Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]

[margaretha haughwout]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Dear all,

I hope it's okay I'm writing to a week 2 thread I'm compelled by much
of this conversation and had a few thoughts to add, that have been very
much on my mind and related to a current project of mine called Trees of
Tomorrow. The project collapses hard boundaries between politics and
ecology, communication and exchange, considering the political networks of
trees in the neighborhood of Flushing, Queens.
http://www.treesoftomorrow.life/ We've begun to track how NYC Parks frames
these trees in terms of ecosystem services and quantifies their labor in
monetary terms.

I also just want to point out that the idea of nature as homeostatic is a
theory -- one which comes from cybernetics -- that has largely been
debunked. While it might be useful to think of our engagements with nature
in systems terms so that we can think creatively and sustainably about
inputs and outputs, ways to turn waste into nutrient for example, the ways
that nature is not a system is what might offer us the most answers to many
of the questions in this thread. Again, FRAUD's work with the reindeer
lichen is a concrete example of this. I recently interviewed a London Plane
Sycamore, one of Flushing's hardest workers when it comes to ecosystem
services:
http://www.treesoftomorrow.life/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/ToT_TabloidResizedFORPRINT-PAGES.pdf
It seems to suggest that adding companion species and keeping the
totalizing system on it's toes creates possibilities for sabotage and
retreat.

I also wanted to add one more possibility to John's suggestions for what
can be done, esp. extending the idea to "hack from the inside": eat. Can we
enlist multispecies kin to collaboratively EAT the system from the inside
and the outside?

PS I would love a reading list on the necropolitics of the network.


--
beforebefore.net
guerrillagrafters.org
coastalreadinggroup.com
--



On Sun, Jun 17, 2018 at 12:35 PM, FRAUD  wrote:

> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
>
> Hi all,
>
> Bleeding into week 3.
>
> @Christina: In brief, the installation is composed of a whaler wreck (used
> to be used to harpoon the whale from), a scale showing the 'value' of wood
> in carbon futures, and documentation of the process of collecting wreck
> wood. This is accompanied by scrolling text tracing a genealogy of carbon
> emission trading through whale oil, the whale oil myth, pitch, boat
> building, colonialism, slavery, witch burning and forestry. We hope to put
> it online soon (txt/doco).
>
> Also >>> Feral MBA <3
>
> Would happily contribute in explorations of feral bond trading and trusts!
>
> A
>
> On 15/06/2018 17:28, Christina McPhee wrote:
>
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
>
>
>
> Dear Audrey and Francisco of FRAUD-
> How great to have the chance to bring this intervention on lichen, the
> incalculable /-financialization abstractions, and forest culture into the
> heart of London at Somerset House. Please could you describe the physical
> attributes of your installation (?) - how you are carrying these ideas into
> the space ?
> Thanks
>
> Christina
>
> On Sun, Jun 10, 2018 at 3:09 PM FRAUD  wrote:
>
>> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
>> Dear all,
>>
>> We are delighted to join the network discussion (and with such great
>> company!).
>> Some little bits to begin.
>>
>> *Networks:*
>> In our case, we are interested in the materiality and necropolitics of
>> the network and critical ecologies. Of late, we have been thinking through
>> the finantialisation of nature through emission trading systems and green
>> bonds. We are producing a genealogy of the conception of the forest as a
>> space of carbon flows which has carbon circulation, exchange and storage as
>> a nominal abstractions. Emission trading and green markets are popping up
>> globally (China just started its own), it is predicted to be the biggest
>> trading market by 2020. Carbon Futures is a speculative valuation system
>> that captures and extracts 'natural resources'. We are also inquiring into
>> how these markets are networked and we are investigating what is obfuscated
>> by this abstraction (cultural conflicts, subaltern knowledges and
>> environmental violence). Happy to expand, also we have a show opening
>> Tuesday in London on this topic :) [https://www.somersethouse.
>> org.uk/whats-on/complex-values].
>>
>> *The incomputable:*
>> During related research (in the Finnish forests) we were fascinated about
>> the reindeer lichen in East Fennoscandia, a disappearing species that
>> problematises the management of industrial forestry in Finland. Generally
>> lichen species are interesting because they constitute the majority of
>> diversity in the northern forests--there are only 5 tree species, whereas
>> there are thousands of lichens. Being a composite of a algae or
>> cyanobacteria and a fungi, their genetic make-up is more exposed to
>> 

Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]

[FRAUD]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Hi all,

Bleeding into week 3.

