YUCA_TECH: Energy by hand

2014 - Installation (Installation)

Dimensions variable

Amor Muñoz

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Yuca_tech: Energy by Hand is an installation by Amor Muñoz that resulted from a local technology lab in a small village in the Yucatán henequen zone, in the Mayan region of Mexico. The lab was designed as a community technology space that focuses on developing forms of production through collaboration rather than through capitalist means of production based on private ownership and driven by financial profits. More specifically, the workshop and activities of the lab merge Indigenous crafting techniques with open-source technologies and solar energy to create technology-based artworks. For this work, the artist collaborated with Indigenous Mayan women crafters who typically make their living crafting hammocks with the pre-hispanic techniques and raw end materials (henequen maguey). Using open-source solar panels, the group of women created tools that would benefit their daily life such as lamps and easy-to-transport solar panels that protect them from environmental conditions. Muñoz’s installation is made of the manufactured objects, including solar textile panels, hats and sandals with solar-powered LED light, and some solar handbags designed to collect electricity. Merging tradition and innovation, the lab and Muñoz’s resulting works constitute efforts to sustain the community, its autonomy, and its future.

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Amor Muñoz’s work is concerned with the relationship between technology and society, with particular attention to the interactions between material forms and social discourse. Through a multidisciplinary practice that includes textiles, performance, drawing, sound, and experimental electronics, Muñoz’s work investigates how forms of manual labor are transformed and affected by the current global economy. Her research is focused on technology’s history, appropriation and obsolescence, as well as language systems, handicraft, and production systems.

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Colors:

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• technology.n.01
• community.n.01
• tradition.n.01
• sustainable.a.01
• collaboration.n.01