Exercise I : Defining a System/ Network
Cuba's Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR)

I chose to explore a social network, namely the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, or CDR. Having traveled to Cuba three times, I thought it would be interesting to discuss a system 1) that I learned about through my own experiences, and 2) that was born out of a struggle to survive constraints brought on by the ongoing U.S. embargo.

CDR's are neighborhood-based organizations that were initally formed in defense of the Cuban Revolution. They are networked all across Cuba with an estimated 122,000 chapters and approximately 7.6 million members. Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), are citizen-based forces meant to reinforce the Cuban government’s goals and ideals. They exist so that information can be disseminated rapidly in a fashion that is not dependent soley on the affordances of mass media.
Their initial purpose was to protect Cuba from the United States Counter
Intelligence Agency (CIA) spies, but over the years has transformed in
a way that gears itself more towards the needs of the community.

I decided to visualize the system through a small low-quality printed booklet with exposed binding. I used both image, type and mapped visuals to explain some of the elements working within CDR's.

View a readable PDF here
or scroll down to view images of the booklet