sending again... <3 On Wed, Aug 3, 2022 at 11:07 AM Ruth Catlow <[email protected]> wrote:
> Beautiful writing > about a beautiful person and part of such an inspiring, important art duo > with a brilliant talent for finding new pathways to possiblity. > > Thank you so much for sharing Roberta. > > We had the delighful honour of hosting and exhibiting *REFF- Remix the > World! Reinvent Reality! by *Salvatore and Oriana at Furtherfield in 2010. > These photos capture the verve of the event > > https://www.flickr.com/photos/http_gallery/albums/72157626175020078/with/5488796867/ > > Rest in Power Salvatore! > Loads of love for Salvatore and Oriana > > On Tue, Aug 2, 2022 at 5:43 PM roberta buiani via NetBehaviour < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi all, >> coming out of my lurking mode. I usually don’t post. I tend to be super >> slow and quite shy about almost anything I write, but Salvatore’s departure >> has really shaken me and sometimes I find that writing helps a bit. >> I am pasting below the in-memoriam note I just sent to Leonardo. this is >> my perspective as a fellow Italian who worked several times with him and >> Oriana from a distance, but developed a solid friendship that I cherished >> for many years. >> last time I talked to him was in March. little did I know it would be the >> last time. >> >> peace. >> Roberta >> >> ----------- >> >> Writing to celebrate the life and work of Salvatore Iaconesi is not easy. >> It is not easy because his body of work is so extensive and diverse that >> one would never have enough space to fit it in a few pages; it is not easy >> because it extends over, it is entangled, and it is shared with a >> formidable network of collaborators and friends, which he and his life and >> artistic partner Oriana patiently and passionately built for many years. >> But it is especially not easy because his departure is hard to accept. It >> has been a slow departure, during which he planted many seeds for future >> work and activities, made new friends, established new collaborations. >> “Salvatore Iaconesi is alive” announces the website of HER: She Loves DATA, >> the cultural research centre he and Oriana had founded in 2013. Still, it >> is difficult to accept that his body, and his wit are no longer with us. >> >> Salvatore Iaconesi’s work was eclectic, ranging from projects supporting >> remix and opensource culture, to experiments with AI and hybrid marriages >> between human and non-human, community data mining and data sharing, >> collective performances, pedagogical initiatives, and much more. No matter >> where and by whom his projects were carried on, they were all conceived in >> the spirit of community participation and co-creation involving many >> actors, human and non-human; they could be remixed and expanded, recombined >> and played with. >> >> I met Salvatore in 2010 at the SHARE festival in Torino. The editorial >> project he and Oriana presented gave me a taste of the spirit that >> characterized their future projects: a drive to reveal the narrow minded, >> exploitative and extractivist rules imposed by institutions and those who >> retain power, and a desire to rectify these rules by mobilizing a network >> of individuals and communities with whom to re-think and find solutions for >> these rules. REFF (RomaEuropa Fake Factory) became a fake cultural >> institution and an editorial project in response to the exploitative rules >> imposed by the institutions promoting a funding contest. Hopeful applicants >> had to agree to transfer any ownership of their work to the funding agency. >> The latter could then re-use, remix and republish said work. However, no >> project already containing remake, mashups, and remix would be admitted. >> The response was an edited book collecting essays, artworks, and editorial >> experiments that exposed this rather hypocritical and contradictory >> position and enacted the very practices that had been forbidden by the >> contest. >> >> When I first invited Salvatore and Oriana to Toronto in 2014, they had >> been launching a data visualization project titled Human Ecosystems (HE) in >> Rome (Italy) and Sao Paulo (Brazil). The project encouraged members of the >> public to reflect on and visualize the city’s human geographies and >> affective flows, by capturing information from social networks. Instead of >> just collecting data from users and artfully laying them on a map, the goal >> here was to achieve a new and more reflexive understanding of the ways in >> which different cultures express opinions, emotions and affect. Most >> importantly, it sought to reveal how cities’ relational ecosystems are >> formed and which roles different people assume in their communities >> (influencers, hubs, experts, amplifiers, bridges among different >> communities etc...). This was made to empower the public to view data as >> relational agents rather than discrete bits ready to be collected to create >> more surveillance. Together, during a few (and very snowy) days, we worked >> with students at the Transmedia Lab (York University) and the members of >> the public at ArtSci Salon, our art and science collective, to build an >> affective map of the city. Even the very skeptical City of Toronto’s Open >> Data team was willing to listen. >> >> Freeing data from the grip of institutional and corporate power, from >> their extractivist agendas, from their techno-solutionist