abstract: This article focuses on three artworks from the series Tecnologías deculoniales by Afro-Costa Rican artist Marton Robinson. His oeuvre has developed at the intersection of portraiture, performance, and the installation of multimedia artifacts. This series puts artistic and photographic processes and practices at the center of decolonization, consequently satirizing Anglo-European decolonial theory. I elucidate the historical relationship between gaze, visuality, and race by analyzing two video performances, Daguerreotype and Slot Machine , and the photo series Deculonialidad . By enacting his oppositional gaze, Robinson reverses the power dynamics that have shaped privileged ways of seeing in history and constituted current racist visual regimes across national divides, particularly those imposed on contemporary Afro-Latinx communities in Central America, the Caribbean, and the US. Building on Robinson's work, this article proposes a transhistorical, transregional framework to rethink the "official" history of photography from a deculonial perspective. Abstract: I analyze three artworks from the series Tecnologías deculoniales by Afro-Costa Rican artist Marton Robinson. His oeuvre has developed at the intersection of portraiture, embodiment and performance, and the installation of multimedia artifacts. This series puts artistic and photographic processes and practices at the center of decolonization, and in doing so, satirizes Western Anglo-European decolonial theory. I elucidate the historical relationship between gaze, visuality, and race by analyzing two video performances, "Daguerreotype" and "Slot Machine," and the photo series "Deculonialidad." By enacting his oppositional gaze (bell hooks), Robinson's Tecnologías deculoniales reverses the power dynamics that have shaped privileged ways of seeing in history and that have constituted current racist visual regimes across national divides, particularly those imposed on contemporary Afro-Latinx communities in Central America, the Caribbean, and the US. Building on Robinson's work, this article proposes a transhistorical, transregional framework to rethink the "official" history of photography from a deculonial perspective.
abstract: This article explores the emergence of AI-generated cinema in Argentina and its impact on the author's status. Argentine independent filmmakers and video content creators are increasingly using AI tools to make short works and converging toward a feature-length film. But they fear losing control over their work and are concerned about the inevitable displacement of human labor. These anxieties are thematized in the films. I focus on three sci-fi shorts—Macchia's Robort , Aguilar's Sueño finlandés y paranoico , and Aloi's El abismo —to examine how AI unsettles notions of authorship even as it facilitates collaborative forms of human–AI cinema. Pushing aesthetic boundaries, these films exploit AI's instability—glitches and hallucinations—as aesthetic strategies. Working within broader debates, I argue that authorship is not vanishing but being radically reshaped, for better and worse. AI's long-term effects on the audiovisual arena remain uncertain, but critics must engage with these hybrid audiovisual forms. Abstract: I explore the emergence of AI‑generated cinema in Argentina and its impact on the author's status. Argentine independent filmmakers and video content creators are increasingly turning to AI tools to make short works and converging toward a feature-length film. But they fear losing control over their work and are concerned by the inevitable displacement of human labor. I focus on three sci‑fi shorts—Sebastián Macchia's Robort , Jimena Aguilar's Sueño finlandés y paranoico , and Andrés Aloi's El abismo —to examine how AI unsettles notions of authorship even as it facilitates collaborative forms of human–AI cinema. Pushing aesthetic boundaries, these films exploit AI's instability—glitches and hallucinations—as aesthetic strategies. Placing Argentine AI cinema within broader debates, I argue that authorship is not vanishing but being radically reshaped, for better and worse. AI's long‑term effects on the audiovisual arena remain uncertain, but critics must engage with these hybrid audiovisual forms.
