Eva Díaz discusses her essay “We Are All Aliens“ published in e-flux journal issue 91 (May 2018) with contributing editor Elvia Wilk.
“For some, contemporary art has become a kind of alt-science platform for research and development projects that offer alternatives to the corporate control and surveillance of outer space. Artists working on issues about access to space are at the front line of a critical investigation about the contours of the future, both in its material form and social organization. Many of these artists are challenging the current expansion of capitalist and colonial practices into outer space, particularly that of so-called ‘primitive’ accumulation: the taking of land and resources for private use. They recognize that much of the tremendous capital amassed in the early 2000s e-commerce and tech boom is now being funneled into astronomically costly ‘New Space’ projects such as SpaceX, a company funded by PayPal cofounder Elon Musk, and Blue Origin, the space enterprise of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.”
–Excerpt from “We Are All Aliens”
Eva Díaz has taught at the Pratt Institute in New York since 2009. Her book The Experimenters: Chance and Design at Black Mountain College was released in 2015 by the University of Chicago Press. She is currently at work on a new book titled After Spaceship Earth, analyzing the influence of R. Buckminster Fuller in contemporary art.