Originality – Rigor – Significance are tried and tested/contested evaluation criteria in the sciences. Originality is easy to assess but hard to deliver. Rigor is methodology based and makes sure you play by the rules of the research community. Significance means that the results are meaningful to your peers. In the arts, rigor (more below) is not important, but originality and significance are, in similar ways as in the sciences. Most fields have standardized ways of assessing significance. Journal contributions, citation counts and so on. In the arts, significance is established by your show record. If you publish, then citation count is meaningful, and if your work is translated into other languages or included in anthologies, it is significant. All of this contributes to your acceptance in the field, which in turn can translate into invited talks and similar. By one strange metric, your air miles are indicative of your significance.

The new call for impact (on society) is a headache for all research. You only know if you have impact long after the work is completed. Everyone I know struggles with the ‘impact’ statement (on grant applications, for example). Stipulating impact apriori is lying believably. It is a sales pitch. The sciences have an easier time doing this, because the consensus is that science de facto already has impact, hence all work in the field can, at least in principle, make the claim. The humanities have a much harder time defending the potential for impact. University administrators around the world seem to have come to the conclusion that the humanities have lost impact, and the recent closing of an entire philosophy department (Middlesex Uni) is cruel real time proof of this.

For the arts the impact requirement can work to our advantage. Arts have always had and continue to have impact. Art does not have to defend its right to exist (although it always has to defend the ways it wants to exist). Part of this impact potential is built on a lack of (methodological) rigor. Because there are virtually no disciplinary constraints in/on art, it can experiment as most fields cannot. This creates a combinatorial (solution) space other fields lack; the arts can find things other fields don’t see (at least in principle). When this anti-method method mingles with other domains (as in the past with information science, biotech, environmental sciences) you can get some pretty weird results, some good art, some bad art and some work that has the potential to change the way a given problem is perceived.

Most impact in the arts is associated with ‘buzz’, reception in popular press, to the point where some work intends nothing more than to be picked up by search engines. While that certainly helps brand recognition, it does not help the arts defend the case for bona fide impact or research potential.

Anyway, I am the last one to say all art has to be research related; it is over-rated! But the art that does occur at the university and does now find itself in the need for self-defense, has to rely on more than a claim to protected species status in order to survive in the 21st century.

marc bohlen
www.realtechsupport.org


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 3 May 2010 14:50:45 +0100
From: Sarah Cook<sarah.e.c...@sunderland.ac.uk>
To: soft_skinned_space<empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Tactical Media - university research -
        knowledge       production
Message-ID:<a19cd82f-b11d-4e77-b882-87764c09e...@sunderland.ac.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"; Format="flowed";
        DelSp="yes"

I suppose this comment from Marc is exactly what I was trying to get
at by using myself as a case study in my earlier post. I see my role
as engaged in redefining the edges of the research I am undertaking,
through my own practice. I am aware that other students and
researchers look at the methods I've used, and the 'outcomes', to
structure their own investigations in the field. That implies some
kind of responsibility, which I'd like to think all creative
practitioners within universities share. In the UK, our latest
Research Assessment Exercise (RAE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Research_Assessment_Exercise) called on our work to be evaluated
according to Originality, Rigour, and Significance. All vague and
wishy-washy terms, but what's coming sounds even harder to evaluate
-- Impact: on society, on economy, on policy, even on quality of
life. How big are the knots we are going to have to tie ourselves
into to claim that our art projects have impact? This discussion list
would serve as evidence in the case of bang lab's work. I'm going to
have to befriend many more journalists, and make my outcomes more
marketable. Urgh.
I digress, but self-awareness of how artistic production is valued
within the university research machine is indeed something to learn
and share our individual experiences of.
As Beatriz wrote:
"The "problem" that arises is that suddenly all the work has to be
presented as "research" and once something is called "research" the
outside expectations as to what that is, what function it should
fulfill and within which boundaries it should operate really change."
So are there tactics for managing expectations?
from a muggy morning in Ottawa,
sarah





On 2 May 2010, at 02:28, Marc B?hlen wrote:

I think the discussion is hitting terminology walls again.
?Knowledge production? can mean so much. And I would argue that the
arts can (but don?t have to) produce knowledge. There is ample
evidence that artists have contributed to knowledge in interface
design, for example. Also, ?production? does not mean exclusively
?making?, but also reflecting on, criticizing, contextualizing.