@Christina: In brief, the installation is composed of a whaler wreck 
(used to be used to harpoon the whale from), a scale showing the 'value' 
of wood in carbon futures, and documentation of the process of 
collecting wreck wood. This is accompanied by scrolling text tracing a 
genealogy of carbon emission trading through whale oil, the whale oil 
myth, pitch, boat building, colonialism, slavery, witch burning and 
forestry. We hope to put it online soon (txt/doco).


Also >>> Feral MBA <3

Would happily contribute in explorations of feral bond trading and trusts!

A


On 15/06/2018 17:28, Christina McPhee wrote:

--empyre- soft-skinned space--


Dear Audrey and Francisco of FRAUD-
How great to have the chance to bring this intervention on lichen, the 
incalculable /-financialization abstractions, and forest culture into 
the heart of London at Somerset House. Please could you describe the 
physical attributes of your installation (?) - how you are carrying 
these ideas into the space ?

Thanks

Christina

On Sun, Jun 10, 2018 at 3:09 PM FRAUD > wrote:


--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Dear all,

We are delighted to join the network discussion (and with such
great company!).
Some little bits to begin.

*Networks:*
In our case, we are interested in the materiality and
necropolitics of the network and critical ecologies. Of late, we
have been thinking through the finantialisation of nature through
emission trading systems and green bonds. We are producing a
genealogy of the conception of the forest as a space of carbon
flows which has carbon circulation, exchange and storage as a
nominal abstractions. Emission trading and green markets are
popping up globally (China just started its own), it is predicted
to be the biggest trading market by 2020. Carbon Futures is a
speculative valuation system that captures and extracts 'natural
resources'. We are also inquiring into how these markets are
networked and we are investigating what is obfuscated by this
abstraction (cultural conflicts, subaltern knowledges and
environmental violence). Happy to expand, also we have a show
opening Tuesday in London on this topic :)
[https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/complex-values].
*
**The incomputable:*
During related research (in the Finnish forests) we were
fascinated about the reindeer lichen in East Fennoscandia, a
disappearing species that problematises the management of
industrial forestry in Finland. Generally lichen species are
interesting because they constitute the majority of diversity in
the northern forests--there are only 5 tree species, whereas there
are thousands of lichens. Being a composite of a algae or
cyanobacteria and a fungi, their genetic make-up is more exposed
to mutation, hence diversity. They also have an interesting
cultural relevance as both a delicacy and a famine food. Lichen
presents itself as an non-computer readable element in the
forestry modelling calculations. While the efficiency of
industrial forests is heralded, validating the move to increase
production and cutting down of trees, 'inefficient' old growth
forests provide essential elements such as beard moss the source
of food for reindeer in winter. The post World War massive clear
cutting in the north and subsequent forestry is a scarification
leaving Finland with approximately 5% of its old growth forest.
Calculations have deemed industrial forests more efficient in
terms of carbon sequestration, and consequently enriches the
Finnish economy with carbon credits. In addition, forestry growth
provides jobs and fuels many by-product economies. We explore
these complex entanglements and scales of power. How are forests
calculated? Which forms of knowledge are privileged in this
discussion? What is deemed an acceptable compromise/sacrifice? How
does one begin to discuss the simultaneous cultural livelihood and
destruction of a nation?

Also, something to throw out there, there is an interesting
tension between the incomputable, the uncapturable, as a method of
resistance and survival, as well as disappearance/extinction from
the network.

