THE FUTURE PAST VS. COLONIALITY: Decolonial Media Art Beyond 530 Years
Coordinated by Dr. Liliana Conlisk-Gallegos
** Exhibition Site **
Exhibition Overview
Coloniality refers to the colonial ideals, concepts, formats, and organizations which continue to produce decontextualized knowledge which ignores that there have always been other ways of doing, thinking, valuing, and being. Decoloniality may seem new due to this decontextualization. THE FUTURE PAST VS. COLONIALITY: Decolonial Media Art Beyond 530 Years concentrates on the work of artists who are dedicated to the movement of decoloniality. They follow a school of thought principally headed by an Indigenous and Afro Latin American effort which focuses on dismantling the apparently organic and unquestionable nature of Eurocentric concepts and ideals. Since colonial times, these have seeped into the intricately formulated dominant matrix of power, embedded within institutions through the privileging and propagation of homogenous and over simplistic thought, and knowledge production. This has resulted in Eurocentric conceptualizations of, for example, beauty, goodness, science, technology, agriculture, progress, politics, economy, sexuality, gender, race, identity, and being. Decolonial consciousness and praxis rooted in oppressed cultures, has been a true art form for surviving and resisting white supremacy and eurocentrism for over 530 years. Media Artists demonstrate this through artwork that is conscious, ecological, grieving, healing, and unable to separate from social justice practice, and community building.
This online exhibition is curated by Dr. Liliana Conlisk Gallegos. THE FUTURE PAST VS. COLONIALITY is a project of the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community and is scheduled to premiere at the annual SIGGRAPH ASIA conference, 6-9 December 2022 in Daegu, South Korea.
Jury
THE FUTURE PAST VS. COLONIALITY: Decolonial Media Art Beyond 530 Years will be selected by a jury composed of an international group of decolonial, border, and interdisciplinary media art practitioners and experts. It is dedicated to all peoples in the struggle for decoloniality. In this important moment in the history of Indigenous peoples around the world, THE FUTURE PAST VS. COLONIALITY seeks to motivate and encourage usually marginalized voices and diverse perceptions to participate in an international art conversation about what technology and decolonial media art has been, is, can and could be. How can decolonial art be defined in a way that is not projecting the hierarchies, boundaries, and binaries of coloniality? Thus, this exhibit will be inclusive, international, intergenerational, inter-, cross-, and transdisciplinary.
âDecolonial aesthetics asks why Western aesthetic categories like âbeautyâ or ârepresentationâ have come to dominate all discussion of art and its value, and how those categories organize the way we think of ourselves and others: as white or black, high or low, strong or weak, good or evil. And decolonial art (or literature, architecture, and so on) enacts these critiques, using techniques like juxtaposition, parody, or simple disobedience to the rules of art and polite society, to expose the contradictions of coloniality. Its goal, then, is not to produce feelings of beauty or sublimity, but ones of sadness, indignation, repentance, hope, and determination to change things in the future.â (Mignolo, VĂĄzquez, et al., Decolonial AestheSis, 2013) Decolonial art can also be a celebration of âotherâ beauties and other sublimities, of joy, and righteous indignation, unapologetic defiance, and so much more, because after all, our experiences within coloniality are more than anything; diverse.
Submissions
The open call for works can include (but is not restricted to):
-digital video, digital imagery, animation
-websites, web portals, web radio, blogs and vlogs, podcasts
-corporeal and material interventions on technologies
-art and community based pedagogy, healing, organization, advocacy
-interculturality as enacted by communities
-AR/VR, extended realities, animated gifs
-apps for mobile phones
-online games, interactive design and new forms of interactive artworks
-digital and artistically visual and/or interactive conscious culturally specific presentation of information
-multimedia performance, sculpture, storytelling, political and public interventions, installation
-audio and musical experiences, interventions, etc.
THE FUTURE PAST VS. COLONIALITY will celebrate the fact that decolonial media artists have been actively working in the digital and technological arts for hundreds of years, although dominant, oversimplistic, and basic Eurocentric definitions have prevented them from enjoying prominence and recognition. To have Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the forefront and go beyond these concepts which were ultimately born from the experience of coloniality, is to understand that diversity is contextually specific as it refers to the fact that we have been receiving a one-sided perspective and been functioning within its limitations as certain peoples have been excluded and denied opportunities due to their ties to historically marginalized communities directly in relation to the impact of colonization and modernity. Inclusion means that we will strive to make sure that we will consciously and particularly respect, listen to, and engage with the perspectives and contributions of historically marginalized communities and more important than all, we will embrace and uphold their impact. Equity does not mean that we all must receive the same, but that we will make real and honest efforts to make sure that those of us who can will give and provide the necessary support and space to level our privileges and ensure everyoneâs dignity is protected and well-being is ensured.
Liliana Conlisk Gallegos
With the goal of advancing the certain decolonial turn, Dr. Macheteâs (Liliana Conlisk Gallegos) live, interactive media art production and border rasquache performances generate culturally specific, collective, technocultural creative spaces of production that reconnect Chicana/o/x Mestiza Indigenous wisdom/conocimiento to their ongoing technological and scientific contributions, still currently “overlooked” through the logic of the decaying Eurocentric project of Modernity. As a transfronteriza (perpetual border crosser), to her, the current limited perceptions of what research, media, and technology can be are like a yonke (junkyard), from which pieces are upcycled and repurposed to amplify individual and collective expression, community healing, and social justice. She has organized and curated 14 community-centered, interactive, decolonial, community building, and environmentalist, research-based multimedia artivism and critical intervention performances part of series such as, Technocultura & Resistencia: Otro Mundo es Posible (2018-2019), Our San Bernardino, Nuestro (2018), and The Art of Dreaming: The Power of Turning Trash into Art (2017-2018) exhibited in museums, universities and colleges in the Inland Empire like The Garcia Center for the Arts, California State San Bernardino, San Bernardino Valley College, and the Creating Thirst Academy of Moreno Valley. Liliana Conlisk Gallegos is Associate Professor of Decolonial Media and Communication Studies at California State University San Bernardino. She is a member of the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Committee. She has digital art pieces that have been exhibited at SIGGRAPH, The GarcĂa Center for the Arts in San Bernardino, Human Resources art museum in Los Angeles, the PAMLA Arts Matter of the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, and the Guizhou Provincial Museum in China.
Note to Submitters
This exhibition is organized by the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community, the year-round Standing Committee dedicated to the Digital Arts. This online exhibition is not part of the annual SIGGRAPH North America or SIGGRAPH Asia conference activities, which are organized separately through annual calls; however, we may showcase the exhibition and artists in those venues as part of the DAC Community presence. For more information about the ACM SIGGRAPH organization, visit http://siggraph.org.
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