Future Ancestral Technologies: Nàgshibi by Cannupa Hanska Luger
2019 | Cannupa Hanska Luger’s Future Ancestral Technologies: nágshibi, is a multi-media Indigenous-centered science fiction exhibition using creative storytelling to radically reimagine the future and promote a thriving Indigeneity.
Future Ancestral Technologies: Nágshibi
by Cannupa Hanska Luger
October 17−December 15, 2019
Future Ancestral Technologies: nágshibi, is a multi-media Indigenous-centered science fiction exhibition using creative storytelling to radically reimagine the future and promote a thriving Indigeneity. The exhibition, an approach to creating art objects, videos, and land based performative actions with the intent to influence global consciousness, includes a 21-foot tall canvas tipi, a two-channel video installation, performative video works, photography, and ceremonial regalia. Nágshibi is the Hidatsa word for “to be past, to be after” or “to exceed, to go beyond.”
Future Ancestral Technologies debuted in 2018 in the form of an immersive exhibition at the University of South Dakota. A series of land-acknowledgment performative actions have since followed and manifest as video works, several of which will be on view in the Media Art Gallery. The project continues through the prototyping of dwellings, clothing, tools, and videos that illustrate a world in which artificial intelligence and virtual reality support ritual and ceremony. Though currently viewed via exhibitions and in other art world contexts, this project operates under the assumption that these artworks will become useful in the future.