Movement Lab begins with an inquiry into the question of indigenous futures, specifically a project by fifteen young people in Hawaii, who learn to create a video game together as a way of ensuring their own futurity. What kind of a vehicle does video game provide and itself become in the hands of this particular group? Within the game story, indigenous youth gain space travel and visit other planets, taking their culture and language with them. But this is not just a story about technology’s power, the politics of its accessibility, or the enduring value of culture. The question we might ask here has to do with the particular weave we achieve by threading indigenous futures into lines of travel at light speed and through sound waves emitted by traveling spaceships. When NASA launched Voyager 1 and 2 in 1977, a golden phonograph, containing diverse sounds and languages representing earth as a diverse yet singular entity, was included in each vehicle. As the Voyagers continue their journey today, a question remains. Although it was NASA’s planetary ambassadorship which influenced Carl Sagan’s decisions on the design and engineering of this phonograph, how might youthful indigenous travelers craft a portable form of culture for intergalactic encounter? As game designers, these youth aspire to craft the form and procedural rhetoric of contact, not merely give voice to their own time spent on earth.

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Example: A point-and-click video game collaboration between Kanaeokana and the Montreal-based Initiative for Indigenous Futures.

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Image: He Ao Hou: A New World (2018)