Forthcoming

Volume 3, Dossier 1

Decolonizing the Digital/Digital Decolonization

Dalida Maria Benfield, Convener

Against the totalizing trajectory of the “Digital Divide,” there are
multiple audio-visual texts and communication networks emerging from the
globalization of information communication technologies that produce and
document de-colonial imaginings of economic, cultural, political and
digital worlds and futures. At multiple sites of criss-crossing colonial
wounds, film, video and new media producers, including artists, scholars,
community organizers and popular educators, are creating inter-textual and
inter-cultural works that reorganize the geopolitics of knowledge. The
texts assembled here mobilize diverse epistemologies and digital practices
to produce emancipatory knowledges that echo across localities and
globalities. They constitute “trans”-modern media assemblages of
technological, representational, epistemological and relational practices
that belie the totalizing narratives of race, gender, development and
technology that characterize transnational corporations, governmental, and
NGO-based global communication schemes. Emphasizing the imbrication of
spiritual, material and critical practices, these texts offer
methodologies for encounters with contemporary communication technologies
for an/other world.

Dossier Contents

1) Introduction by Dalida María Benfield

2) Reprints

Nakamura, Lisa. (2002). ““Where Do You Want to Go Today?”: Cybernetic
Tourism, the Internet, and Transnationality.” In Nakamura, L. Cybertypes:
Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. New York: Routledge.

Sundaram, Ravi. (2005). “Developmentalism Redux?” In Lovink, G. and
Soehle, Z., Eds. The Incommunicado Reader: Information for Everybody Else.
Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.

Schiwy, Freya. (2003). “Descolonizar las tecnologías del conocimiento.”
In Walsh, C., Ed. Estudios Culturales Latinoamericanos retos desde y sobre
la region andina. pp. 304 – 313.

3) Commissioned Interactive Visual/Text Works:

Taylor-Garcia, Daphne. This piece, title in progress, will be based on
visual readings of 16th century representations of indigenous gender from
her recently filed dissertation at UC-Berkeley, “Theorizing “The Americas
”: Sexuality, Sociogeny and Print Capital in the Long Sixteenth Century.”
Daphne is a current President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of
California – Santa Barbara.

Ferrera-Balanquet, Raúl. “Latina/o Video Queer.” A visual narrative of the
history of U.S. Latina/o and Latin American Queer Video Art. Raul
Ferrera-Balanquet is video artist and new media scholar. He is based in
Merida, Mexico and is founder of the new media festival and institute,
“Interactiva,” held annually at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Merida.

4) Existing Internet-based Artworks:

“Low Drone.” Internet artwork by Alex Rivera,
http://lowdrone.com/drone-live1.html. “Low Drone” is a flying low-rider
equipped with video cameras that flies over the US/Mexico border and sends
a live feed to the viewer/user via the website. Alex Rivera is one of the
most prominent U.S. Latino filmmakers/new media artists working today. His
recent feature film, The Sleepdealer, won two awards at the Sundance Film
Festival, 2008.

“The Network of No_des.” Internet artwork by the Raqs Media Collective,
http://www.raqsmediacollective.net/nodes.html. “The Network of No-des” is
an interactive text/image/audio work that investigates issues of digital
piracy and intellectual property in contemporary India. The Raqs Media
Collective is an internationally recognized artists collective whose work
is centered on digital cultures and post-coloniality.

“Code:Survey.” Renée Green. This is an interactive text/image/audio work
commissioned by CalTrans, the California State Transportation Department,
that mobilizes a montaged grid of intertwining histories of communication,
transportation and capitalist expansion.

5) Video Footage (Youtube) :

“Memorias del Hijo del Viejo.” 28 minutes, 2001, Enrique Castro-Rios.
This video traces intersecting histories of the artist’s family and the
Panama Canal. Enrique Castro-Ríos is an artist and scholar based in
Panamá.

“i.Mirror. Part 1.” 10 minutes, 2008, by China Tracy (Cao Fei).
This video documents the adventures of the artist’s avatar, “China Tracy,”
across the time-spaces of the Second Life website. Cao Fei is an artist
based in Guangzhou, China, whose recent work was featured at the 2007
Venice Biennale, Chinese Pavilion.