Episode 02: The Expansion of Borders | Leonardo/ISAST

Episode 02: The Expansion of Borders

By Erica Hruby

All Episodes

EPISODE NOTES

Chicana indigenous mestiza transborder nepantlera activista Liliana Conlisk Gallegos discusses decolonization through the expansion of borders and the Eurocentric myth of modernity. John F. Barber reviews Nothing But the Music: Documentaries from Nightclubs, Dance Halls and a Tailor's Shop in Dakar by Thulani Davis.

Liliana Conlisk Gallegos’s presentation, “Decolonization through the Expansion of Borders: A Chicana Indigenous Mestiza Transborder Nepantlera Activista’s (CIMTNA) Consciousness of Resistance Provides a Vision Toward a ‘New’ Media Architecture Uniting the Arts, Sciences, and Culture” was a presentation of the Leonardo Education and Art Forum at the College Art Association 2021 Annual Conference.

This presentation was part of the panel “A Vision for Change: A New Media Architecture Uniting the Arts and Sciences,” cochaired by Gustavo Rincon and Erica Hruby. The full event with all speakers can be viewed on Leonardo’s YouTube channel.

Leonardo Reviews is a scholarly review service published since 1968 by Leonardo/ISAST. It is the work of a dedicated team of editors led by editor-in-chief Michael Punt. Reviews are posted monthly at www.leonardo.info/reviews. John F. Barber's review of Nothing but the Music can be found at https://www.leonardo.info/review/2021/02/nothing-but-the-music-documentaries-from-nightclubs-dance-halls-a-tailors-shop-in.

Find Nothing but the Music by Thulani Davis at Amazon. [affiliate link]

Find all episodes of Between Art and Science at www.leonardo.info/podcast.

Host: Erica Hruby
Production assistance: Tinatswe Mhaka
Theme music: Wyatt Keusch is a musician living in British Columbia, Canada. His work can be explored in detail at jazz.fish(link is external).

CONTRIBUTORS

Liliana Conlisk Gallegos is an "Uncivil disruptor who doesn't know her place." She says: "As an Optimus Prime Trauma Transformer con lengua de machete, I cannot help but experiment with EVERYTHING including art, virtual reality, and all forms of media. With the goal of advancing the certain decolonial turn, my live, interactive media art production and rasquache performances generate culturally specific, collective, technocultural creative spaces of production that reconnect Chicana/o/x Mestiza Indigenous wisdom and 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), the current limited perceptions of what research, media, and technology can be and do are like a yonke (junkyard), from which pieces are upcycled and repurposed to amplify individual and collective expression, community healing, and social justice. I am a performer of research, a translator, a filter that collects, isolates, and exposes supremacist formats while finding a way to design hubs to compile analogue and digital collections of designs, expressions, and realities a nuestro modo." http://transborderscapes.academic.csusb.edu 

A scholar-teacher-artist, John F. Barber produces media art and digital works as scholarship, for teaching, and as creative practice. http://www.nouspace.net/john

TRANSCRIPT by Otter.ai

Erica Hruby  00:14

You've found the space between art and science. I'm your host Erica Hruby. Thank you for joining us for Episode Two of our podcast. Today's episode features Liliana Conlisk Gallegos, a self described uncivil disrupter who doesn't know her place. Later, John F. Barber reviews the recent book by Thulani Davis, Nothing but the music: documentaries from nightclubs, dance halls and a tailor's shop in Dakar. Today's featured talk by Liliana Conlisk Gallegos is titled decolonization through the expansion of borders Chicana indigenous mestiza transporter nepantlera activista's consciousness of resistance provides a vision toward a new media architecture uniting the arts, sciences and culture. This talk was a presentation of the Leonardo education and art forum at the college art Association 2021 conference and was recorded in the United States during the final weeks of the Trump presidency. Please enjoy.

