Editorial
The importance we give technology today shows how we define ourselves as a
species through our relationship with this
knowledge. Its influence on all areas of everyday life is evident and, since the
emergence of digital technologies,
these trends have intensified. Sometimes even, technology is understood as the
developments during the last few
decades associated with calculation devices such as universal media machines.
Despite its recent relevance and the
general interest in technology, discussions are focused on one-dimensional
narratives: technology as a product of a
Californian ideology, technology as a product of economic power centers consumed
by the so-called “periphery”, or
technology as the unavoidable product of Western techno-science. All of these
are partial positions that prevent
reflection due to the weight of a hegemonic standpoint.
That is the motivation behind this special number of Actio, entitled
—perhaps ambitiously— Mestizo
technologies and diverse futures. On the one hand, with the expression
mestizo technologies, we seek to
discuss the thought, creation, and generation processes of technologies emerging
in our immediate neighborhood in
the global south, as an initial gesture where mestizo alludes, precisely, to
that crucible and breeding ground which
are our societies, where disobedience of technological standards is often the
only possibility. On the other hand,
diverse futures point to the existence of many possibilities, and to the need of
vectors that escape the prevailing
technological narrative, one that bets only on determinism and an
accelerationism that is dangerous to our survival.
Therefore, expressions such as hacking, alternatives to excessive rationalism,
questioning of language,
hybridization of media to narrate the neighborhood, and sound as material for
creation are all part of the different
edges that make up this modest metaphor, not at all abstract, by the way, of the
mestizo. Furthermore, the
epistemological hybridization is also needed to widen the logocentric palette
that has characterized science. Thus,
including video and sound satisfies one of Actio’s premises: being a
journal that is read, listened to, and
seen. The multi-colored formula we offer is described below.
Contributions to this number
The opening of the machine, this artifact that apparently arrives to us from the
centers of technological development
to the mistakenly called “periphery”, is one of Diego Maté’s subjects in his
multi-perspective analysis of Super
Mario Clouds. Although the relevant point in this seminal work in media
art, in the category of game art,
does not directly point to a mestizo technology, in the sense that both this
popular game as the author of the
intervention belong to other geographical contexts, the technical dexterity of
the America artist Cory Arcangel when
modifying the Super Mario Bros game shows us hacking and technological
intervention techniques that are framed
within what has been called DIY (do it yourself). This aspect has been used as
part of an ethics of technological
disobedience that questions the passive use of technology, an attribute often
exercised by other technological
non-hegemonic narratives.
In a similar sense, but with a decidedly mestizo frame of mind, Leonardo Aranda
Brito presents the concept of
barroquizing as a tactic for technological appropriation. The text is
based on the Mexican nationalized
Ecuadorian philosopher, Bolívar Echeverría, and his baroque ethos,
which he proposed on codification. It
may be understood as an alternative proposal to the rhetoric of efficiency and
capitalist rationalism. In this
sense, the appropriation specifically located in Latin America would allow to
avoid the linearity of the
techno-capitalist narrative, and to generate new possibilities escaping the
verticality and hegemony whereby we
understand technology and relate to it, offering new epistemological horizons.
The development of local technologies in programming may be seen in José David
Cuartas Correa’s article on SIMPL3, a
programming language he designed. Aimed at artists and designers, SIMPL3
questions English as the hegemonic language
in programming and proposes a Spanish alternative. It is conceived with an
emphasis in visual paradigms together
with written code. Therefore, it is not a translation, but a complete
research-creation project in the field of
creative programming and teaching, that avoids positivistic models of questions
and hypothesis and dives into
technological creation based on experience. The fact that it is a free software
confirms that these are other ways
of conceiving technology.
Madrid, this city so close but so distant, that is caught between feeling
European because of its geographic
location, or as belonging elsewhere due to its character of former colonial
metropolis and contemporary crucible of
migrations, is the scenario for a survey where literature and photography are
joined to show a neighborhood’s
transformation. More specifically, the Usera neighborhood is the subject of the
qualitative research reported by
Cristina Fuentes-Lara, Nicolás Seraphin Rambaud, and Óscar Estupiñán. There, the
novel La piqueta (1959) by
Antonio Ferres and digital photography —word and image— provide a framework for
participative action to portray
memory. Usera is a neighborhood of Spanish immigrants that has been transformed
into a neighborhood of Oriental
immigrants, whose recent history points to global phenomena, such as
gentrification: it went from being an area
built through hardships that profited from the legal cracks to being a
neighborhood declared fashionable by
a well-known digital platform for tourists’ lodgings. Usera’s case is the
epitome of how memory, affection, and
community may become technologies of care that offer other paths —perhaps
mestizos— different from the capital’s
mandates that displace and homogenize.
Sound, specifically radio sound, as a means for creating opinion in conflict
situations, but also as part of the
toolkit for sound creation, is the subject of Esteban Ferro´s article, aptly
called «call to war». Starting from the
well-known concept of «deep listening» but transferring the gesture of the sound
stimulus and awareness of the
immediate reality to the media and sound archive, the artist proposes several
operations for reinterpreting radio
registers in several Latin American countries. His aim is to recreate, through
different sound and performing
devices, transmission episodes from a perspective privileging the subjective.
Thus, the gap between the different
voices that make up the radio’s story and the official narratives are
manifested, shaping a kind of dynamic archive
with activist traits. Furthermore, the choice of sound as material for creation
already represents a diverging
epistemological and aesthetic standpoint in a world, such as the Western world,
that has privileged the image as
index of reality.
In addition to these contributions, Actio continues with its purpose of
embracing the research-creation
productions of proposals that go beyond the text. In this case, we present two
contributions pointing in this
direction. On the one hand, «Lacoma» is the visual essay by Juan Miceli that
coins the expression «invented truth»
to directly approach the dichotomy between scientific and artistic images—but in
a non- dialectical way— and their
legitimacy through a media breeding ground where he reflects on the relationship
between the body and the machine.
Programming, the code’s materiality, USB microscopes, different types of images,
interactivity, sound, and even
Instagram filters, show the possibilities of research-creation as a mechanism to
think issues related to the image
from a perspective that is truly ours.
On the other hand, Mauricio Rivera Henao presents a review of his project
«Sonoro», a compilation of the artist’s
works on electro-acoustic music and sound art. It is manifested in concerts and
installations in which a vital turn
in the biological ecosystem is proposed to overcome anthropocentrism. These
works are a result of research-creation
processes where Western knowledge shares its place with ancestral knowledge,
positing sound as a valid element to
better perceive the world and its complexities.
These contributions are, of course, only a hint at the possibilities of
conceiving technology as a polyphonic
narrative embracing different traditions and interests. However, the richness of
different visions, methodologies,
creations, and languages of the authors in this number not only reflect an
urgent desire of different knowledge and
practice communities to question technology in a more inclusive way, but also
reaffirms the relevance of
Actio’s premise, consisting in placing technology as a complex object
of study articulating design, filmic
arts, communication, and many other types of knowing that are mestizos, because
they flow through the cracks of
artificial disciplinary borders, revealing different and promising
possibilities.
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