Held in the context of the “Hacking Alienation: Migrant Power, Art & Tech” conference organized by Disruption Network Lab, this conversation delves into the intersections of art, technology, and politics, with a focus on empowering those who face systemic alienation. The two-day event sought to explore how media and technology can create new forms of political agency, bypassing traditional systems of exclusion. Through workshops, keynotes, and discussions, the conference addressed how artistic interventions can contribute to the reimagining of cities and digital spaces, enabling “those who lack citizenship rights and experience systemic alienation due to war, political conflict or other sources of oppression” to shape their futures.
A workshop, led by digital media artist allapopp and poet_ess Dinara Rasuleva, took a deep dive into deconstructing dominant technological narratives, centering experiences of those often excluded from the technological matrix and how marginalised voices can reframe their own stories and reclaim power through imaginative future-making. This interview continues that discussion, offering insights into the intersections of technology, colonialism, and art as tools for both political participation and liberation.
allapopp, a Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist originally from Tatarstan, brings post-Soviet, queer, and migrant experience into critical artistic practice, fusing performance, machine learning, and digital art to envision new worlds. Dinara Rasuleva, a poet_ess from Kazan, Tatarstan writes in multiple languages and tackles themes of decolonialism and feminism through expressionist and performance poetry. Together, they explore how technologies of control can be subverted, and how storytelling can help imagine alternative futures.
In this interview, they discuss key questions: Who gets to tell the story of the future when the present is fracturing? How can technology be reclaimed from its colonial legacy and used for liberation? How do they envision their work contributing to broader struggles for justice, and what role does imagination play in shaping those futures?
Walid: Technology and colonialism have often intertwined, with technologies of violence fuelling the oppression and erasure of countless peoples. How can technology be reclaimed from this legacy and used as a tool for liberation?
allapopp: I think technology and colonialism are deeply intertwined. Human technologies, their purpose, function and design, are a reflection of human societies. Colonialism and its implications is a present reality for many, some benefit from it, some suffer. In some realms, like in the trans-Soviet space, the conversation about its colonial past and present is in its early stages. If the spectrum of colonialism is the present reality of human lives, it also becomes deeply ingrained into human technology. I think the conversation needs to be held not about the technologies themselves, but about people in power creating technologies and applying them in the most horrific ways. As someone who doesn’t have access to big power or influence, I try to think of tech in the long term and imagine—what else could it be if we had a chance to redo it from scratch? Where it begins, where it gets rotten?
I like Ursula K. Le Guin’s view that science fiction is the mythology of modern technology. Technologies we have today often come from stories—people read them and then try to implement them. It’s not that science fiction predicts the future; it provides a blueprint for what people might want to create in the future; it engrains a vision of a world. So, if we want to change how technology develops, we need to tell different stories about it.
The Decolonial AI Manyfesto is a great source of inspiration for me, because it highlights how AI technologies have a colonial core. For example, why is code written in English? The manifesto criticised the Western-normative language of “ethical” AI and suggestions of “inclusivity”, because these do not address power asymmetries, but rather reproduce them. Because what does inclusivity mean? Who is in a position to include (and exclude) who?
The Design Justice Principles by Sasha Costanza-Chock were an eye-opener for me, emphasising that technology should be designed with input from the communities it serves. At Disruption Network Lab’s Hacking Alienation conference, Anna Titovez Intekra highlighted how migrant communities in Germany rely on Telegram and Google Maps over specialised NGOs developed apps, as they better meet real needs. Of course these services harvest user data, so it’s not a solution either. But it’s a strong example how there are often only two options to choose from: usability or privacy. Design Justice Principles also advise how to create technologies that are sustainable and non-exploitative for the natural world (which humans are part of), and are genuinely beneficial for the people who use them. We need to stop thinking of technologies as tools and start seeing them as human expression.
Finally, I would like to highlight the work of the Dreaming Beyond AI collective, whose intersectional feminist work creates spaces for imagining beyond what we understand as AI and technology. I highly recommend checking out their website. They focus on feminist practices of community building and providing space and means to support themselves while they are imagining and dreaming (beyond AI) and not just working to cover their living costs. Because when you live with the experience of marginalisation, it’s really hard to carve out time to dream of a future while you’re busy surviving.
So to summarise, to me reclaiming technologies means challenging power asymmetries and envisioning own technologies. It is the first step in this process of reclamation.
Walid: “Who gets to tell the story of the future when the present is falling apart, and the past is a lie?” How can imagining a future contribute to liberation and the fight for justice?
allapopp: When I think of the future today, a very particular image comes to my mind. Ruha Benjamin points out that there are only two narratives about technology: it will either save us or slay us. There’s the Hollywood version—dystopian, where AI and robots take over, there is an atomic fallout, global wars, humans become eliminated. Such dystopian blockbusters sell a lot of tickets. Then there’s the Silicon Valley version—utopian, where technology solves all human problems, climate change is fixed, and everyone is happy and healthy. This view helps to sell gadgets and services. Both narratives are rooted in American culture, as AI ethicist Sarah Wachter has noted: although “96% of the world doesn’t live in the US, our digital tools and platforms are mostly based on US customs, values, and laws.” I wonder, why do we only have these two stories?