Liliana Conlisk Gallegos  01:10

Hello, thank you to the organizers. My name is Liliana Conlisk Gallegos and I'm an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Cal State San Bernardino. I come to you today as a Chicana indigenous mestiza transborder nepantlera activista for which I will use the acronym CIMTNA from now on CIMTNA and I refrain from using terms such as labels for to Latino or Hispanic because these terms are misnomers that enable and reproduce oversimplified perceptions of a very diverse population with very different unique experiences and points of view. And she can identity particularly refers to a consciousness of resistance informed by the colonial knowledge of the history of colonization and our legacy in an indigenous peoples of America. The title my presentation is the colonization through the expansion of borders. He Canada indigenous Mississauga trans border and upon color activist as consciousness of resistance provides a vision toward a new media architecture uniting the art sciences and culture. current plans for a diverse equitable and inclusive future are appropriative when they disregard the contributions of marginalized border people here on after I will use the acronym MVP and diverse frames and perspective of which my Chicana indigenous Mestiza has grown upon Clara activists that St. Nakano cement and concealers. Here's one example. These plans are imagined as a combination of a homogenous universal process towards the future, referred to as innovative or liberal. The overt binary and hierarchical discourse presented by the current presidency and extended conditions of the COVID-19 epidemic is dismantling the institutionalized and quotidian eurocentrism and supremacy of such perspectives. A larger populace is questioning the goals of modernity whose antecedent is coloniality. Not everyone is experiencing the effects of the pandemic in the same way. Some are experiencing harsher instability and death. more people than ever are being pushed to enter border or liminal, the pamphlet like states for Chicana theorists collodion Sol dua, Nippon lies a border place where multiple forms of reality are experienced simultaneously in perpetual tension and conflict. It is also a time where individuals experience loss of control suffer anxiety and confusion, thoughts and beliefs are questioned the colonial Eurocentric idea of empire building and visions as the expansion of homogenous nations and identities bordered from dichotomous others as the future yet the future is an expansion of borders themselves, that liminal space in between, which exposes its inhabitants to visualize the failure of higher position the economies generalizations where resistance proposes remixes heterogeneity poor, reverse, and the past as a window to the future. being undocumented is one of the many life experiences suffered by MVP who have endured and survived over about 500 years of continuous pandemic like conditions, literal and metaphoric abuse by institutions with unfair wages working in inhumane conditions, separated and unable to be with their families, incarcerated murdered, with no representation and limited access to resources and opportunities. Out of this perpetual existence in the Butler and salvo explains that some acquire the identity of Nippon claros, or quote, boundary crosses threshold others who initiate others and rites of passage at the vsas who from listening receptive his spiritual stance, rise to their own visions and shift into acting them out azienda moonbot nowhere nuevo making a new world, one that acknowledges the humanity of the other. With being similar, comes a deep consciousness and a sense of self. That does not work. some external forms of identification that come with attachments to power privilege and control instead as a sydnor i constantly shift to uphold publicly intimate ways of identifying which relate to sharing upcycling repurposing a culture of exchange with a sense of community with the consciousness that there are other identities and experiences out there similar my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth beauty and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated bowser einsteins words and they resonate with the symptom cosmovision as it is fueled by a need for survival activism and a sense of connection with marginalized communities out there from past present and future though apparently parallel transgenerational d colonial goals have different genealogies that the innovative which thrives for inclusion experiential knowledge production experimental open source publication models to make information you know more accessible and foster the centralized vision for media artisans sciences and technology these goals seem universally new as a result of a eurocentric and privileged perspective of the future from having continuous access to digital technological platforms the same which expose individual sweaty ologies of modernity and their effects and which have functions like function like massive objects that cost distortion coloniality hierarchy binary thinking in space time they appear new due to the gaps in the mainstream superficial understanding of the general relativity of identity based human experience and this general relativity is evidenced in the effects of our colonial past as explained through key hannah's concept of cordiality which is an ongoing invisible spawn of dichotomous hierarchy embedded within the matrix of power old for us new for others which are in the digital live streaming of the murders violence and physical abuse inflicted on african american black latino and indigenous people at the hands of police