The advantage of casting art practices as a form of research is
that the reason for being at a research university is self-
evident.  The comparatively large amount of time one has for free
experimentation is still without equal in industry. Also, it gives
students more time to engage in their own work and to receive
funding (to some degree at least). These are clear advantages that
applied schools do not have.

What lies ahead, I think, is the exploration of new venues of
interfacing to the research university machinery
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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 3 May 2010 10:57:11 -0700
From: micha cardenas<azdelsl...@gmail.com>
To: soft_skinned_space<empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Tactical Media - university research and
        funding
Message-ID:
        <g2lcac62e81005031057k5f7dfa3fu1874ff0668617...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"

Hi all,

Thanks for your story beatriz, it helps me to think twice about how I've
ended up calling myself an artist/researcher in the university, even though
I prefer artist/theorist, really. Actually, as brett and simon mentioned, I
think its a question of being tactical, of exploiting the university's own
language against itself, as in galloway's idea of hypertrophy, or as in
chela sandoval's differential consciousness, which describes one of the
skills oppressed people learn as navigating various forms of oppressions
throughout their lives. Fox Harrell has developed a beautiful game about
this strategy called Chameleonia: Days of Lost Selves that you can see here:
http://icelab.lcc.gatech.edu/gallery.php

In EDT, we've been developing an idea of Science of the Oppressed, which I
describe in a lot more detail in these two essays:

http://ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=639
http://bang.calit2.net/pros/?page_id=11

And in the second one I consider questions of artistic knowledge production
more specifically.


   micha


2010/5/1 Beatriz da Costa<beatrizdaco...@earthlink.net>

I will write more tomorrow, but just to avoid any misunderstanding. I never
meant to say that identifying once practice as "research" is a bad thing. I
do it myself, very publicly and in writing :). The "problem" is the
association especially non-academics have with the term "research." Most
people do think of "science" when they hear "research." I only have
anecdotal evidence for that of course, but I worked on a project a few years
ago that for better or worse got a lot of mass media attention. My bio at
the time said "artist and researcher" or something along those lines. You
have no idea how many emails I got from people thinking I had expertise in
anything from aeronautic engineering/design, to veterinarian knowledge, to
studies on pulmonary function tests, to behaviorism, ecology, earth
sciences, public health&  policy ... you get the picture. Nobody understood
the term "research" to be "creative research" or hybrid art/research or
however you want to call what we are doing. It said "artist" right next to
"researcher" but all that people picked up on was "researcher." So, I think
we have to be aware of that. And yes of course, it has ramifications within
the university as well, but at least in the UC system this is rather
straight forward. Everything is called "research" during merit/review and
tenure time. Simple because there isn't a category for "art" on the form.
But I don't really think that this is the issue here.

anyway, more on funding&  tactical media tomorrow.
best
b.



On May 1, 2010, at 12:07 PM, Carl DiSalvo wrote:

I totally agree that the arts (inclusive of design, and architecture) can
be research. Indeed, that is how I characterize much of my own work.
And Brett's point below are very important, particularly the notion that the
arts as research need not try to adopt the same forms of research practice
and product as are produced in other fields. Rather, we need to understand
how the arts constitute a particular form (or forms) of knowledge
production.

How arts research research fits into "research universities" is a complex
question. As Marc points out, in part this forces us to address issues of
funding. It also brings up issues of tenure and promotion. And, as we see in
this current situation, the politics that are often inherent of the arts in
research universities has very real consequences. I am always confused by
the fact that so many professors can do research on missile guidance systems
or develop algorithms for better prediction in hedge funds, but somehow,
this work is not cast as being political. Ok, maybe I'm not really confused
by that, but it seems like an important point of contrast.



