We all start as a cell: Trashumancia at the Laboratorio de Arte Alameda

The curator and researcher Uriel Vides Bautista invites us to problematize the discursive limits of art and artificial intelligence, elements that cross Trashumancia, from the multidisciplinary collective MUXX. Inaugurated last June 19 at the Alameda Art Laboratory, it will be activated by a series of events that make up the public program until September 25.

How can we fracture and overcome the binary notions that were imposed on human bodies and identities resulting from the processes of colonization and consolidation of modern capitalism? This is one of the questions raised by Trashumancia, the first exhibition in Mexico by MUXX, a collective comprised of artists Lukas Avendaño, Eyibra (Abraham Brody), Nnuxx (Ana Lopez) and Oldo Erreve, whose name refers to the muxeity embodied by Lukas himself, an identity restricted to the region of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in the state of Oaxaca, where he is originally from. We could define the collective formed in 2021 as a four-headed hybrid creature that merges the individual practices of each member and transforms them into collective ones based on shared interests. Through transdisciplinary and experimental dialogue between audiovisual media, dance, performance and new technologies, such as 3D design and artificial intelligence, MUXX’s works approach biology and history as social constructions that irremediably impact the configuration and perception of our sex-gender identities.

Curated by the Laboratorio de Arte Alameda (LAA) team, directed by Lucia Sanroman, the exhibition is presented in this INBAL venue, from June 19 to September 25, 2024. Transhumancia [Transhumance] refers to the wandering practice of seasonal grazing that is still carried out in numerous parts of the world. It is a form of living in movement that implies a deep knowledge of nature, an itinerant way of life that moves freely over long distances and crosses different territories in search of better climatic and environmental conditions for raising livestock and human survival. The MUXX project not only recovers this conception of transhumance, but also refers to the free movement between spatial and temporal, natural and artificial, individual and collective, bodily and identity borders.

Four artworks made especially for the LAA are displayed on the temple of the old convent of San Diego, founded at the end of the 16th century. These are impregnated with a certain mystical aura that is magnified by the darkness of the atmosphere and the sound ambience in each work. In general terms, these pieces allude to primordial times from futuristic visions anchored in the present, inviting us to imagine other non-anthropocentric ways of being in the world and the universe.

The work that opens the exhibition, Xtagabeñ’e, is a sculpture made in large format and printed in 3D, on which different images are projected as an organic kaleidoscope. It is inspired by the water lily, which grows during the rainy season on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Loaded with sexual connotations, this flower is used as body adornment and is known for its ability to change sex and color throughout its life. For this reason, the digital sculpture offers a “poetic metaphor” for the muxe people—the so-called “third gender”—who have lived in this Oaxacan region since pre-colonial times and whose existence is permeated by prejudices and stereotypes to outside eyes. Beyond an idealization or exoticization of the muxe experience, the work encourages us to understand the internal logic that underlies the lives of people who assume and recognize themselves as such, as well as the roles they play within the Zapotec communities, which are not restricted only to the exercise of sexuality.

At the height of the apse of the central nave, now converted into a gallery, five vertical screens make up Amniosis, an installation that operates as a futuristic ultrasound that alludes to the moment prior to the definition of the sexual organs, which regularly occurs between eleven and thirteen weeks of human gestation. However, the projected images do not correspond to real fetuses, but to the members of MUXX submerged in the vital liquid, while performing complicated choreographies; their bodies appear distorted with artificial intelligence, as if they were amorphous creatures eager to be born. Thanks to the sound design that accompanies the installation, it seems as if we are inside the amniotic sac of the mother’s womb, at the same time that we are witnessing the development of bodies created artificially through technology.

Perhaps the most impressive piece in the exhibition is Arquímera [Archimera], an audiovisual work projected on a holographic mesh that occupies practically the entire space of the former chapel. A succession of images revolves around a totemic, asexual and timeless figure that stands, condensing features of deities from ancient civilizations––- from Kali to Coatlicue––- while it is transformed into infinite possibilities until it becomes organic matter: a retro-topical journey that brings us back to the origin of terrestrial life. The way in which these images were created is interesting, as they emerged from a choreography performed by the members of MUXX, which was filmed and subsequently processed through artificial intelligence. The piece is complemented by a chorus of voices that, like the mythical Tower of Babel, mixes different languages and intonations in a vindication of human diversity.

Finally, in the room opposite the chapel, a fourth piece remains as a vestige of the performance that the collective put on during the opening of the exhibition and which activated the Xtagabeñ’e sculpture. In parallel to the exhibition, room E of the LAA houses MUXX π, an “artistic laboratory of public creation” conceived as a residence in which the members of the collective put on individual performance activations, but interconnected with the themes of the aforementioned works. Lukas Avendaño inaugurated the cycle with MUÑEKAPRIETA [BLACK DOLL], which explores the consumption of racialized and sexualized bodies in the digital age, while Eyibra put on Daddy, a durational performance around militarization based on the exaltation of an aesthetic of war and an idea of hegemonic and violent masculinity. For her part, Nnux will put on REDES [NETWORKS] as a collective questioning around power dynamics; and Oldo Erreve will reflect in Holomastigot on the relationship between the human and the digital in contemporary sculpture.

The exhibition is relevant because it makes us rethink other genealogies of humanity, beyond the biological and historical theories that have been accepted as indisputable truths by the heteropatriarchy. In this alternative vision, we all begin our existence as a cell, a fact that connects us with the same primordial organism and the same biological activity at the dawn of life millions and millions of years ago. As a curatorial statement, the collective notes: “Even mitosis connotes our dual origin, neither male nor female, neither man nor woman, just a unit that separates itself out of a pragmatic necessity.” In this sense, pragmatism drives the evolutionary processes of living beings on our planet, so the categories of sex and gender lose their fixed character, become malleable and metamorphose to create multiple possibilities of existence. The combinations are announced as infinite and the binarisms are positioned as an outdated ideology that needs to be torn down, since it reduces the complexity of the human experience, while marginalizing and discriminating against those who do not fit into the rigid and apparently static categories: a nod to queer theory, but without falling into the pretentiousness and sophistication of academia.

There are still few exhibitions in Mexico that explore the relationship between art and artificial intelligence, which is why Trashumancia acquires a groundbreaking importance. In this exhibition, artificial intelligence, along with other digital tools, are used in practically all the pieces that comprise it, contributing to the expansion of the creative possibilities of artists, while at the same time envisioning a future where science and technology will help improve the physical and cognitive abilities of humans. Despite the inherent optimism, there are ethical, economic, political and environmental problems caused by the use of artificial intelligence, in addition to inevitable processes of dehumanization; topics that the collective does not address in this exhibition, but that would be interesting to revisit in another moment.

Transhumancia is an exaltation of the free movement of bodies, an overflow of sensory experiences and a questioning of our biological and historical imaginaries. In the midst of the advance of global fascism that normalizes genocides and the strengthening of conservative positions that condition human rights, it is still necessary to challenge and subvert binary categories (human/animal, man/woman, male/female, heterosexual/homosexual), that limit us as people and feed the idea of a supposed evolutionary superiority that separates us from a common origin compared to the other species with which we share the planet. The project is a question about the future, but also a reminder that we were once sexless and genderless organisms; that, for survival, we transmuted into plants whose roots clung to the earth, and that now, we are vibrant-colored flowers that will be reborn after death in the next rainy season, more resilient and more beautiful.