Los Cybrids

“Techno-Santeros: An Appropriated Prayer to the Four Directions” (performance)

In the time honored tradition of our colonialist ancestors, the Techno Santeros will perform an appropriated ritual to the four directions of the Global Tech-onomy.

Los Cybrids: La Raza Techno-Crítica explore cultural and somatic mutations caused by the implosion of advanced information technology. Amid the tensions of the fast-paced mythologies of the Information Age, Los Cybrids have emerged to challenge notions that purport a friction-free market, a one-world community and global access at our fingertips. Los Cybrids employ performance, burla, and high-tech art to undermine the uncritical, passive acceptance of the overarching social, cultural and environmental consequences of Information Technologies.

A “Cybrid” is a Latino digi-tech artist from an ethnic demographic disproportionately under-represented in the cyberworld. We function as a collaborative artistic group that performatively counters the hyperbolic discourse around “cyberspace.” As a junta, we instigate a critical dialogue around access and desire in cyber-culture, considering multiple issues of economic equality, cultural transformation, social reorganization, educational imperatives, and environmental impact.

“Powering Up/Powering Down” is sponsored in part by the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA), the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA), and the UC San Diego Department of Music in connection with the departments of Visual Arts, Music, and Literature at UCSD along with the UC Riverside and Los Angeles campuses.