Abstract

SORBILLE, Lara Victoria  and  ACOM, Ana Carolina. Putting on the Glasses: Cosmotechnics of dressing in Nordeste Futurista. Vista [online]. 2025, n.15, e025008.  Epub June 30, 2025. ISSN 2184-1284.  https://doi.org/10.21814/vista.6281.

This article analyses the first two tracks of the visual album Nordeste Futurista (Futuristic Northeast) by artist Luana Flores, exploring how clothing and art direction are fundamental elements in establishing the “futuristic” narrative that the work projects onto the territory, challenging stereotypical representations of the Brazilian Northeast. Through the lens of cosmotechnics (Hui, 2020), the study examines how Flores’ work aesthetically dissolves the supposed opposition between ancestral and contemporary technologies in dialogue with quilombola and Indigenous cultures of the region. The analysis focuses on clothing as an element in the construction of an aesthetic discourse that challenges colonial imaginaries of underdevelopment, also appropriating the futuristic imagery of classic science fiction cinema. In this investigation, clothing technology is thought of as “cosmotechnics”, a theory proposed by philosopher Yuk Hui (2020) that refers to technology manifested in different forms, as it always emerges and carries within itself specific cosmologies and contexts, questioning the vision of a single, universal technology that is more or less “advanced”. The article examines the use of wearable artefacts such as virtual reality glasses, woven straw hats and fabrics such as chita (floral printed cotton), demonstrating how these elements carry cultural and historical meanings while at the same time being re-signified in a “futuristic” context. Challenging the neutrality of coloniality of seeing (Barriendos, 2019), we present some visual representations of the Brazilian Northeast that have been historically distorted to legitimise practices of domination. By analysing the aesthetics of the visual album Nordeste Futurista, this study seeks to disrupt the standardised imagery of the Northeast region of Brazil, which dialogues with the underdeveloped imagery of Latin America, emphasising the local cultural potential and the importance of recognising Indigenous and quilombola cosmotechnics in our daily lives and the construction of possible futures.

Keywords : Nordeste Futurista; clothing technology; cosmotechnics; aesthetics.

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