abstract: This article examines how Alonso de Ercilla's epic poem La Araucana (1569–1590) presents gender through the motif of sight. It argues that Ercilla develops what could be termed tuerto masculinity : a heroic blindness in which male warriors' ocular injuries expose their limited understanding of the Arauco War. In contrast, Indigenous female figures such as Tegualda, Guacolda, and Fresia possess prophecy and foresight that allow them to perceive the conflict's human cost. Drawing on early modern theories of vision, particularly Neoplatonism, the study shows how Ercilla links sight to knowledge and power, making the eye a site where gendered experience and imperial ideology converge. By opposing the blindness of his warriors to the foresight of his heroines, La Araucana reveals that the true tragedy of the Arauco War lies not in defeat but in the failure to see beyond it. Abstract: This article examines how Alonso de Ercilla's epic poem La Araucana (1569–1590) presents gender through the motif of sight. It argues that Ercilla develops what may be termed tuerto masculinity: a heroic blindness in which male warriors' ocular injuries expose their limited understanding of the Arauco War. In contrast, Indigenous female figures such as Tegualda, Guacolda, and Fresia possess prophecy and foresight that allow them to perceive the conflict's human cost. Drawing on early modern theories of vision, particularly Neoplatonism, the study shows how Ercilla links sight to knowledge and power, making the eye a site where gendered experience and imperial ideology converge. By opposing the blindness of the warriors to the foresight of the heroines, La Araucana reveals that the true tragedy of the Arauco War lies not in defeat but in the failure to see beyond it.
abstract: Rosalía de Castro's final novel, El primer loco , appeared alongside public debates regarding Galicia's first psychiatric hospital. It relates the titular character's failed romantic adventures and reveals the growing severity of his mental illness preceding his institutionalization. The mentally ill protagonist narrates the story, which introduces disproportion within the narrative frame. Besides dismantling the basis for the narrative construction of psychiatric truth, her text also invites a reading that undermines the text's own reliability. Much like the mal d'ollo suspected of causing the narrator's mental decline, the reader's eye is forced to confront the lyrical temporality of a fractured narrative. Informed by Derridean conceptualization of hospitality, this article examines the lyrical operations through which the narrative exhibits a poetics of mental illness. The author draws from spiritualist traditions to produce an intimacy with mental illness and address the epistemic violence of late-nineteenth-century psychiatric interventions defined by dynamics of scrutiny and abandonment. Abstract: Rosalía de Castro's later literary output occurred alongside public debates regarding Galicia's first psychiatric hospital in Conxo. Her final novel, El primer loco , relates the titular character's failed romances and the progression of his mental illness preceding his institutionalization. The mentally ill protagonist narrates, which introduces instances of disproportion. As it dismantles the basis for the narrative construction of psychiatric truth, her text also invites a reading that undermines the text's own reliability. Much like the mal d'ollo suspected of causing the narrator's mental decline, the reader's eye is forced to confront the lyrical temporality of a fractured narrative. Informed by Derridean conceptualization of hospitality, I examine the lyrical operations through which the narrative exhibits a poetics of mental illness. The author draws from spiritualist traditions to produce an intimacy with mental illness and address the epistemic violence of late-nineteenth-century psychiatric interventions defined by dynamics of scrutiny and abandonment.
abstract: This article asks how Guaman Poma's notion of poverty shapes his political language. It argues that he identifies the lack of food as the most pressing form of poverty and that he focuses on its solution by narrating the rise of communal possession for the effective relief of hardships, specifically the emergence of the Andean tradition of public meals and the establishment of the sapsi , the endowment of dry goods, lands, and woven cloths for the sustenance of local communities. The conquest disrupted the sapsi , which generated serious problems for the disadvantaged and gave rise to "the poor of Jesus Christ," whom Guaman Poma fiercely defends. This paper contends that he relied on the legal and theological privileges of the poor to apply their tenets to justify the preservation of the sapsi and urge the Spanish sovereign to directly succor the poor. Finally, his reflections on poverty have a personal dimension. According to his autobiographical remarks, he voluntarily embraced a life of poverty, which gave him unique insights into what only the poor could understand. Abstract: How did Guaman Poma's notion of poverty shape his political language? He identified the lack of food as the most pressing form of poverty and focused on its solution by narrating the rise of communal possession for the relief of hardships, specifically through the Andean tradition of public meals and the sapsi , the endowment of dry goods, lands, and woven cloths to sustain local communities. The conquest disrupted the sapsi , generating serious problems for the disadvantaged and giving rise to "the poor of Jesus Christ," who Guaman Poma fiercely defended. He relied on the legal and theological privileges of the poor to apply their tenets to justifying the preservation of the sapsi and urge the Spanish sovereign to directly succor the poor. Finally, his reflections on poverty have a personal dimension: he voluntarily embraced a life of poverty, which gave him unique insights into what only the poor could understand.