One of my nagging concerns is how the arts and design are
Carl DiSalvo
Assistant Professor
School of Literature, Communication, and Culture
Georgia Institute of Technology

On May 1, 2010, at 3:27 AM, Brett Stalbaum wrote:

I have always been at a loss as to why the arts and humanities would have
any suspicion at all in embracing the term "research" as the very core of
our practices. Research simply means the production of new knowledge.
Certainly there are competing ideas regarding what the "research university"
should enable, vexing questions about the term "research university" in
comparison to other models (the implication that other types of higher
education institutions don't themselves produce research), and questions
regarding different methodologies for producing new knowledge. But at the
end of the day, to cede the meaning of "research" to any particular
established methodology (such as the scientific method) further marginalizes
the arts and reinforces notions that the arts and culture must be by now
antiquated and epistemically fixed projects. Art is research, and if there
is anything to be concerned about today it is "research" institutions whose
creative arts and humanities programs have settled into canonic assumptions
and ceased boundary explorations. If the arts and humanities exist only to
"round out" a liberal education for other fields, then we are obviously not
doing our jobs. If we are unable to function as a critical or contestational
response to the very real issues that Carl brings up below, shame on us. We
need to work harder.

Interestingly Ricardo's recent ECD investigations, "5 years of war! Stop
the Nanotech and Biotech War Profiteers!" March 19th-21st 2008, was
something he was promoted for, and the March 4th 2008 protest of exactly the
same nature against the same Office of the President server but protesting
student fee hikes and the racist environment on the UCSD campus are what
bring about the attempt to fire him. (And all indications are, TBT is their
real issue and the only policy violation they could find was in unrelated
research.) It says something very interesting about UCSD's immune system and
the dissent they actually seek to manage, no? Without an artist - perhaps
functioning as a blind probe head in cultural response spaces - we might not
know this. This represents the kind of methods that artists bring to bear in
the production of new knowledge. It is many things, but research is one of
those things.

On Apr 29, 2010, at 3:59 PM, Carl DiSalvo wrote:

Hi, thanks for the invitation to join in this important discussion.


Regarding tactical media and the university, one of the reasons why I
believe its imperative to have such work in universities, and not to try to
subsume it as some other kind of research, or event as "research" at all, it
because it provides an important political check against the work done in
engineering and computer science programs. Moreover, increasingly,
engineering and computer science programs, and more broadly programs in
related fields such as Informatics and Human-Computer Interaction are
attempting to develop research programs with a social agenda. For example,
the institution I am at has an initiative entitled "Computing for Good."
  While some might argue that such as shift in engineering and computer
science is encouraging, I maintain it is, usually, simply a reinforcement of
standard neo-liberal agendas, with with a "feel-good" attitude.  Usually the
work in such programs simply reinforces existing political mechanisms and
norms, under some guise of "democracy," for example, improving voting
machines. The problem with such work is that it invariably negates the
political, that is, any sense of contestation that characterizes the
contemporary condition.


What tactical media (or whatever we want to call it) in the university can
provide is a) an opportunity for contestational political work, and b) an
opportunity to call-out the inherent fraudulence in most (certainly, there
are exceptions) seemingly "socially-engaged" or "socially-committed"
research being conducted in engineering and computer science programs.


Whether or not we want to call it research is unclear to me.


That it is important, is without question.


Carl


Carl DiSalvo

Assistant Professor

School of Literature, Communication, and Culture

Georgia Institute of Technology


On Apr 28, 2010, at 7:10 PM, Marc B?hlen wrote:



Thanks again all for interesting posts. Back to the ?research at
universities? question....


It is true, once a project is categorized as ?research? within the
university, the boundary conditions of the work changes, the expectations on
the work change; in short, the work can change. When such change is
undesirable, then any change is nothing less than an obstacle to a
potentially powerful artwork that is best expressed outside of institutional
constraints.

