Andrés Milán Lara
My artistic research considers three topics that intersect: technological reappropriation, decoloniality, and language.
I question how technology is implemented into our society from a global south perspective, similarly to the colonizing process that decides why a western language is required to be learned instead to a local indigenous one.
Language and technology intertwine in the perspective that both are used always with an intention behind, there’s no neutrality. And through linguistic techniques and strategies, intended for translation, it is possible to develop a criticality towards the imposed discourses found in technology.
Technological reappropriation consists of developing new uses for technologies intended for specific goals. It often comes out of need or improvisation, and like language and technology, depends on a human to position it’s use as something beneficial or harmful, or in a lot of cases, both. I situate the problem on approaching a decolonial aesthetic or narrative by reappropriating these technologies and understand that diversity is also a problem of perspective.
My work uses avatars developed with A.I. images and plays with the idea of characters or masks that foment ideologies through technological tools. I play with both sides of the border. One as a costumer from the global south interested in the western marketing campaign and the other as the mothertongue customer service representative, an embellished image of capitalist values in technology that is constantly developing a desire for the user to buy.
Read Mothertongue.
Andrés Milán Lara is a writer, researcher, and artist born in Mexico City residing in Bruxelles since 2022.
He has developed his interest in storytelling through different formats including, film, comics, literature, and scriptwriting. His range of jobs has gone from executive producer for Cartoon Network for Mexico and Colombia to independent documentary production for the group Discreantes. His graduating thesis from the Master in Linguistics and Literary studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels was about the use of A.I. as a tool for translating Mexican slang. This research developed into his current artistic-research practice at ADMA. He recently coursed the Autumn School of Curating in Rumania and is taking part in the Creative Manifesto for a Critical AI Future in the Centre d’art Santa Monica.