Rebeca Romero’s newly commissioned installation draws our attention to the magic and power that reside in plant life. Rebeca creates a speculative allyship between plants and humans by combining ancient wisdom with contemporary technologies such as video mapping and 3D modelling. The resulting work, Chrysalis (2024), is a future-ancient device inspired by psychoactive plants and sacred ritual artefacts. The sculpture reacts to human movement, triggering an animation that simulates the blooming of Chrysalis. This activation makes us wonder: Have we just reawakened the memory of an ancient ritual, or are we invited to join a collective ceremony? 

The installation swings between the past, present and future, offering a space to connect with the natural world across all temporalities and mediums. In ancient traditions, this connection is experienced and embodied through rituals, often involving the consumption of hallucinogenic plants. Traces or codes of these rituals are inscribed on the plaques Codex I: Spring Equinox and Codex II: Winter Solstice (2024). In addition, the futuristic artefacts — Caapi X (2024), Huachuma 3000 (2022), Insignis SS (2024) — are hybrid creations of psychoactive plants and original scans of pre-Columbian vessels. Rebeca invites us to imagine their past lives and potential roles in our present and future. Together, the installation makes us wonder what we might worship or hold sacred in a world yet to be born.

Speculation and imagination thus become essential tools for redefining technology as a fluid concept that encompasses pre-Columbian cosmologies and digital knowledge systems. This perspective allows us to envision technology as a continuum woven through history, culture, and belief.