immigration officers and random white supremacists of all races across the country digital technology exposes oblivious individuals to some of the many consequences of coloniality is reckless that customization and hierarchies ation of identity markers such as race the ideology that markers racial identity and culture serve as science or for categorizing such as within first second and third worlds in an imagined competition toward imposed and universalized eurocentric modernity goals begets those false dichotomies through the imposition of multi dimensional manmade ideological borders systematically taught as organic binaries such as the ones between mbp arts and culture and science and technology within this fabricated dichotomy assimilation into the anglo western european culture and dismissal then of mvp cultures has been a prerequisite for reaching an imposed version of success through a deficit paradigm cultural rejection and resistances promises the exclusionary function of cordiality and modernity is interpreted as an ability lack of effort and a personal failure that needs to be fixed higher education holds flop concepts such as framing that not enough women and people of color want to study stem when it is an organization's it this is on the organizations and institutions this way of presenting stem runs parallel with the colonial purposes of upholding supremacy by reducing or ignoring mbp perspectives and this will not be resolved by only adding art to create steam we must revamp our understanding of what science and technology are and how they are related to our colonial past and the ongoing intergenerational resistance to coloniality the western eurocentric hack on science and technology justified white supremacy with the fabrication of the five races of man through solid pseudo scientific practices like phonology criminal anthropology eugenics and the farce of social darwinism technology was also used to drive slavery and genocide and the obliteration of mbp particularly in the americas in the early 20th century under the dictatorship of porfirio diaz in mexico the indigenous maya and jackie were massacred to build railroads for industrialization the expansion of imperialist goals through the myth of modernity the suffering of the conquered and colonized people appears as a necessary sacrifice and the inevitable price of modernization and recovers in 1982 the myth of modernity made indigenous perspective seem part of a failed past due to systematic impositions like the mexican caste system those at the top who were called christians was could for white had financial opportunities access to education and pay less taxes christians would be asked to be godparents to convince the church that a child Higher castes. As assignations were made in baptismal records, so people were forced to deny who they were, for a dignified way of life. within a single individual, there could be multiple generations of resistance course assimilation, or a negotiation of a tool against a homogenizing Universalist perspective. Latino and Hispanic are imposed and misunderstood labels. We're not all the same race. And this resistance assimilation and transporter thinking across those divides, is multi dimensional. In the myth of modernity, that ideas of what science and technology are and can be, are narrowed through a matrix of power instituted in coloniality, which branches out into other imposed ideals for beauty good truth, and specific to us. Also, those imaginary borders are on what scholarly research and pedagogy can be. The expansion of order thinking is a major push toward the project of trans maturity, a design for multiple diverse futures were marginalized sensibilities parallel to those belonging to MVP become then centralized. MVP sensibilities and ingenuity can include repurposing butter containers to hold beings up to providing the logic and vision necessary for the architectural project of transmitter entity, so that your project requires an expansion of mainstream societal knowledge and understanding conoscimiento which enhances the development of a proactive consciousness consistency of the serious connections between dehumanization and justice, environmentalism, sustainability and liberation. The technological plans and diagrams for such an architecture of liberation are hidden in plain sight in public spaces around the world, which I refer to as intensified Chicano Latino art transport escapes or each lats. And I offer theorisation and reading a one of the largest insignificant each let barrio Logan's Chicano People's Park in San Diego, to introduce the theoretical foundations of a new media architecture that seeks to unite arts technology, culture, and also data analytics for the purposes of the signing a conceptual framework to create a prototype tool for the exposure of art and culture from the perspective of marginalized minorities and underserved communities that have been here since the beginning of the history of this nation and in the world. Right. So in this way, we can counteract appropriation by expanding the transporter experience and vision further with accessible spaces for learning. She cannot peoples Park is owed to the protests and demands of Chicanos for the permanence of Chicano presence. It is a Pantheon to Chicano history and perspectives. It dissonant, harmonious visual porous, telling the histories of Lu cha struggle loss, victories and the in betweens where one is not simply oppressed or victimized more as one only oppressor or victimizer, rather one negotiates within the imaginary to a decolonizing otherness we're all identities aren't working in a way in one way or another, and