"[P]ower is in fact grounded in the very ability to calculate,
count, measure, balance and act on these calculations.
Inversely to make oneself ungovernable one much make oneself
incalculable, immeasurable uncountable" [Eyal Weizman:

https://www.e-flux.com/journal/38/61213/665-the-least-of-all-possible-evils/]



*A footnote on invasive / native* (mentioned last week):
Those definitions in themselves are quite problematic. Usually
there is a point in time after 

Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]

[Christina McPhee]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Dear Audrey and Francisco of FRAUD-
How great to have the chance to bring this intervention on lichen, the
incalculable /-financialization abstractions, and forest culture into the
heart of London at Somerset House. Please could you describe the physical
attributes of your installation (?) - how you are carrying these ideas into
the space ?
Thanks

Christina

On Sun, Jun 10, 2018 at 3:09 PM FRAUD  wrote:

> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> Dear all,
>
> We are delighted to join the network discussion (and with such great
> company!).
> Some little bits to begin.
>
> *Networks:*
> In our case, we are interested in the materiality and necropolitics of the
> network and critical ecologies. Of late, we have been thinking through the
> finantialisation of nature through emission trading systems and green
> bonds. We are producing a genealogy of the conception of the forest as a
> space of carbon flows which has carbon circulation, exchange and storage as
> a nominal abstractions. Emission trading and green markets are popping up
> globally (China just started its own), it is predicted to be the biggest
> trading market by 2020. Carbon Futures is a speculative valuation system
> that captures and extracts 'natural resources'. We are also inquiring into
> how these markets are networked and we are investigating what is obfuscated
> by this abstraction (cultural conflicts, subaltern knowledges and
> environmental violence). Happy to expand, also we have a show opening
> Tuesday in London on this topic :) [
> https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/complex-values].
>
> *The incomputable:*
> During related research (in the Finnish forests) we were fascinated about
> the reindeer lichen in East Fennoscandia, a disappearing species that
> problematises the management of industrial forestry in Finland. Generally
> lichen species are interesting because they constitute the majority of
> diversity in the northern forests--there are only 5 tree species, whereas
> there are thousands of lichens. Being a composite of a algae or
> cyanobacteria and a fungi, their genetic make-up is more exposed to
> mutation, hence diversity. They also have an interesting cultural relevance
> as both a delicacy and a famine food. Lichen presents itself as an
> non-computer readable element in the forestry modelling calculations. While
> the efficiency of industrial forests is heralded, validating the move to
> increase production and cutting down of trees, 'inefficient' old growth
> forests provide essential elements such as beard moss the source of food
> for reindeer in winter. The post World War massive clear cutting in the
> north and subsequent forestry is a scarification leaving Finland with
> approximately 5% of its old growth forest. Calculations have deemed
> industrial forests more efficient in terms of carbon sequestration, and
> consequently enriches the Finnish economy with carbon credits. In addition,
> forestry growth provides jobs and fuels many by-product economies. We
> explore these complex entanglements and scales of power. How are forests
> calculated? Which forms of knowledge are privileged in this discussion?
> What is deemed an acceptable compromise/sacrifice? How does one begin to
> discuss the simultaneous cultural livelihood and destruction of a nation?
>
> Also, something to throw out there, there is an interesting tension
> between the incomputable, the uncapturable, as a method of resistance and
> survival, as well as disappearance/extinction from the network.
>
> "[P]ower is in fact grounded in the very ability to calculate, count,
> measure, balance and act on these calculations. Inversely to make oneself
> ungovernable one much make oneself incalculable, immeasurable uncountable"
> [Eyal Weizman:
> https://www.e-flux.com/journal/38/61213/665-the-least-of-all-possible-evils/]
>
>
>
> *A footnote on invasive / native* (mentioned last week):
> Those definitions in themselves are quite problematic. Usually there is a
> point in time after which a species' arrival is determined to be invasive.
> That point is heavily imbued in politics of immigration, colonialism and
> other ways of viewing the world that have little to do with the plant or
> animal's 'threat'. Without expanding further here, we did a project
> exploring this some time ago, Dreaming in tongues/舌頭/langues/
> بألسنة/tunger, and Cooking Sections do great work on this subject.
>
> Look forward to continuing the discussion over the week.
>
> Audrey & Francisco of FRAUD
>
>
>
> On 09/06/2018 10:41, Shu Lea Cheang wrote:
>
> dear all
>
> It seems like our week1 focus on Mycelium network is just heating up, i am
> sure we will be coming back to reflect on mycelium's network nature...
>
> Now we enter  rehearsal of a network - [week 2], with a focus on networked
> activism and performance.
>
> We are interested in reviewing a glory past/present/future with  update on
> 

Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network – [week 2] (Dominguez)

[William Bain]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Hello Empyreans,


Briefly: Agreeing, Ricardo, to yourways of *navigating the ruins

behind us, around us and those yetto come* I note that an article

in last year’s The Guardian arguesthat applying *green* measures at

rates based on Moore’s law could make a dent. Basic idea:double

measures introducing green energyevery five years while halving

carbon emissions every decade tohelp *deal* with global warming.

Obviously something is failing evenin applying this much, but fwiw

the link is

 / 
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/23/moores-law-carbon-would-defeat-global-warming/

Thanks to all for the rousingdiscussion.

Best wishes, William Bain (Barcelona)
___
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu

Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]

[Ricardo Rene Dominguez]

er Maven, viewed by both supporters and opponents as 
opening the door to much bigger defense contracts, generated a petition signed 
by about 4,000 
employees<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-ceo-pentagon-project.html>
 who demanded “a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors 
will ever build warfare technology.”



https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/technology/google-project-maven-pentagon.html

[https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/05/31/business/31GOOGLE/merlin_138827160_6293d3a2-9bb3-49cb-84e8-3a186ce45a71-facebookJumbo.jpg]<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/technology/google-project-maven-pentagon.html>

How a Pentagon Contract Became an Identity Crisis for 
...<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/technology/google-project-maven-pentagon.html>
www.nytimes.com
A $9 million deal for the use of artificial intelligence technology has 
fractured the internet giant’s work force and risks driving away top 
engineering talent.




>From these series of gestures among the ruins yet to come. Google was forced 
>to end the contracts with DOD:



“Google will not seek to extend its contract next year with the Defense 
Department for artificial intelligence used to analyze drone video, squashing a 
controversial alliance that had raised alarms over the technological buildup 
between Silicon Valley and the military.

The tech giant will stop working on its piece of the military’s AI endeavor 
known as Project Maven when its 18-month contract expires in March, a person 
familiar with Google’s thinking told The Washington Post.”



https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/06/01/google-to-drop-pentagon-ai-contract-after-employees-called-it-the-business-of-war/?



#FractalNetworks



So here is a case of rapid fractal gestures that gather multiple inside and 
outside communities that can at least for a moment A.I. weponization. So that 
the question of growing living forms inside the poison atmospherics of the 
institutions towards living forms networks that can create tunnels and wings to 
Zapatistas from the roots-we at EDT 1.0 and 2.0 do believe to be more than 
possible.



#SoEndthThisTale



From: empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au 
 on behalf of patrick lichty 

Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2018 8:35:18 AM
To: 'soft_skinned_space'; 'shu lea cheang'
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
I am fascinated byt the notion of the invasive species.  Perhaps for me
the notion of invasiveness at one point or another in a closed system like
the biosphere is to be assumed.  What is more interesting to me is the
insertion of the species into the new environment, the method in which it
does it, and the rate of
spread/invasion/assimilation/integration/homeostasis.  For example, we
could consider the Indigenous American's introductionjn across the
Beringian land Bridge as form of invasive introduction, which led arguably
to the elimination of much of the meggfauna on  the continent save the
Bison - That would take the invasion of H.Sapiens Europensis (sic).

But the cooperative introduction of invasives may be more interesting,
such ad the Zebra Mussel's hooking to human vessels to get to the Great
Lakes, the Us Navy's intridcution of caribou onto Adak Island in the
1950's for an alternate food source for the base, only to let them
multiply out of control with only hunters as predatoprs when the land was
ceded baclk to the Unangans in the early 2000's.  Of the fact that spores
can go halfway around the world, or even the theory in testing that DNA on
Earth may have originated on Mars, and was placed here by asteroidal
panspermia

This spinning set of relations constructs in my mind a series of tectonics
of relation - speed, temporal expansion, location, and cooperation.