But if the work engages territory that is shared across disciplines, the
change in expectation can be an opportunity, and the change to the work can
give it agency it would otherwise not have. The work may receive a new
audience, an audience that otherwise would not care for the work or the
questions it raises (because it would not be perceived in the isolated ?art?
context). This audience shift is potentially powerful.


If one discusses research, funding can?t be relegated to the background. As
mentioned in earlier posts, funding defines the university structure to a
large part, dividing the system into ?haves?, ?have-somes?, and ?have-nots?.
Many public (American) universities fund their graduate art programs and
faculty salaries to a good part with undergraduate tuition. How many
soul-searching undergrads get milked annually such that art departments can
maintain their tenured faculty? From that perspective, it might not be such
a bad idea to soften the dependency of current funding models away from
relying on middle class families (who deliver the tuition) and instead try
to get cash from other sources....


I have no final answers to these challenges. I am subject to these forces
as many of you are as well.


All the best,

marc bohlen

www.realtechsupport.org


------------------------------


Message: 4

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 10:31:05 -0700

From: Beatriz da Costa<beatrizdaco...@earthlink.net>

To: soft_skinned_space<empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>

Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Tactical Media; this week's guests

Message-ID:<56ce84eb-01e5-46ff-b1ff-8b4ee790c...@earthlink.net>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed";

DelSp="yes"


Thanks for the thoughtful post Sara. It really brings up a few

interesting points and I think goes back to understanding the roles of

the different type of institutions involved here. Museums, while often

conservative or simply careful when it comes to pushing legal

boundaries, or even just the perception of a legal boundary (I have

been there many times), are still spaces that are in principle

dedicated to supporting and showing artworks. This is not the case for

American universities. Art schools/departments are often the necessary

evil to complete either the "arts and humanities" or the "arts&

science" colleges/schools at US universities. We are at the absolute

bottom of the hierarchy. We don't bring in any money, are quite

useless overall and should count ourselves lucky to be allowed to

exist of the dimes brought in from the more affluent parts of

campus.... or so the common narrative goes. Now with the emergence of

the so called "new media" arts things shifted a little. Suddenly that

hybrid existence was seen as an avenue to bring money into the

system... and it took a decade to realize that a lot these attempts

failed, and that many new media artists,  have absolutely no interest

to be in bed with the entertainment and/or ICT industries. So we are

being downgraded again :). But what happened in that time period is

that a loft of artists indeed merged/played/built alliances with the

sci and tech areas around the campuses, often resulting in very

interesting work. The "problem" that arises is that suddenly all the

work has to be presented as "research" and once something is called

"research" the outside expectations as to what that is, what function

it should fulfill and within which boundaries it should operate really

change. I am pretty sure that I am preaching to choir here, so please

forgive, but since this list is not US centric, which is wonderful, I

thought I'd bring it up. Art education and its associated institutions

seem to vary a lot from country to country and in my experience art

education at American universities ranks pretty low in the eyes of the

public and the university itself.

all best,

Beatriz



On Apr 27, 2010, at 7:17 AM, Sarah Cook wrote:



Dear empyre readers


My apologies for my delay in catching up with the great discussion

and posting. I have just landed in Ottawa (where it is hovering

around zero degrees and lightly snowing this morning!) for a writing

residency with SAW Video. As a full time research academic within a

UK university, and freelance curator whose practice takes place

outside of the university physically but within the remit of my job,

I am lucky to be able to leave my desk at CRUMB and come sit at

someone else's desk at SAW Video studying and writing about the work

of other artists for a stretch of time this spring.

This kind of transborder curatorial working, where I find myself a

guest in someone else's organisation but often with the role of

hosting artists of my choosing there, has some link to the

discussion at hand. (Perhaps it is the 'borrowed uniform' model).

The university shares in (or owns in part or at least takes credit

in return for funding) all new research I generate (about curating,

about media art, such as through the books I've authored/edited).

