Con/Crit/Tec (Technologies of Critical Conscientization)
Conscientizações Críticas Tecnológicas (Technologies of Critical Conscientization, or Con/Crit/Tec) was an intensive research residency and workshop held at the Casa do Povo (São Paulo, Brazil), from April 23rd to May 3rd, 2023. The event brought together over 80 artists, designers, technologists, activists, and other transdisciplinary researchers.
Con/Crit/Tec centered the importance of alternative geographies and ontologies of consciousness regarding the digital, informational, and computational. It displaced technics from the laboratories, classrooms, and imaginaries of the Global North toward their everyday reinventions and appropriations taking place everywhere - in the gambiarras, in the antagonistic activism of artists and other communiites, the indigenous, anti-racist, and feminist on/offline technologies of resistance, the transnational human-machine translations, the alternative histories/pasts/presents of technological counter-hegemonies and archives, and other emergent reconfigurations of togetherness with more-than-human digital/technical/informational beings. The convening focused on remembering and formulating technologies that center planetarity and pluriversality, challenging modernity/coloniality and extractivism.
The convening was co-organized by Christopher Bratton, Dalida Maria Benfield, Bruno Moreschi, and Gabriel Pereira. Working groups were led by faculty fellows, that included Paola Ricaurte, Rodrigo Ochigame, Irineu Terena, Carlos Vamoss, Fernanda Pitta, Silvana Bahia, and the co-organizers. The event also included a diverse range of talks, experiences, and exchanges held by Rosana Paulino, Portia Cobb, Ou Ning, Wassu Cocal Indigenous Community, Rosário dos Homens Pretos da Penha, Fernanda Bruno, Taís Oliveira, Giselle Beiguelman, Ali Akbar Mehta, Fernanda Pitta, Moisés Patrício, Luciara Ribeiro, Margarita Kuleva, and participants themselves.
The full programme can be found here (in English).
This event was made possible with the support of: Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research (CAD+SR),Tierra Común, the research project “Decay without mourning, future thinking heritage practices” (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond GI21-0001, Pinacoteca and MAC-USP), and SESC-SP.