In my research I’ve realised that indigenous, marginalised, and oppressed cultures are often focused on preserving their past because their existence is threatened as a direct implication of colonialism. While preservation is important, it means our gaze is often fixed on the past, not the future. Of course, some cultures do not operate with such temporalities as future, past and present, but the mainstream does and its stories become self-fulfilling prophecies.
We need to start telling different stories about (our) future(s) that come from marginalised worldviews, experiences, and perspectives. These stories can help us break out of this dystopian-utopian duality and make different kinds of technology—and ultimately, a different kind of world—possible.
Walid: How do you envision different possible futures as both a political and artistic practice shaped by your own histories and contexts?
allapopp: For me, artistic and political practice can’t be separated. Coming from a marginalised perspective, I can’t just do art for aesthetics when there are so many imbalances and injustices around. I use my artistic practice to highlight these issues.
When I envision different possible futures, I try to involve my own history and context, but it’s challenging, especially when working with technology. Entering the field of technology, you’re confronted with specific aesthetics and narratives of the future—narratives shaped by certain logics, experiences, and perspectives that often don’t represent my own. As an artist, I’m now trying to root myself in my culture, but I have to do a lot of work to overcome the internalised oppressor that tells me my visions aren’t “technological” enough or “relevant” enough.
The method of “decolonial aesthesis” is very helpful here; it allows me to connect to my culture while entering the technological realm. For example, my native cultural mix is very analog, rooted in connections, textures, smells, and foods. It’s not efficient, optimised, or sleek like the technology we see today. It’s far from the dystopian narrative of control or the utopian vision of perfectly optimised bodies. The non-dystopian tech future looks like these perfect, iPhone-like bodies—everything must be efficient, sleek, and optimised to fit into an accelerating world.
I’m critical of this because I wonder if this is the future we want—one where everything is more efficient and unified? The singularity, as imagined by transhumanism, could mean alignment between humans and technology, but it’s also about power. Not everyone will be invited to access that power; most will be left behind. The transhumanist’s utopia is a dystopia for others.
We’re already living this reality today, where Western societies enjoy AI technologies while workers in the global south perform underpaid, traumatising click-work to sustain it. This inequality is embedded in our technological systems, and it shows that unless we change our approach, technology will continue to replicate and reinforce these power structures. So, as an artist, my challenge is to envision different futures that break away from what is considered technological and how technology is made and used. Currently, it’s a very abstract place to be.
Walid: How can the act of imagining alternative futures connect diverse experiences across geographies? How do your creative and political efforts engage with different liberation and anti-colonial struggles, and what specific cultural or geopolitical nuances do you bring?
Dinara: As I reflected on the loss of my native language and culture, and the resulting identity crisis—whether I am Tatar, Russian, or now even German—I started the poetic experiment Lostlingual, and was approached by more and more people sharing their similar experiences, as a result my investigation later developed into writing laboratories and now into a collaboration with allapop— decolonial future envisioning labs. Many of us, due to colonisation or repressions, were disconnected from our roots. Through coming together, we’ve begun to envision a future where our languages and cultures aren’t lost, but evolve with us.
The act of sharing these experiences creates a profound sense of empowerment and belonging, making us feel truly understood and included. Soon I realised that it’s not just culture, it’s all intertwined with intersectionality, feminism, queerness, class. We envision futures where our cultures are not only free from various constraints but also from the elements we consciously choose to leave behind—like patriarchy, homophobia or exclusion. We have the power to create anything: to invent languages and literatures that aren’t bound to any rigid, intellectual, or institutionalised speech.
If we come from working-class backgrounds, we can embrace simple, accessible language in literature. It’s about recognizing the nuances of our experiences and shaping a future that honours what we value and reinventing our cultures, mythology, religion, traditions to make sure we bring them to future but make them inclusive and kind.
Walid: You advocate for fostering decolonial imagination through art, stories, and experiential engagement. How can art and culture challenge and reshape the narratives around AI technologies?
Dinara: Art and culture have the capacity to challenge and reshape technologies by serving as a form of resistance and reclamation. In our workshops, we aim to create environments where marginalised voices can reclaim their narratives. Through small exercises in imagination, we explore how AI could be seen not as a fixed system but as a form of world-building where different elements interact. It can get messy, unconventional, and sometimes even dysfunctional, which is exactly what we aim for—providing an antidote to the logic of optimization and the power imbalances that AI technologies often perpetuate.