But the host organisation (this spring it is SAW Video, last year

the list included xcult.org, Eyebeam, and others) trusts in me to

generate new ideas and international connections of relevance to

them and supports those outcomes financially and intellectually as

well. In a decade of curating in this freelance manner rarely have I

ever had to sign an agreement with the host organisation about what

I will and will not put on their letterhead and how I will or will

not use their name and brand and support of me beyond the project we

are agreed to work on. I deeply appreciate that this trust exists,

to know my work is valued and seen as adding value, without having

to negotiate at every stage from brief to realisation.

Now I suspect that were I to be working predominantly with artists

whose work borders on the edges of legality or employs deliberately

questioning or questionable strategies to make a point -- from

copyright infringement to importing biological components, let's say

-- perhaps the host organisations (the museums, galleries, artist-

run centres, publishers) would be more wary in trusting in me, but I

actually don't know if that would be the case. As a middle-person /

mediator-curator I can propose (indeed I am expected) to work with

any artists or ideas I see fit (and see fit in relation to that host

organisation). But what would happen if a higher authority called in

to question what we were doing? Would the organisation let the

freelancer take the blame, or would they fight it together? Would

stronger contractual agreements about whose idea it was be put in

place the next time?

In these discussions I think of the work of my former colleague at

CRUMB, Ele Carpenter, who curated an exhibition at the CCA Glasgow

as part of her PhD research with us - Risk: Creative Action in

Political Culture
http://crumb.sunderland.ac.uk/~ele/risk/riskwebsitenov06/risk.htm<http://crumb.sunderland.ac.uk/%7Eele/risk/riskwebsitenov06/risk.htm>

. She might be better placed to discuss this kind of guest-hosting

arrangement than I, where the work on show challenges political

authority and the host organisation covers for it. The exhibition

was a case study her PhD was based upon, but the University didn't

particularly take ownership of the content of the show so much as

the knowledge she gained in the process of curating it. On the other

hand one could ask curator Steve Dietz about the Open Source Art

Hack show at the New Museum in 2002 in which a work was withdrawn

from the show over concerns the museum had about infringing its

agreement with its service provider.
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2002/05/52546

or ask Scott Burnham about his withdrawl from organising the

Montreal Biennial after his proposed 'open source' audience-as-

artist-collaborator curatorial platform was seen as too public and

too risky and not 'Art' enough by the board and other directors (you

can watch my interview with him here:
http://eyebeam.org/press/media/videos/eyebeam-summer-school-curatorial-masterclass-day-1)<http://eyebeam.org/press/media/videos/eyebeam-summer-school-curatorial-masterclass-day-1%29>

. One could also ask the Tate how they negotiated with Heath Bunting

over his online commission of the BorderXing project, where they got

around the sticky question of actually 'distributing' information

which could be used to break laws (cross borders illegally) by

suggesting what they commissioned was research and documentation,

not the work itself.

These are tangential to the case of the BANG lab at CALIT, but could

present lessons for how to be tactical in placing university-

supported research into other public contexts.

Apologies again if this posting seems out of kilter with the

discussion thus far, as I read threads backwards and try to catch up.

from an unseasonably chilly morning,

Sarah


www.crumbweb.org

www.sarahcook.info











Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:48:30 -0400

From: Marc B?hlen<marcboh...@acm.org>

Reply-To: marcboh...@acm.org

To: Timothy Murray<t...@cornell.edu>

Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: [-empyre-] Tactical Media; this week's guests

X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 8%



-------------------------

Dear -empyre-

Thanks to Tim and Renate for inviting me to participate. Thanks

also to the other participants who have posted thoughtful

commentary on the situation.


While I am also angry with UC administrators for making BANG lab's

life hell, I think it might be worthwhile to consider some of the

broader issues this fiasco makes apparent.


Beatriz da Costa's post from Apr15 2010 really lays out the

problem well. Can one really expect academia to support tactical

media? Not if the university recognizes it as such. Passing the

development of tactical media as bona fide research is probably

over (da Costa). And seen from that vantage point, BANG bit the

hand that feeds it, signing off on email correspondence with CALIT

research credentials.


Are there alternatives?


