Robocaliptic Manifesto: techno-politics for liberation

Paula Gaetano Adi, 2020
15’ 

The video essay Robocaliptic Manifesto: techno-politics for liberation is an urgent call to endorse a robot ‘general strike’ that will overthrow the instrumental definition of both technology and humans, while disowning the ‘white man’ as the measure for the definition of humanity. The visual manifesto asserts the importance of unlearning the imperialisms performed by modern robotic and AI technologies that reinforce the racial and colonial logic that maintain social hierarchies and inequality, while upholding the techno-liberal project that promises revolutionary liberation from labour exploitation.

 

Fusing archival and found-footage material, animation, composite imagery and first-person voiceover, the film is divided into three acts: (I) Robots on Strike: Robocalypses Reenacted; (II) Robots Beyond Instrumentality: Humanity Reconquered, and (III) Robots in the Pluriverse: Animism Reloaded. All three acts touch on the central political challenges and aesthetic needs of our time –the decolonisation of the machine and an act of radical imagination that can reclaim pre-colonial ontologies, epistemologies and the technologies of non-destructive modes of life.

Hammam

Hammam

Cura

Cura

Dark Origins

Dark Origins

Stream of Consciousness / The Caves of Hasankeyf

Stream of Consciousness / The Caves of Hasankeyf

Robocaliptic Manifesto: techno-politics for liberation

Robocaliptic Manifesto: techno-politics for liberation

Behind Shirley

Behind Shirley

Party on the CAPS

Party on the CAPS

Undercurrent

Undercurrent

Medicinal Herbs in Byzantium

Medicinal Herbs in Byzantium

Knowledge of plants and the practice of healing are closely entwined. The toxic or hallucinogenic nature of some roots, and the dangers associated with picking them, conferred a mythical or magical character and power. 

From two portraits of children…

From two portraits of children…

The Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation’s Orientalist Painting Collection includes two children’s portraits that are often featured in exhibitions on the second floor of the Pera Museum. These portraits both date back to the early 20th century, and were made four years apart. One depicts Prince Abdürrahim Efendi, son of Sultan Abdulhamid II, while the figure portrayed on the other is Nazlı, the daughter of Osman Hamdi Bey.

Journey to the East

Journey to the East

Pera Museum presents an exhibition of French artist Félix Ziem, one of the most original landscape painters of the 19th century. This week we are sharing Ziem’s work inspired by Istanbul and “the East”!