Blog Post #9: Chicana Futurism

Marion C. Martinez - Techna-Bird

“Chicanafuturism” seems to be an art form that mixes “traditional” Hispanic art forms mixed with 20th-century technology. It can be best described in the chapter, “Deus ex Machina, Tradition, Technology, and the Chicanafuturist Art of Marion C. Martinez” written by Catherine S. Ramirez. An example of Chicanafuturism is in the exhibition Cyber Arte in the Museum of Internation Folk Art in Santa Fe, California. The exhibit is described as, “visual art fusing ‘“elements traditionally defined as ‘“folk”’ with state of the art computer technology”’” (146). Hence, Chicanafuturism. The article continues on to relay that, like African Americans, Chicanos have been excluded from and objectified by the discourses of science. An even detailed definition of Chicanafuturism is stated as a cultural transformation from technology that, “excavates, creates, and alters narratives of identity, technology, and the future; that interrogates the promises of science and technology; and that redefines humans and humanism” (158). 

The work of Marion C. Martinez is compromised of technology as well as wood and other materials - not just limited to parts of machinery. In an interview, Marion C. Martinez said she has made visual art with technology for 15 years and always had a curiosity about computer parts. In the Cyber Arte exhibition in Santa Fe, California nine of her works were featured and they were definitely, under the definition of Chicanafuturism, a mix of folk art and technology. Of her nine works, “Four of the pieces are inspired by the matachines, ‘“a ritual drama performed on certain saint’s days in Pueblo Indian and Mexicano/Hispano communities along the upper Río Grande valley and elsewhere in the greater southwest”’” (152). Her other works included headdresses worn by danzantes, or male dancers, that was comprised of circuit boards and wires. Marion C. Martinez’s work is a mix of folk art and technology, making up what is known as “Chicanafuturism”.