If one is going to operate in broad daylight, there are two

choices (I see). Wear a wig (so no one knows who you are) or wear

a uniform (so you look like the others).


In the wig model, the artist works a day job at a university and

keeps his/her critical practice separate from the research at the

university.


In the uniform model, the artist works a day job at the university

and selectively melts his/her practice into research recognized by

the university.


I use a variation of the uniform model. I make use of the fact

that my work in alternate information design (in the widest sense)

is of interest to the engineering community. I sit on panels that

I am not interested in, in order to try to move the ensuing

discussion along lines it would otherwise not travel. I review

amazingly boring high end research papers in order to be to make

the authors consider the social ramifications of their elaborate

experiments. Yes, they must revise their work accordingly.


This uniform model is not for everyone. But it seems, on occasion,

to help create diversity where it is really needed.


The point I would like to make is that research in/from the arts

at universities, on most basic levels, needs to be re-evaluated.



Greetings,

marc bohlen

www.realtechsupport.org


_______________________________________________

empyre forum

empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au

http://www.subtle.net/empyre


Beatriz da Costa


www.beatrizdacosta.net




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Message: 5

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:42:40 -0700

From: Brett Stalbaum<stalb...@ucsd.edu>

To: soft_skinned_space<emp...@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>

Cc: soft_skinned_space<emp...@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>

Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Tactical Media; this week's guests

Message-ID:<28c877bb-242a-42f4-a0a3-b262af7c1...@ucsd.edu>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed; delsp=yes


While wrought with its own difficulties, radical transparency is also

a model that I think we should fight for. It has (so far) functioned

well for EDT, usually by the end of the day. To clarify a few things,

CALIT2 has actually been one of Ricardo's biggest supporters, right up

the the line where the police arrive. (Which happened.) They have

funded the software development in the past by hiring Jason Najarro,

who developed the innovative dousing interface for the tool. So I do

want to make sure that the list understands that CALIT2 administration

is not the problem here at UCSD. In fact, CALIT2 will host a panel on

TBT in the near future. (I understand that the situation at Irvine is

quite different, btw.) The issue here, really back to Kroker, is the

atavistic right and its administrative influence within the main core

of UC administration, not so much various research cores. UCOP, Drake,

and others have been carrying water for three right wing

congresspeople by supporting their preferred narratives regarding ECD

and TBT. In the end, I think outspending the project itself on the

investigation of the project is not going to look very good to the

general public.


On Apr 26, 2010, at 4:53 PM, Timothy Murray wrote:



Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:48:30 -0400

From: Marc B?hlen<marcboh...@acm.org>

Reply-To: marcboh...@acm.org

To: Timothy Murray<t...@cornell.edu>

Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: [-empyre-] Tactical Media; this week's guests

X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 8%



-------------------------

Dear -empyre-

Thanks to Tim and Renate for inviting me to

participate. Thanks also to the other

participants who have posted thoughtful

commentary on the situation.


While I am also angry with UC administrators for

making BANG lab's life hell, I think it might be

worthwhile to consider some of the broader

issues this fiasco makes apparent.


Beatriz da Costa's post from Apr15 2010 really

lays out the problem well. Can one really expect

academia to support tactical media? Not if the

university recognizes it as such. Passing the

development of tactical media as bona fide

research is probably over (da Costa). And seen

from that vantage point, BANG bit the hand that

feeds it, signing off on email correspondence

with CALIT research credentials.


Are there alternatives?


If one is going to operate in broad daylight,

there are two choices (I see). Wear a wig (so no

one knows who you are) or wear a uniform (so you

look like the others).


In the wig model, the artist works a day job at

a university and keeps his/her critical practice

separate from the research at the university.


In the uniform model, the artist works a day job

at the university and selectively melts his/her

practice into research recognized by the

university.


I use a variation of the uniform model. I make

use of the fact that my work in alternate

information design (in the widest sense) is of

interest to the engineering community. I sit on

panels that I am not interested in, in order to

try to move the ensuing discussion along lines

it would otherwise not travel. I review

amazingly boring high end research papers in

order to be to make the authors consider the

social ramifications of their elaborate

experiments. Yes, they must revise their work

accordingly.


