Week 9 Blog Post

In Deus Ex Machina: Tradition, Technology, and the Chicanafuturist by Catherine S. Ramirez talks about how technology has evolved and the transformation of traditional art forms. The Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) had an exhibition called Cyber Arte which incorporated elements of "folk art" and art computer technology. Chicanafuturism is a term drawn from Nelson's definition of Afrofuturism (both terms are similar but different in their own ways). Chicanofuturism 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" (Ramirez, 157-158). African Americans and Chicanos both have been excluded from the Western definition of what is human and have been lowered to the term "infrahuman." While I have heard about Afrofuturism this is my first time hearing about Chicanofuturism. Martinez uses her art to incorporate Hispanas along with science and technology. In addition, Martinez also uses her to challenge classist, racist, and sexist stereotypes. Especially the stereotypes that simplify Hispanas to and keeps them from domains of technology and science. With the help of new technologies, Chicanos and African Americans have been able to link past, present, and future identities. Technology has also allowed Martinez to keep the Santo tradition. Her work is also thought to transform and complicate Hispana along with Chicana cultural identity. Martinez using technology has also allowed for her to "underscore New Mexico's history as a dumping ground for the remnant of twentieth century technology" (Ramirez, 147). According to Ramirez, using the tools of the present has also allowed us to say "who we are" of the past and who we imagine to be in the past. In all, Martinez's Chicanafuturist art shows the need for change.