Thank you Ruth this is great, I was looking at reading books about tech, human, all that we are not able to witness in our ever sooo busy life. Hope you are all well! Kindness to all
> On 10 Jul 2024, at 17:58, Ruth Catlow <ruth.cat...@furtherfield.org> wrote: > > I think this might still be relevant 6 months later ;) > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: Ruth Catlow <ruth.cat...@furtherfield.org > <mailto:ruth.cat...@furtherfield.org>> > Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2023 at 22:22 > Subject: Full moon feelings > To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > <netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org > <mailto:netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org>> > > > Hello all, from the stormy dark of the year, here in East England. > > At dawn, a few mornings back, we saw the fullish moon drop into the arms of a > tree silhouetted on the horizon. It inspired me to reflect on the moiling > feelings of the year. Then it inspired me to share these four books that > produced very different feelings - energising, humbling, interrupting, and > delightful. > > 1. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman. (2019). > Recommended by our friend Cassie Thornton, artist, debt activist and > initiator of The Hologram peer to peer feminist healthcare network. > > This is a book about black intimate life in New York and Philadelphia at the > beginning of the twentieth century, 35 years after the abolition of slavery. > The author brings her literary imagination to historical archive materials. > It's a total revelation about the myriad modes and flows of fierce informal > battles against personal and institutional oppression across generations. > > 2. Hospicing Modernity: Parting with Harmful Ways of Living (2021) by Vanessa > Machado De Oliveira. Recommended by our friend Dani Admis, researcher and > curator (of the collective environmental justice project Sunlight Doesn't > Need a Pipeline). > > This book is a manifesto and workbook that shows how profoundly out of > balance our ecosocial world has become as a result of colonialism, resource > extraction etc. It also reveals all the psychological moves we make to feel > OK about how we are each implicated and the limits we feel to our agency. It > strips away any safe or comfortable perspectives on the terrible harms > inflicted by the modernist idea of progress and the different parts we might > play in it. > > 3. In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival > of the Indian Nations,(1991) by Jerry Mander. I read this after coming across > Mander's Obituary in Marc's subscription to Resurgence magazine. > > This book blew my mind. It was written before anyone knew what the Web would > become and is a historic and prophetic analysis of the combined harms of > unregulated social tech development, and the primacy of profit, protected > through corporate law. It also demonstrates the role that the lying and > cheating of so-called civilised states and business has played in the > devastation of the environment, democracy and indigenous cultures over the > last 250+ years. Mander was an anti-globalisation activist, known as "the > Adman for Progressive Causes" so he communicates all this with great clarity > and verve. > The argument that interrupted me most profoundly was that since the mid 1950s > tech conglomerates have sold consumer-citizens on the edge-case benefits of > technologies (a good recent example is the medical diagnostic ability of AI) > while the known or predictable hazards to society have been suppressed, > minimized or defended as an unfortunate sacrifice worth making for inevitable > "progress". > > 4. The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay (2020). > We (a bunch of us at Furtherfield) have spent the last few years LARPing > interspecies justice scenarios in Finsbury Park in North London (more to > follow on this in the new year). We encountered a series of fascinating > challenges and questions like: what do we actually already know and feel > about what matters to other living beings? What difference would knowing more > make?* Is multi-species democracy worth exploring, and if not, why not? What > actions might be taken by whom to change interspecies relations, and > ecosystems-care for the better? > > McKay's novel is an Aussie black comedy sci-fi that explores what might > happen to humans if they could be hypnotised by whales, bullied by wild dogs, > and could hear the glee of midges as they sucked their blood. It is an > incredible, funny, delightful, impressive work of imagination that did what > we were trying to do too - exploring what it might feel like to acknowledge > the sentience of all other beings, with their own experience, and to live in > relationship with them. > > *While our LARP involved a fictitious device that allows all flora and fauna > to communicate freely with each other I am highly suspicious of all the > recent AI projects that claim to allow us to communicate with animals and > plants. That's because I don't see the problem (with mass species extinctions > and ecosystems collapse and injustice) as a knowledge problem but a > relating-and-care problem. > > Wow! Thank you if you got this far. > All the feelz, including warm, respectful and well-wishing ones. > Ruth > > > > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org > https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
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