Y, 2023

Y

The history of anthropological photography has defined an orientation for the gaze towards indigenous bodies and the ways in which bodies are portrayed. As a narrative that points to other ways of perceiving, I use artificial intelligence as a means to invoke other realities about the gaze in circumventing algorithmic biases, limiting conceptual articulations about others in a matrix of colonial subalternization.

In Guarani history, gender non-conforming expressions were erased with extinction and assimilation. These genocidal trajectories have informed necropolitical operations. These works are portraits that return our gaze to techno-ancestors, my aquatic trans-ancestors.

Here I portray two ancestors connected with the time of water, in Guarani, 'y' /ɨ/. The influence of water for the Guarani culture is related to historical forms of life and the spirits that emerge from it. Water, here, is an animate element that transmutes processes of life, cycles of rebirth and prosperity, related to our harvest.

In these versions of Guarani indigenous futurism, our bodies are presented in connection with the flow and exuberance that transcends algorithmic predetermination - both on and off the screen - and modern linear temporality. These portraits not only invoke but also point to the magical practices of Guarani aesthetic forms, which have always been intertwined in our cultural forms. Sovereign visions of life are deeply linked to the protection of our memories in the present-future-past.

If we take into account that one of the ideological extractive purposes of Generative AI proposes symbolic resurrections, I propose protopian regeneration to counteract this. Regenerating queer-trans history, art history, and the normativity of techno-scientific development, constellating a plural superbloom.

 Kira Xonorika

Kira Xonorika is a cross-disciplinary artist, writer and researcher. Their work explores the multidimensional connections between ancestry, temporality, world-building, restorative ecologies and magic. Through transculturaland AI-collaborative frameworks, Xonorika weaves worlds that center multi-species intelligence to reindigenize (a term coined by Neema Ghitere) relations history. Kira has been the recipient of the Ars Electronica State of the ART(ist) award (honorary mention) and has exhibited internationally across the United States, Europe, Asia and South America including the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria; Frieze Seoul, Korea; Ford Foundation Gallery, NY; Vellum Los Angeles, CA; Kampnagel Hamburg, Germany and Arebyte, London, UK. In 2023 she became a resident at Dreaming Beyond AI and a Momus/Eyebeam Critical Writing Fellow. Their work has been published by e-flux, Momus, GenderIT, Cambridge University and the Fashion Studies Journal. She’s been a speaker at multiple universities and conferences including King’s College London, UK; the Salzburg Global Seminar, Austria; University of Eau Claire, WN; Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina and the World Summit on Arts and Culture, Stockholm, Sweden.