Central to this inquiry is the premodern concept of 母体 Mǔtǐ (meaning mother’s body, matrix, root, originating basis), which Takeuchi invoked to describe forms of thought, processes of development, and dynamics of sociality that did not follow the trajectory of European modernity.

母体 Mǔtǐ considers a framework for a generative basis from which other technological imaginaries might emerge. Through ancestral knowledge systems, region-specific social practices, folk traditions, and ethics of production across Asia, 母体 Mǔtǐ asks: what forms of technology already exist within embodied knowledge, memory, land, ritual, and community? What non-extractive modes of relation might offer alternative technologics for an increasingly homogenized planetary condition?

Moving beyond universalized definitions of innovation and techno-progress, 母体 Mǔtǐ reimagines technology not simply as a mechanism for optimization, containment, or extraction, but as a process of deepening the intelligence that exists between us and within us.

In East Asian medicinal practice, summer is regarded as a season of restoration and nourishment; accordingly, 母体 Mǔtǐ is conceived as a generative site for repair and reorientation, metaphorically and physically akin to growth in a mother’s womb.

母体 Mǔtǐ is an on-offline summer school that will take place in New York City and via Zoom that aims to bring together artists, researchers, curators and curious minds for deep, generative conversations.