my bed is 1999. These symbols encapsulate projections for the trends modern future embodied performances and expressions of border intergenerational trauma and pain in the buntline. This interpretation of pain is related to birth giving as a metaphor for cultural activism, artistic upcycling, production in relation to space time, a perpetual and always different delivery of the diverse versions of Chicano experience in materializes in the beef You're kidding freeways that emulate classical totals gigantic legs open with murals emanating from the in between like kaleidoscopic fountain springs of all life forms which escape possession and are eternally communal conoscimiento consistency I literally have whole bridges that shelter Chicano parks embodiment of waterscape. Artists you get them Obama spania and provato cifuentes describe waterscape as a place of difference thriving with the Neo liberalist organizations of cultural flow resulting from the process of globalization, and all around possession or hunting made possible by the perpetuity of movement, whom 2000 according to a panel right. The subject scape allows us to point to the fluid, irregular shapes of these landscapes, deeply perpetual, respectable constructs inflected by the historical, linguistic and political situations of different sorts of actors. who defines border escapes as a web of images and ideas and proposals to focus on border scapes that are not landscapes because not have enough has been said about landscape as exemplification of the border scape. But I propose adding the prefix trance to conceptualize the use of technology in the digital to return to the landscape, but across dimensions of extended reality, to focus on images and ideas. with digital media and technology we can sincerely emulate and demonstrate the scientific expressions and technology of our conoscimiento And consultancy are embedded within the architecture of each lots. But divergent varied expressions of experience delivered of the colonial imaginary which enables an experience of conscious decision to current cordiality. Increasing accessibility and congregation in divergent spaces of the colonial imagery across space and time will further intensify the liberating effect as the colonial imaginary can help us rethink history in a way that makes the kind of agency transformative, but it's 1999. Introducing each lots to the technological and digital realm will educate on the the colonial imaginary by making it accessible and visible to the untrained in history pedagogies and epistemologies of liberation and resistance. The introduction of each lots into a digital hub of extended reality will make it possible to create international archives and databases, making symbols, themes and histories to educate on the deep value and importance of Chicano Latino art. My goal is to design and bring to life the portals that I see at the park itself, linking them to each laptop located around the globe, demonstrating virtually how they're connected across space and time making my symptomatic perspective, the driving force to design and produce such an experience available and accessible to the world at any moment in time, via the internet. As heightened, erotic, mystical and political communal, physical waterscapes each slots are an antidote or mexus. See a Chicano Jew Assad's in resistance to what will enrich your refers to as digital crack, or the seductive hallucinations of the Mexican in America, which are composed of massively produced and broadcasted misrepresentations of Mexican Chicano Latino identity across media platforms. The mexus he found in each slots utilizes a precursory public technology founded in interactivity and the immersive qualities of life experience available and accessible to all. Each slot function as portals into the essence of coexisting under represented pluralistic alternative orders of things. they portray the way the process of resistance to conoscimiento and consensus actually looks like. They're the materialization of the embrace of our ancestral understanding of our fragmentary interconnectedness, which emanates from the growing heart of Nippon transporter identity. It is urgent to immortalize ensure the impact of each slot with the world not only because these zones are physically and ideological, current physical and ideological context zones, but because they are places defined by parts of a cultural knowledge not sought out nor understood by the dominant identity and its ideological stance. They are open temples through resistance dedicated to our over and out defiant ways that yet continue to appear covert Yes. Even including some Chicanos and Latinos who were denied their own history, which is an effect of the same oppression which has more and more people joining us in the pamphlet today. transporter escapes will aid humanity into the colonial process embracing of Nibbana, or the cracks from which blades of grass grow your organic life in order that men fail to modify and crush. The whole and fragmentary nature of Chicano Park reminds those that manmade borders are not permanent, but malleable disrupt the Bible, and that bipoc MBP sitting the experiences are diverse and infinite, even if apparently contradictory. The harmonious unison of all factors of transporter escapes are in the service of resistance, the recovery of history, pride, and thus such a multifaceted project of digitizing Chicano Park and ageless like it will make visible the portals within their complexity and their true liberating power. ancestors and descendants dialoguing conoscimiento. inconsistency lovingly simultaneously across space and time. Thank you.

