online classifieds website Revolico has facilitated the buying and sale of foreign consumer products such as
smartphones, computers, or clothes by international brands that are brought into the country by importers (so-called
mulas). It is also used to be (and still is) distributed as an offline archive file through Cubaโs offline
distribution network the Paquete Semanal. Yet the recent expansion of internet access has created new
opportunities for illicit e-commerce. The rapid success of chat groups as online market spaces became possible only
when the government introduced a 3G network in December 2018 (and upgraded it to LTE in summer 2019) and smartphone
owners were finally able to enjoy 24/7 internet connection, a prerequisite for participation within these groups.
Based on long-term artistic/ethnographic research into these practices, Basic Necessities presents a real-time
documentation of the fascinating social dynamics within these groups and the current day-to-day economic situation
in Havana: What products are currently in high demand? What is available through state distribution channels? What
is impossible to obtain? What is the current price of a kilogram of chicken meat? This video installation for the
Media Wall offers a visual record of the functioning and aesthetics of this digital black-market via four of the
most active Telegram groups and documents the interactions of some 300 thousand users. Further, it provides an
investigation into the everyday visual genre of product photography, into the peculiar ways in which black market
sellers present their products.
For the online version of Basic Necessities, a meta search engine allows users to access hundreds of Telegram groups
at the same time, and our server is connected to the API of TgCuba, an online platform dedicated to the search of
information in Cuban Telegram groups. This platform updates its database in real time and has about 476 groups,
707.000 users and approximately 17,8 million posts. Following the completion of the live project, all queries made
with the search engine while it was connected to the Cuban Telegram channels were saved forming a database. The
current documented website utilises all the searches undertaken during the projectsโ โliveโ phase and can still be
explored using this database.
Basic Necessities is a commission by The Photographersโ Gallery digital programmes, as part of the
Imagin(in)g Networks programme.
Rafael Rodrรญguez and Christopher Kamper worked on the documentation of Basic Necessities.