This uniform model is not for everyone. But it

seems, on occasion, to help create diversity

where it is really needed.


The point I would like to make is that research

in/from the arts at universities, on most basic

levels, needs to be re-evaluated.



Greetings,

marc bohlen

www.realtechsupport.org



















Timothy Murray wrote:


Dear Marc,


I am hope you received your introduction, which

I sent out to the list on Monday. We had severe

server problems over the weekend so I'm worried

that this entire list might not have received

this. I'm going to resend just in case.


We're still hoping that you'll be able/willing

to post a comment and join in conversation this

week (today and through the weekend or even all

through next week would be great).


As for us, we were supposed to be Berlin at a

conference right now but got volcanoed and are

in Ithaca. Renate still launched her project

virtually (which was going to be accompanied in

Berlin by an analogue collective performance):

www.privatesecretspubliclies.net


Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on

-empyre- and so sorry for any confusion.


tim



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Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 21:02:50 -0400

To: soft_skinned_space<emp...@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>

From: Timothy Murray<t...@cornell.edu>

Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Tactical Media; this week's guests

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Hi, all. You might have noticed a quiet period

over the weekend, which appears to have been

the result of problems with our server at COFA

in Sydney. We know that one of our posts never

went through, so Tim posted it again this

morning. If you lost posts, please feel free

to resend. We apologize for the disruption,

but, hey, it seems not to have been the result

of volcanic ash (say two travelers currently

waiting to see whether we'll be flying to

Berlin on Wednesday...).


We want to extend our warmest thanks to our

guests who so provocatively opened our first

week's discussion of Tactical Media, Research,

and the University. We have beenpondering all

the week the insightful posts by Horit Herman

Peled, Arthur Kroker, Geert Lovink, Nick

Knouf, and Rita Raley. We hope to hear more

from you all over the course of the next two

weeks.


This week, we are pleased to be joined by

Patricia Zimmermann, Marc Boehlen, Claudia

Costa Pederson, and Sarah Cook.


Marc B?hlen is Associate Professor and

Director of Graduate Studies in the Department

of Media Study at University of Buffalo.

Co-Founder of the Emergent Practices MFA

concentration and of the

Media-Architecture-Computing Program.

Practicing under the moniker REAL TECH

SUPPORT, he designs and builds information

processing systems that critically reflect on

information as a cultural value. Marc's work

is informed by a long apprenticeship in the

crafts (stone masonry), humanities (art

history) and the engineering sciences

(electrical engineering and robotics).

Upcoming and recent shows and presentations

include events at the National University of

Singapore (Singapore 2010), the Beall Center

for Art and Technology (Irvine, USA 2010), and

Jiao Tong University (Shanghai, China 2009).

Recent publications include Micro Public

Places (Architectural League, New York 2010)

and Ambient Intelligence in the City

(Springer, Berlin 2010).


Sarah Cook is a curator and writer based in

Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and co-author with

Beryl Graham of the book Rethinking Curating:

Art After New Media (MIT Press). She is

currently a research fellow at the University

of Sunderland where she co-founded and

co-edits CRUMB, the online resource for

curators of new media art and teaches on the

MA Curating course. In 2011 she will co-chair

Rewire, the Fourth International Conference on

the histories of media, science and technology

in art with FACT in Liverpool. Having grown up

in Canada, Sarah has a longstanding

association with The Banff Center where she

has worked as a guest curator and researcher

in residence for the Walter Phillips Gallery,

the International Curatorial Institute and the

New Media Institute, developing exhibitions,

summits, residencies and publications. After

completing her PhD in 2004, Sarah worked as

adjunct curator of new media at BALTIC funded

by the AHRC. In 2008 Sarah was the inaugural

curatorial fellow at Eyebeam Art and

Technology Center in New York, where she

worked with the artists in the labs to develop

exhibitions of their work. For over ten years

Sarah has curated and co-curated international

exhibitions including Database Imaginary

(2004), The Art Formerly Known As New Media

(2005), Package Holiday (2005), Broadcast

Yourself (2008) and Untethered (2008).


