This session explores how Black and Indigenous Brazilian artists act as critical agents in the hacking, remixing, and reprogramming of algorithmic systems through their artistic practices shared on social media. Positioned at the encruzilhadas [crossroads] of art, artificial intelligence, and networked platforms, the activity draws upon ancestral knowledge systems, non-Western counter-colonial perspectives, and creative resistance to examine how social media can be subverted and transformed.
The focus will be in case studies and visual projects that confront the normative logics of algorithmic visibility and challenge the techno-colonial infrastructure of social media. From Exu (Afro-Brazilian orixá) and the encruzilhadas [crossroads] as a metaphor for code in this systems.
Social media will be analyzed as the “boca do mundo” (mouth of the world), inspired by the figure of Exu Enugbarijó, to trace the ambivalences embedded in AI systems. The session will introduce three Afro-Brazilian experimental artistic communication procedures based on the notions of Exu Yangí, Òkòtó, and Enugbarijó. These are not only paths of resistance, but also sites of design and language reinvention that redefine the way we perceive and share artistic practices in digital networks.
The objective of the activity is to invite participants to critically and symbolically explore the encruzilhadas [crossroads] between art, AI, and social media within their own cultural and digital experiences. The aim is to challenge and expand critical design and artistic practices within digital platforms by engaging with epistemologies that have been historically marginalized.
By combining case studies, visual analysis, and a collective creative exercise, this session reflects on how Black and Indigenous artists disrupt algorithmic biases, opening space for ethical, aesthetic, and poetic intersections that reimagine the field of art and technology.
Please note that this session room has limited capacity, and attendance will be accommodated on a first-come, first-served basis
Larissa Macêdo is an artist, curator, professor, and researcher with a PhD and MA in Communication and Semiotics (PUC-SP). She is a co-founder of the project ater (arts, technologies and social media), which investigates the impacts of artificial intelligence on the artistic production of Black and Indigenous artists on social media. Larissa teaches in the undergraduate and graduate programs in Arts Education and Social Communication at Centro Universitário Belas Artes and at École Intuit Lab, in São Paulo, Brazil. Her work focuses on the intersections between AI, emerging aesthetics, activist artistic and curatorial practices, and the politics of visibility in digital environments. She is a member of Ilú Obá de Min, an Afro-Brazilian educational and artistic collective of Black women. Larissa regularly offers lectures and courses on algorithmic critique, counter-colonial design strategies, and multidisciplinary creative resistance, grounded in Black and Indigenous epistemologies and ancestral knowledge systems.