Mother Cyborg

Mother Cyborg, AKA, Diana Nucera, is an artist, educator and community organizer. She is heavily active in the Detroit Area, and looks to develop technology meant to impact communities that are being left behind in the digital age. In her lecture at Eyeo, she showed data about Detroit residences access to broadband, and how that correlates to people impacted by poverty. She co-founded the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition (DDJC) that works in the Detroit area to make sure that everyone has equal access to technology and media. They also share the tools to do this freely with the public, and organize communities together to generate solutions within the digital landscape. In 2014, she founded the Detroit Community Technology Project (DCTP). Through this program, she has expanded community technology in Detroit through the Equitable Internet Initiative.

Through her Mother Cyborg alter-ego, she has developed music and art that discusses where technology intersects social spaces and relationships. She was a Kresge Literary Arts Fellow in 2019. She recieved her Bachelor of Fine Arts in New Media at San Francisco Art Institute, and her Masters of Fine Arts from the School of the Arts Institute in Chicago. She is now looking into AI and how that with music can advance community digital justice issues.

A body of work of hers that I admire is from her Pressure Systems album from 2017. Her first track, 3souled Women, has a very interesting electronic beat that is catchy and very dance worthy. But what I really like is her lyrics. She talks about a cyborg women’s body and how it experiences pain, but can’t verbalize what it is. It is very other worldly and so very different from music I usually listen to. I enjoyed the whole album, but I do really like the first track.

From her justice initiatives, I really liked the Beat Match Brunch initiative. In her Mother Cyborg persona, she taught women and gender non conforming individuals how to play and scratch records to make their own beats. Her hope is to diversify Detroit’s music scene and creating a network for these musicians to grow into and with. Being a female musician myself, I really resonated with this idea and story.

Diana presented her work by using interesting visuals in a powerpoint presentation that complimented or augmented her speaking. She also connected with her audience by asking for a reaction to her ideas or issues. She had a good and clear tone of her voice to present, and she was very likable.
At the end of her presentation, she sang a song that she sings at the beginning of every show she does. The song is her way of cleansing the palate and opening up the soul to evoke empathy and receive a story. By singing that song at the end, she was really connecting with her audience and providing them an experience that is similar to if they saw her perform a show live. I can use all these techniques, except the singing, to use when I present my own work.

To see more of her work and CV, here is Diana’s website: http://www.mothercyborg.com/

Eyeo 2019 – Diana Nucera from Eyeo Festival on Vimeo.