Cybernetics and Postcolonial Utopias

This article argues that in the pre-1965 square-based abstraction by Mohammed Melhi, Islamic art as a cultural heritage is mobilized as a space of both creation and re-invention only to be immediately destabilized with a larger project that seeks universalism by transcending national and religious belonging. He locates these abstractions within cybernetics and the language of IBM, mobilizing them towards a vision of modernity that is not regional and instead argues that the fundamental question of the era was, in his words, “the common point between Human and Science.” This work connects Islamic art with a belief in borderless technological modernity as a predecessor to the later strategic nationalism of the Casablanca School. Yet these paintings are also a utopic vision of a modern world of connection and possibility that could exist outside of the ongoing enmeshment of colonialism – not just decolonizing but rejecting the grounds of colonization entirely.

Keywords: Abstraction ; Acrylic paint ; Casablanca School ; Colonialism ; Cybernetics ; Decolonization ; IBM ; Islamic art ; Modern art ; Modernism ; Morocco ; New York