Erica Hruby  19:17

Liliana Conlisk Gallegos is an Optimus Prime trauma transformer con lingua machete who cannot help but experiment with everything including art, virtual reality and all forms of media. She is a performer of research a translator, a filter that collects isolates and exposes supremacist formats while finding a way to design hubs to compile digital collections of designs, expressions and realities a nuestra modo. for Leonardo Reviews here is John F. Barber.

John F. Barber  20:00

Nothing but the music documentaries from nightclubs dance halls and a tailor shop in Dakar by Thulani davis blank forms additions new york new york 2021. those who followed music in the 1960s were their soul rock or rhythm and blues from detroit memphis muscle shoals or san francisco or the avant garde jazz soul and punk evolving along the east coast in the 1970s and 1980s we'll remember the music as documented through reviews and essays both critical and laudatory backstories and expository explorations and publications seeking to report on something about which many readers could only speculate the pulse of evolving cultural movements and their accompanying soundtracks nothing but the music documentaries from nightclubs dance halls and a tailor shopping car by philani davis fills this gap in her latest poetry collection davis provides synesthetic documentary insight a sonic social history full of anecdotal and impressionistic responses to embodied experience of the music and its creators and followers in the places and times of its creation and sharing davis goes aggressively for the juggler of the experience following the soaring cycles and spirited flashes of inspired but ephemeral circuits of creativity as performed by the musicians dancers poets and choreographers she chronicles in these poems she is drawn to document the raw feelings the smoke in the air and the empty bottles on the floor the impulsive energy the dance to celebrate humanity feature featured musicians and dancers include cecil taylor the art ensemble of chicago bad brains henry third gil thelonious monk the revolutionary ensemble the commodores mf sb diane mcintyre ishmael houston jones and others as experienced it historic venues like the five spot the village vanguard the apollo storyville and club harlem under this performance documentation is a foundation of in the moment struggle in a number of crucibles civil rights black power the new left feminism and bohemian foment on both coasts san francisco and new york all of which leave their marks on the music are the music in both celebration and escape many of the poems in this collection include dates and location as noted by tobi haslett in his introduction quote this little annotation slits the poem open the world comes trickling in indeed and animates and informs each poem with the history hopes questions answers eclipse dreams and hopes on the horizon carried and or pursued by each person included in the poetic context so another lens through which to read and or experience these poems is their insight into life backstage between and beyond the performance time or event aligned with what is happening beyond the concert halls the jazz clubs the living rooms and other sacred spaces where people seek to meld life with music to make sense of struggle and love to bend the art of long experience between past and future to the present moment philani davis is well best positioned to document and preserve this arc she is an interdisciplinary artist working in poetry theatre journalism history and film using all of these approaches to engage with african american in life culture and history and her concern for justice while a student at barnard college davis began her performance career putting her words to music by cecil taylor joseph jarman juju arthur herbalife mia masako david marie henry thread gil tanya leone and others her bibliography includes liberata a for the operas x the life and times of malcolm x and armistead scripts for films paid and full maker of saints award winning pbs documentaries the novels 1955 and makers of saints and other works of poetry or writing for the 1993 queen of soul the atlantic recordings by aretha franklin was awarded a grammy for liner notes the first woman to receive this honor she is an ordained buddhist priest and an associate professor in the department of afro american studies and anelli y medicae fellow at the university of wisconsin This latest work nothing but the music. While comprised of poems that have enjoyed numerous prior anthologies nations is not simply a reprise of previous work, but an important performance statement that has the feeling of having waited for its time. Like the jazz musician, waiting for the right moment to launch a solo, here assembled for the first time. This collection is everything, including the music, and Davis holds the room and the moment with her journalistic experience and ability to incite serious political thought, at a time when it is desperately needed. While Davis is a crucial figure in the cultural landscape surrounding the Black Arts Movement, her poems leak into the complex ecosystem of Black Lives Matter. Hashtag me too say their names COVID-19 police murders, the tyranny and deceit of Donald Trump nationalism populism activism, protests each night through the spring and summer, and always in the background, a solo musical performance spiraling through interpretations of the present moment where hope refuses to retreat, maintaining itself with gratitude, generous laughter iterating future possibilities, unrehearsed but familiar from lived experience, eager to learn and experience what the soloist brings to the band, printed in a limited edition of 2000 copies, nothing but the music is an important reference. One you will want to carry with you and consult often. reread the soaring passages contemplate the labyrinth of life. Listen to the music, for there is much there.

Erica Hruby  27:02

John F barber is a scholar and sound artist based in Vancouver, Washington, USA. He convenes with the creative media and digital culture program at Washington State University Vancouver. His research scholarship, teaching and creative endeavors arise from the collision or collusion of art, humanities and technology.

Tinatswe Mhaka  27:47

between art and science is a production of Leonardo the International Society for the art Sciences and Technology. Our editorial director is Erica Hruby. This episode's featured discussion was produced by the Leonardo education and art forum and this coordinated by Gustavo Rincon. Leonardo reviews editor in chief is Michael punte. Production assistance by Tinatswe Mhaka our theme music is composed by Wyatt Keusch, find out more about Leonardo, our publications and our programs at WWw dot Leonardo dot info. All episodes of between art and science, including expanded notes information on contributors and transcripts are available at Leonardo dot info slash podcast.

Transcription by Otter.ai