| Los Cybrids: La Raza Techno-Critica Collective, 1999-2003 | |
 Praba Pilar photo Stewart Port 2002
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* praba pilar * john leaños * rene garcia * Los Cybrids: La Raza Techno-Critica was a junta, working from 1999-2003, of three poly-ethnic cultural diggers of the Latino sort dedicated to the critique of cyber-cultural negotiation via tecno-artistico activity. Los Cybrids ascribed to the increasingly widening liminal spaces of culture, hybridity and decentered identities reinforced by the new electronic technologies. As "Latino" artists working with digital technologies, we represented a demographic disproportionately underrepresented in the frenzied race to be connected. Los Cybrids read "cyberspace"
as a cultural artifact and archetype for access/desire, body/space,
culture/globalization, and surveillance/ freedom. We resisted
the idea that cyberspace provides a “level playing field” on
which cultural difference is immaterial. Underlying notions
of cyberspace include the idea that all people can or should
gain access to “white male middle-class culture.” The promoters
of the “Digital Divide” feed into this inequity by creating
an imperative for ‘marginalized’ people in and outside of the
US to ascribe to and strive for access to the white male middle-class
ideology of a cultural geography without difference, friction-free
capitalism and unfettered cultural harmony. Los Cybrids obliterated
this false ideal of equal-access-to-all, suggesting that power
inequalities are perpetuated, not solved, in the new geography
of cyberspace.
Our projects included: You can view our 2003 website here |
this project received
generous support from the Creative Work Fund, Creative Capital
Foundation, Potrero
Nuevo Fund and the Zellerbach Family Fund.