Claudia Costa Pederson is a HASTAC Fellow and

PhD candidate in the History of Art and Visual

Studies Department at Cornell University. Her

interests center on exploring the

intersections between play, creativity,

critical theory, and social activism, with an

emphasis on digital games as devices for

artistic and critical inquiry. She is now

teaching a lab course with Nick Knouf for the

Finger Lakes Enviornmental Film Festival on

the theme of Open Space. She has presented her

work widely at international new media forums

from ISEA to DAC, most recently on "Towards an

Ecology of Excess," DAC 2010.


Patricia R. Zimmermann is Shaw Foundation

Professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of

Communications at Nanyang Technological

University, Singapore; Co-Director of the

Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival

(FLEFF) and Professor in the Department of

Cinema, Photography and Media Arts at Ithaca

College, Ithaca, New York, USA. She is the

author of REEL FAMILIES: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF

AMATEUR FILM (Indiana, 1995) STATES OF

EMERGENCY: DOCUMENTARIES, WARS, DEMOCRACIES

(Minnesota, 2000), and coeditor of MINING THE

HOME MOVIE: EXCAVATIONS IN HISTORIES AND

MEMORIES (California, 2008). She was coeditor

with Erik Barnouw of THE FLAHERTY: FOUR

DECADES IN THE CAUSE OF INDEPENDENT CINEMA

(Wide Angle, 1996). Her book on digital arts,

PUBLIC DOMAINS: CINEMAS, HISTORIES,

VISUALITIES (Temple University Press,

forthcoming), explores the relationship

between historiography, political engagements

and digital art practices.


We look forward to the contributions of our

new guests and to a lively week of commentary

from the -empyre- community.


Best,


Renate and Tim



--

Renate Ferro and Tim Murray

Managing Moderators, -empyre- soft_skinned_space

Department of Art/ Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell

University

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--

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--

Brett Stalbaum, Lecturer, LSOE

Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts Major (ICAM)

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

Department of Visual Arts

9500 GILMAN DR. # 0084

La Jolla CA 92093-0084

http://www.walkingtools.net


OFFICE HOURS (Note: these change every quarter)


FALL 2009: Wednesdays, 1-3PM, Mandeville 221 (Near Vis Arts Advising)


WINTER 2009:  Tuesdays, 1-3PM, Mandeville 221 !!!*Moving to VAF, TBA,

sometime during Winter Quarter*!!!










------------------------------


Message: 6

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:29:16 +0200

From: geert lovink<ge...@desk.nl>

To: soft_skinned_space<empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>

Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Tactical Media; this week's guests

Message-ID:<7ea4f72f-011d-44ab-a65d-029591409...@desk.nl>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes


Hi all,


interesting debates. Sorry to come back to the activist approaches of

my previous mail.


Here a link to a blog posting by one of our MA students at new media/

mediastudies of the University of Amsterdam. The blog of our one year

masters program is called Masters of Media.


The topic is carthography of migration.


http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/2010/04/27/cartography-of-migration-flows/


Best, Geert






------------------------------


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End of empyre Digest, Vol 65, Issue 21

**************************************






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<ATT00001..txt>



--
Brett Stalbaum, Lecturer, LSOE
Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts Major (ICAM)
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
Department of Visual Arts
9500 GILMAN DR. # 0084
La Jolla CA 92093-0084
http://www.walkingtools.net

OFFICE HOURS (Note: these change every quarter)

FALL 2009: Wednesdays, 1-3PM, Mandeville 221 (Near Vis Arts Advising)

WINTER 2009:  Tuesdays, 1-3PM, Mandeville 221 !!!*Moving to VAF, TBA,
sometime during Winter Quarter*!!!







_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre


_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre


*Beatriz da Costa*
*
*
www.beatrizdacosta.net




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