Techno-utopian
Techno-utopian Promises and Obsolescence in Ibero-American Media Art (2026)
1er Seminario Interinstitucional de Estudios Utópicos
Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Unidad Xochimilco. Ciudad de México. 11-13/02/2026
This work analyzes the dual movement of techno-utopian promises associated with information and communication technologies (ICTs) and their subsequent erosion—due to technical obsolescence, corporate capture, and political disenchantment—in the field of Ibero-American media art. Starting from a broad conception of utopia as a critical method (Bloch; Levitas), it examines the democratic imaginary of connectivity in the region and its aesthetic translation in net.art, interactive art, robotics, and eco-technological practices.
In a second section, it proposes a historical reading of Latin American artistic production that rearticulates the ‘utopian function’ of technology within a situated context: critical cartographies, ecologies, and forms of cooperation that negotiate with infrastructural precarity and inequality. The third section addresses contemporary disillusionment: platform closures, the end of standards (flash), the institutional fragility of archives, and market tensions. Finally, it argues that Latin American media art not only utilizes new technologies but also imbues them with a utopian function rooted in regional history, operating as a laboratory for the future and as a practice of social transformation in the present.
https://www.youtube.com/live/SSrAwQ_fiPw?si=p4mHPfRMsp75lqU8
