Rasquache aesthetics in Alex Rivera’s “Why Cybraceros?”

Debra Ann Castillo

doi:10.7557/13.3053

Abstract

This paper studies Rivera's 12-year-old spoof outsourcing website, with particular attention to the 4.5 minute 1997 video that served as its original point of departure (he is now best know for his 2008 feature film, Sleep Dealer.). Rivera’s work in general involves a practice he calls a “rasquache aesthetic” of filmmaking. In a recent interview he defines this concept more precisely, commenting on how Latinos/as channel the creativity that responds to necessity, as people with limited resources turn to repurposing and recycling for their original work. In the hands of Latino/a artists associated with rasquachismo, like Guillermo Gomez Pena, Lalo Alcaraz and Coco Fusco, all of whom have influenced Rivera profoundly, this practice of collage becomes a conscious and conscientious cultural practice. In a parallel manner, in Rivera’s work, the tearing apart and rebuilding of cultural images adds texture and depth, and both his fiction and documentary films include stock footage, rough animation, public domain google map images, and a variety of other materials.

Highlights

In a recent interview he defines this concept more precisely, commenting on how Latinos/as channel the creativity that responds to necessity, as people with limited resources turn to repurposing and recycling for their original work: “There’s a lot of writing and awareness about the way so-called minority communities use sampling, whether it’s in hip-hop or the recycled imagery of Pocho Magazine or the more traditional definition of what’s rasquache: somebody fixing up an old car with pieces from three other cars; a collage aesthetic of the street. . . . It’s ingrained in our spirit of survival, resistance, and innovation” (Guillen)
In the hands of Latino/a artists associated with rasquachismo, like Guillermo Gómez Peña, Lalo Alcaraz and Coco Fusco, all of whom have influenced Rivera profoundly, this practice of collage becomes a conscious and conscientious cultural practice
“Why cybraceros?” should not be viewed in isolation from its two primary contexts, neither of which is a cinema hall or a home television set: first, the body of other Alex Rivera short films, comprising mockumentaries and documentaries linked directly from the “Invisible cinema” page, and secondly and more importantly, from the fluid and evolving “cybracero” website in which it has traditionally been embedded and which created the original conditions for its viewability

Summary

Introduction

“Why cybraceros?” should not be viewed in isolation from its two primary contexts, neither of which is a cinema hall or a home television set: first, the body of other Alex Rivera short films, comprising mockumentaries and documentaries linked directly from the “Invisible cinema” page, and secondly and more importantly, from the fluid and evolving “cybracero” website in which it has traditionally been embedded and which created the original conditions for its viewability.

Results

Conclusion