The purpose of my arts practice is to present a theoretical addition to the topic of indigenous knowledge systems. My intentions are expressed through co-intentional collaborations with indigenous community members, artists, and scholars. Together, our purpose is to consider indigenous knowledge systems for the development of an indigenous media theory founded upon epistemology, ontology, and axiology. This allows us to root the development and use of digital and electronic technology so that it contains semiotic and functional values that respond to a given indigenous people's connection to place. This is opposed to the western utopian "universal" design paradigm.

The tactical media deriving from my artistic expressions function to complicate, extend, and add to discourse regarding the innovation and use of electronic technology by indigenous peoples. My work uses Chicano Rasquache and Native American Adaptive Reuse traditions, which are characterized by the adaptive reuse, recycling, hacking, and systems modifications of foreign technology. These practices are leveraged by indigenous peoples as innovation frameworks for the creation of implements that mediate culturally situated aesthetic and functional ideas. Using a digital media learning approach, my collaborators and I synthesize these frameworks with digital media literacy to establish a series of "tecno-cultural" worked examples in our communities [1.]. This is to understand best practices for pedagogy and cultural work leading to indigenous self-determinism.

Photo Above: Digital Ayoyote Rattle.

My perspectives derive from my Chicano cultural background, scholarship in indigenous knowledge systems, and my indigenous media arts practice. My “tecno” way of being derives from my Northern New Mexican Mestizo heritage, and the responsibilities I have towards my community and the communities that I work with. As part of this I collaborate as a member of groups to achieve meaningful designs and applications of indigenous intermedia. We do this through the exercise of cultural and rhetorical sovereignty, cross-cultural partnership, reciprocity, and self-determination. This is to cultivate the emergence of new indigenous frameworks and theories that enable the control of meaning (aesthetics, law, and pedagogy) and the practice of culture by indigenous peoples through electronic and digital technology [2.][3.]. My community practice of indigenous media helps provide examples in an effort to make a humble contribution towards the emergence of indigenous peoples in a digital age.

 

[1.] Gee, J.P. (2010) New Digital Media and Learning as an Emerging Area and "Worked Examples" as One Way Forward. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on Digital Media Learning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

[2.] Deloria, V., Jr. (1970). Power, Sovereignty, & Freedom. In We Talk, You Listen (pp.114-137). New York: Macmillan.

[3.] Lyons, S. (2000). Rhetorical Sovereignty: What Do American Indians Want from Writing? College Composition and Communication, 51(3), 447-468.