Cristóbal Martínez, born in Santa Fe New Mexico, was raised in the Española Valley community of Alcalde. He is a digital arts practitioner, and Media Arts and Sciences Ph.D. student at Arizona State University. Cristóbal is a Chicano "tecno" cultural worker who researches and collaborates with indigenous communities to explore a folkloric practice of technology.
While drawing inspiration from his Northern New Mexican mestizo heritage, Cristóbal expresses XicanIndio metaphors and stories through his media art. He creates culturally responsive social spaces through interactive digital place-making and electro-acoustic musical forms, both of which are tangible, embodied, and culturally situated toward Chicano ways of being. Through these practices he develops living media theories that serve to extend indigenous knowledge systems to support the creation/expression of digital tools for the exercise of cultural and rhetorical sovereignty by indigenous peoples.
As a contributing member of his community, Cristóbal combines these indigenous media frameworks with Chicano rasquache traditions to innovate culturally responsive electronic technologies such as implements and interactive murals used to facilitate social gatherings for sacred and folkloric ritual performance. Examples of this include interactive media installations for community dialogues such as Resolanas and Circulos de Cultura. Cristobal's work is inspired by the philosophies of Native American Scholars such as Vine Deloria Jr. and Gregory Cajete, and the ideas of Paulo Friere on education. Cristóbal's "tecno-folklórica" is envisioned to contribute towards the efforts of peoples who are working to establish community agency through the promotion of humanism. His work is rooted in the indigenous cultural and rhetorical exercise of critical thought and self-awareness within localized communities.
Cristóbal's research and creative work has been published, presented, exhibited, and performed in community places and venues throughout North America, Europe, and in Australia.
