Week Nine Discussion Post: Chicana Futurism

     Chicano and Chicana Art: A Critical Anthology as assembled by Jennifer A. González, C. Ondine Chavoya, Chon Noriega, Terezita Romo "provides an overview of the history and theory of Chicano/a art from the nineteen-sixties to the present, emphasizing the debates and vocabularies that have played key roles in its conceptualization (Duke University Press). Accordingly, the commission at hand was assumed through the employment of numerous landmark and foundational texts and manifestos. One such which includes the explorative essay Deus ex Machina: Tradition, Technology, and the Chicanafuturist Art of Marion C. Martinez by Catherine S. Ramírez. At present, she formulates an analytical discussion surrounding the visual art of Marion C. Martinez and subsequently generates an explanation for Chicanafuturism. Furthermore, Ramírez characterizes the manners in which Martinez produces and retransforms Indo-Hispanic art forms while speaking to New Mexico's history as a "dumping ground" for chemical and technological waste. 

    Throughout this document, Chicanafuturism is defined as, "Chicano cultural production that attends to cultural transformations resulting from new and everyday technologies (including their detritus); that excavates, creates, and alters narratives of identity, technology, and the future; that interrogates the promises of science and technology; and that redefines humanism and the human (Martinez, 157-158)." As understood, Chicane cultural productions on no occasion remain stagnant. They are continuously undergoing numerous transformations as a result of developing technologies observed and utilized every day. So forth, Chicanafuturism lies responsible for creating newfound concepts on identity, technology, and the future. In all, these become entangled in some form or another. Moreover, this formulated abstraction reconfigures our notions on human beings and human ethnology, especially when discussing women, as Martinez explains in the text that Chicanafuturism was developed to give Chicanas and Hispanas a place to use and discuss technology, whereas this was not done before. This all comes together to aid in the reconstruction of Chicane art as we know it, particularly with regard to the use of technology and technological parts. 

    Marion C. Martinez is a primary example of this reconstruction. With her Indo-Hispanic artistic creations that center santos and Indigenous imageries, she constructs several kinds of magia. Martinez is unlike other Chicana artists like Ester Hernández and Yolanda López, who have offered up reimagined pieces of religious figures, as instead of using computer software to make her works she uses actual pieces of computer parts, along with wood and other materials. These parts all come from various places, donations, the junkyard, so on. Martinez utilizes these worn and seemingly useless computer parts to please her love of all things tech, to stake out her own position within technology and all its uses, and to comment on New Mexico's devastating history as a dumping ground. Stemming from the mid-twentieth century, when scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory detonated the world's first atomic explosion at the Trinity Test site, the state was forevermore changed. As such, Martinez has been adamant in utilizing this bit of history within her version of Indo-Hispanic art as a way to highlight how settlers have transformed New Mexico and speak to the current state of her home state. Thus far, I say she has been successful.