At the intersection of contemporary technology and ancestral knowledge lies the work of Ozzo Ukumari (born Oscar Octavio Soza Figueroa, 1985, Agua de Castilla, Bolivia), a multidisciplinary artist whose production offers a unique perspective on the tensions inherent to what we can call digital colonialism. With a degree in Art from the Gabriel René Moreno Autonomous University, specializing in Sculpture and New Media, and postgraduate studies from the University of Barcelona in Research and Artistic Production, Ukumari develops work that goes beyond conventional categories, establishing a critical dialogue between digital technologies and indigenous epistemologies.
Ukumari’s trajectory, exhibiting since 2008 in various countries including Argentina, Brazil, Italy, and Germany, demonstrates a commitment to decolonizing digital artistic practices. His participation in the ARTErias Urbanas collective, of which he is a founding member, amplifies this critical dimension through social interventions that confront hierarchies imposed by hegemonic technological systems.
Digital colonialism, understood as the imposition of infrastructures, platforms, and cultural norms that perpetuate Western worldviews and marginalize alternative epistemologies, finds in Ukumari a significant counterpoint. His work “Trawunko,” presented at the Tsonami Sound Art Festival (2019), exemplifies this stance by proposing an interactive sound installation that privileges touch and hearing over the hyper-valorization of the visual characteristic of digital culture. This work directly confronts the maxim “seeing is believing,” which sustains both the primacy of the Western gaze and the proliferation of so-called “fake news” in the contemporary digital environment.
His project “Newen Kimün – Fuerza de la sabiduría” represents an implicit critique of the cultural homogenization promoted by global digital platforms, by rescuing orality and local narratives as legitimate forms of knowledge. By emphasizing the oral account of various artistic manifestations in Valparaíso, Ukumari opposes the narrative standardization tendency that frequently accompanies digital technologies’ expansion.
The expanded conception of technology defended by Ukumari – from primitive fire to the contemporary computer – destabilizes the automatic association between technology and Western modernity. This vision of technology as a transcultural and trans-historical phenomenon contradicts the techno-determinist narrative that frequently accompanies processes of digital colonialism, where technologies are presented as neutral, ahistorical, and universally beneficial.
In “Bibosi y Motacú – Manual para un Nuevo Barrio” (2022), Ukumari critically addresses community transformations in contemporary Bolivia, documenting through sound compositions and interviews the material consequences of implementing technological infrastructures in rural contexts. The work shows how technological advancement frequently reproduces extractivist logic, impacting vulnerable territories and populations.
Ukumari’s work identifies the manifestations of digital colonialism and proposes practical alternatives through critical engagement with digital technologies grounded in Indigenous epistemologies and community practices. In a historical moment characterized by the increasing technological mediation of social relations, his work invites us to recognize and resist the power asymmetries reproduced through digital expansion and to imagine forms of technology that respect and incorporate ancestral knowledge.