For too long, contemporary technological advancement has been used by the Western world to conquer and reinforce existing economic and societal divisions between the Global North and the Global South. Chinese philosopher and author Yuk Hui points out that China's technological advancements have surpassed those of the West for centuries, so why is it that we can’t avoid the description that one part of the world is ahead of the other? A decolonial history of science and technology shows us that Western “progress” would not be possible without Asia’s long history of scientific and technological innovations and development. However, Eurocentric narratives often dominate the global technological framework, obscuring the fact that much of its innovation has been secured through the extraction and appropriation of knowledge and resources from elsewhere around the world. We are curious, as contemporary practitioners of technology, as to how we can invest in lasting ways that guide us to see technology through a decolonial, non-Western lens. How can we open up spaces and conversations that break away from the dichotomies entrenched in technology that have characterized modern thinking, without inadvertently reinforcing those very divisions? How do we continue to attend to the work of reframing and challenging Eurocentric forms of knowledge accumulation and aesthetics?
We want to emphasize the necessity for curatorial practices that recognize multiple worlds—a “transmodernity,” to borrow a term from Argentine-Mexican scholar Enrique Dussel. A reframing that considers the whole planet as involved at every stage of history. We want to ask not whether it is possible, but rather what makes it possible for us to reach beyond the well-established and popular Eurocentric practices of technology and technological thinking. There is no question about the necessity of stretching our knowledge outside of the dominant borders. No question, either, of urgency to decentralize what has been centered, to look for alternative forms of technological thinking and observe how else technology can be defined. The mono voices we are so deeply used to hearing at high volume need balancing, and if we learn only what they have to say, we will not learn from each other as humans of the world.
This issue of Shift Space engages with artists, poets, and writers who interact with technological thinking and tooling in ways that go beyond merely “catching up to the West,” instead forging another codebase, a different source code, a narrative of its own. We find here the story of a transfemme nurse caring for patients with cybersickness or of Google Maps’ Pegman, who builds a new relationship with her body; we learn of technology’s role in becoming the master’s tool within systems of oppression and of the survival of a plant across multiple landscapes of colonial occupation. The practitioners assembled in this issue not only challenge homogeneity and the societal systems that govern technology itself, but also embolden a fractalization of technological development for and in service of other possible worlds and dreams.
