Futurism and Fabulations in Contemporary Latin American Art and Ecology

Imaginaries of the future are central to narratives and debates about the Anthropocene. Artists in Latin America, including Mexican artists working with media and ecology share this focus. This is for instance illustrated in Past Futures, Science Fiction, Space Travel, and Postwar Art in the Americas (2015), which according to its curator Sarah J. Montross shows “an obvious revival of futuristic aesthetics in contemporary art in the Americas”. Likewise, T.J. Demos notes this trend in art but as counter to ‘ecomodernism’, a futurist, corporate environmentalism. Rosi Braidotti describes posthuman fabulations similarly, as counter genealogies to transhumanist human exceptionalism, utilitarianism, and scientism. Like Demos, however, she does not include Latin American artists. Yet, the works of Mexico-based collectives Interspecifics and Kosmica, which are the focus of this presentation, including Codex Virtualis (2020-ongoing) and Stories from Home (2022-ongoing) are as fitting of Montross’ and Demos’ understandings, respectively, of contemporary Latin American art and of contemporary ecological art and activism as alternative futurisms, as they are of Braidotti’s figurations. As speculative projects, they mobilize artificial life, artificial intelligence, satellite data, and institutions and spaces of space exploration, and combine futuristic aesthetics, ecological themes, and posthuman perspectives to re-create stories, worlds and politics. As installations, performances, and narratives, they clarify the revival of futurism in contemporary Latin American art as criticisms of futurism and of ecology as colonial and imperialist projects, and conversely, as contributions to speculative art and activism extending generosity and care across species, planets, and galaxies.