patina of fake >> neutrality was at the core of Salvatore and Oriana’s work. The main >> mission of their cultural research centre is to use data and computation to >> create new realities that would think past using, exploiting, and depleting >> data and instead rethink the configuration of, and the relationships being >> established in the neighborhood, the city and the environment. >> >> The reappropriation, repurposing, and re-vitalizing of data had profound >> political significance for Salvatore. They also resonated personally. In >> 2012, following his diagnose of brain cancer, he found himself trapped in >> the same situation he was rallying against with his art. Now a patient, he >> was stripped from his individuality, and found himself caught in a medical >> system intent to measure, visualize, and examine his condition only, one >> not seeing him as a whole person: “the patient is a strange being … >> entirely made of data: blood exams, images of body parts, lab values, >> diagnoses”. He describes his experience with the medical system as a >> ritual: “your body, personality, and social connections disappear, and are >> replaced by data and images”. In the medical ritual Iaconesi was caught in, >> everything is obsessively quantified and passed through body scans, >> software, and digital models. He had suddenly become a bundle of data, over >> which he seemed to have no control. But even that resulting disembodied >> entity had been taken away from him. In fact, to add insult to injury, all >> data collected from his body had been stored in a proprietary format >> impossible to share. >> >> La Cura became a long-term life journey that extended well beyond medical >> treatment or medical data sharing. His rebellion against the reductive >> constraints imposed by the medical technologies, and against an inflexible >> and impersonal medical system, materialized into the release of his medical >> data online. He turned to the community at large to seek help, solidarity >> and comfort. His request was drawn by a need to open up “cancer’s “source >> code” as a biopolitical rite of healing, aimed at redefining concepts such >> as “disease” and “cure” “… to re-appropriate the condition of being ill, >> and to foster a society that recognizes disease as a complex experience — >> one felt by social bodies as much as individual bodies”. >> >> His story far exceeds issues of information gathering and dissemination; >> issues of disease and control. This act of sharing was not meant to >> disseminate information with the purpose of receiving more. It was not >> meant to acquire knowledge to be used for his exclusive benefit. His act of >> sharing opened to a precarious and indeterminate space. By turning to a >> community made up of close friends and complete strangers, he welcomed and >> eventually recovered human and affective elements that had been lost in the >> extreme operation of reduction he was enduring during his experience within >> the medical system. >> >> Maria de la Bellacasa explains that caring is “everything that we do to >> maintain, continue and repair our world, so that we can live in it as well >> as possible”. Caring also means becoming aware that “studying and >> representing things have world-making effects”. It is a way of thinking and >> speaking beyond what we assume to be some social and “politically” useful >> research. La Cura evolved into many other projects, all initiated with the >> same spirit of caring, using data creatively and for social causes: “the >> cure does not exist if not in society”. >> >> Last time I had the pleasure to collaborate with Salvatore, and last time >> I heard his voice was in March 2022, during an interdisciplinary series of >> talks, workshops and events that I co-created with my colleague Elena >> Basile titled: “Who Cares? Sustaining relations of health beyond the time >> of crisis”. We invited Salvatore and Oriana and their team to facilitate a >> Data Meditation, because we knew that their approach to data to evoke >> self-reflexivity, empathy and mutual sharing, instead of impersonal and >> mechanical interaction would break the cycle of apathy that had >> characterized so many conferences and talks (including the one about health >> care!) during the pandemic. During one of the roundtables, coincidentally >> scheduled exactly 2 years after the beginning of many lockdowns around the >> world, Salvatore shared his extraordinary experience of being in a hospital >> just before Italy shut down: “The Hospital was shutting down. Surgeries >> were stopped, people were being sent back home. But the pandemic was >> hitting full strength in the realm of information and data too. People were >> massively exposed to horrible things about the pandemic, completely and >> carelessly fed with information about people who were sick, dead and dying, >> with no care for their fragilities…The use of data and information at the >> time was truly violent and careless. It was a very violent experience. We >> decided that we should do something about it. That’s when we started >> developing these new rituals where these data and information are not >> forces that divide people but unite people and bring them together. That’s >> the origin of what we call Nuovo Abitare” . >> >> The “Nuovo Abitare” resonated greatly with our desire to bring together a >> community of users, artists, scientists and caregivers to reflect beyond >> the cruelty of a tired health care system and its triage based culture. >> Importantly, it gave us hope that this new concept could one day be adopted >> by many. >> >> I want to remember Salvatore Iaconesi with these words, because I think >> they not only encapsulate the profound sense of justice and care that drove >> his work, but also his optimism and hopeful thinking, in the face of the >> violence imparted by and conveyed through data, in spite of collapse due to >> climate change, wars, political unrest, medical emergencies etc.. >> >> It is certainly not a chance that the logo that stands out on the site of >> HER: She Loves Data is a heart. A heart which will grow larger thanks to >> the way his thinking and his generosity touched and inspired many of us. >> Even though his body is no more, his legacy is here to stay. >> >> >> >> >> On Aug 2, 2022, at 11:59 AM, Alan Sondheim via NetBehaviour < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >> Hi Everyone, >> >> I was hoping someone would say something; I didn't know him, but from his >> work at Furtherfield, I felt his thinking resonated with my own the >> strongest in the show. >> There was no bio for him in the back; was that his desire? >> >> Best, Alan, and Marc, I hope you're doing well. At the moment speechless, >> too much pain everywhere. And thank you everyone for this list and >> Furtherfield - >> >> On Tue, Aug 2, 2022 at 4:21 AM Helen Varley Jamieson < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> last week my copy of "frankenstein reanimated" arrived & i immediately >>> turned to page 175 and read patrick lichty's interview with salvatore, >>> about "la cura", the collaborative artistic project to open source a cure >>> for the brain cancer that he had just been diagnosed with (the interview >>> was made in 2012). >>> >>> salvatore died a couple of weeks ago, on 18 july. has this sad news >>> already come through on netbehaviour? maybe i missed it ... i am >>> remembering salvatore's smile and laugh, his warmth and generosity; and the >>> cyberformance that myself, francesco buonaiuto and miljana perić created >>> for "la cura" (which was only performed once, for salvatore & oriana, in >>> 2012 or 13 & now exists only as fragments on my hard drive). >>> >>> r.i.p. salvatore - i am glad to have known you! >>> >>> h <3 >>> -- >>> >>> helen varley jamieson >>> >>> [email protected] >>> http://www.creative-catalyst.com >>> http://www.upstage.org.nz >>> https://mobilise-demobilise.eu >>> _______________________________________________ >>> NetBehaviour mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour >>> >> >> >> -- >> *=====================================================* >> >> *directory http://www.alansondheim.org <http://www.alansondheim.org/> tel >> 347-383-8552**email sondheim ut panix.com <http://panix.com/>, sondheim >> ut gmail.com <http://gmail.com/>* >> *=====================================================* >> _______________________________________________ >> NetBehaviour mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> NetBehaviour mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour >> > > > -- > Ruth Catlow > she/her > Co-founder & Artistic director of Furtherfield & DECAL Decentralised Arts > Lab > +44 (0) 77370 02879 > > *I will only agree to speak at events that are racially and gender > balanced. > > **sending thanks > <https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-newsroom/press-releases/2019/november/think-before-you-thank-if-every-brit-sent-one-less-thank-you-email-a-day-we-would-save-16433-tonnes-of-carbon-a-year-the-same-as-81152-flights-to-madrid.html> > in > advance > > *Furtherfield *disrupts and democratises art and technology through > exhibitions, > labs & debate, for deep exploration, open tools & free thinking. > furtherfield.org <http://www.furtherfield.org/> > > *DECAL* Decentralised Arts Lab is an arts, blockchain & web 3.0 > technologies research hub > > for fairer, more dynamic & connected cultural ecologies & economies now. > > https://decal.furtherfield.org/ > > Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company Limited by Guarantee > > Registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205. > > Registered business address: Carbon Accountancy, 80-83 Long Lane, London, > EC1A 9ET. > > > -- Ruth Catlow she/her Co-founder & Artistic director of Furtherfield & DECAL Decentralised Arts Lab +44 (0) 77370 02879 *I will only agree to speak at events that are racially and gender balanced. **sending thanks <https://www.ovoenergy.com/ovo-newsroom/press-releases/2019/november/think-before-you-thank-if-every-brit-sent-one-less-thank-you-email-a-day-we-would-save-16433-tonnes-of-carbon-a-year-the-same-as-81152-flights-to-madrid.html> in advance *Furtherfield *disrupts and democratises art and technology through exhibitions, labs & debate, for deep exploration, open tools & free thinking. furtherfield.org <http://www.furtherfield.org/> *DECAL* Decentralised Arts Lab is an arts, blockchain & web 3.0 technologies research hub for fairer, more dynamic & connected cultural ecologies & economies now. https://decal.furtherfield.org/ Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company Limited by Guarantee Registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205. Registered business address: Carbon Accountancy, 80-83 Long Lane, London, EC1A 9ET.
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