Ancient Futures: From Ancestral Knowledge to Robotic Earth

From virtual worlds to robotic earth construction, artist and world builder Alfredo Salazar-Caro explores how ancestral knowledge can inform emerging technologies. Drawing on his background in digital art, XR, and virtual reality documentary, he traces a trajectory from designing immersive environments to developing physical forms for robotic fabrication and 3D printing with earth. Through sculpture and collaborative construction experiments in Mexico, Salazar-Caro brings computational design into conversation with vernacular architecture. Working with earth requires attention to local materials, traditional knowledge, and the realities of soil, moisture, and gravity. These encounters shape both the design and the process of making. The talk also considers future research in creative AI, generative design, and topology optimization: tools that could help explore material distribution and connections between building systems. Possibilities include combining printed earth walls with timber, bamboo, or digitally fabricated components, allowing each material to contribute according to its properties. Ancient Futures asks how technological innovation can grow from the knowledge of a place. Connecting experimentation in virtual and physical spaces, it proposes an approach where ancestral wisdom and creative computation work together to support cultural continuity, ecological responsibility, and ways of building that care for the Earth, humans, and all living beings.