___
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
___
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu

Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]

[patrick lichty]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
I am fascinated byt the notion of the invasive species.  Perhaps for me
the notion of invasiveness at one point or another in a closed system like
the biosphere is to be assumed.  What is more interesting to me is the
insertion of the species into the new environment, the method in which it
does it, and the rate of
spread/invasion/assimilation/integration/homeostasis.  For example, we
could consider the Indigenous American's introductionjn across the
Beringian land Bridge as form of invasive introduction, which led arguably
to the elimination of much of the meggfauna on  the continent save the
Bison - That would take the invasion of H.Sapiens Europensis (sic). 

But the cooperative introduction of invasives may be more interesting,
such ad the Zebra Mussel's hooking to human vessels to get to the Great
Lakes, the Us Navy's intridcution of caribou onto Adak Island in the
1950's for an alternate food source for the base, only to let them
multiply out of control with only hunters as predatoprs when the land was
ceded baclk to the Unangans in the early 2000's.  Of the fact that spores
can go halfway around the world, or even the theory in testing that DNA on
Earth may have originated on Mars, and was placed here by asteroidal
panspermia

This spinning set of relations constructs in my mind a series of tectonics
of relation - speed, temporal expansion, location, and cooperation.  

___
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu

Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]

[Audrey]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--For us, politics and ecology are indissociable. In terms of this machine of 
capital, relating this conversation to networks.
The logic of containment (from container ships, borders and the notion of 
leakage as in-habitual and signaling anomaly) defined against the backdrop of 
seemingly frictionless flows that serves capital can also define networks, 
nodes, and relationality.


⁣Sent from BlueMail ​On 13 Jun 2018, at 18:33, Shu Lea Cheang 
 wrote:

--empyre- soft-skinned space--

Meanwhile, allow me to bring us back to JJ's self-questioning propositions-

>>How do we create forms of life that no longer reproduce the machines of 
>>capital. How do we desert the system that has no outside. How do we refuse to 
>>become the fools in the palace, providing the progressive masks to the 
>>institutions whose very life blood is in the corporate military industrial 
>>realm…


empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu

On 13 Jun 2018 18:33, at 18:33, Shu Lea Cheang  wrote:
>--empyre- soft-skinned space--
>
>
>
>Dear all
>
>thanks for joining in we should continue this thread on invasive
>species. (great to hear so many voices and beyond the spores)
>
>Meanwhile, allow me to bring us back to JJ's self-questioning
>propositions-
>
>>>How do we create forms of life that no longer reproduce the machines
>of capital. How do we desert the system that has no outside. How do we
>refuse to become the fools in the palace, providing the progressive
>masks to the institutions whose very life blood is in the corporate
>military industrial realm…
>
> >>How do we not separate our ethics and aesthetics ( as wittgenstein
>urged us not to do )
>
> >>Do we refuse to collaborates ?
>
> >>Can we hack from the inside ?
>
> >>Do we desert and build counter powers ?
>
> >>Or do we just cook up the poison mushrooms and feed them to those
>making money from death ?
>
>Thanks also lots to Ricardo's bringing up the glorious days of
>Electronic Disturbance Theater, the targets, objectives seemingly
>clearly identified at the time of calling for actions. His insider
>report of War on Terroe Universities that brought DOD's tactical
>pursuit
>into school curriculum, involving students' research in greater hidden
>agendas of the Pentagon. Do we then all willingly participating in
>network rehearsals? that of MAVEN?
>
>So, to bring back FRAUD's arguments-
>What is deemed an acceptable compromise/sacrifice? How does one begin
>to
>discuss the simultaneous cultural livelihood and destruction of a
>nation?
>.an interesting tension between the incomputable, the uncapturable,
>
>as a method of resistance and survival, as well as
>disappearance/extinction from the network.
>
>
>REPEAT and CYCLE... repeat the cycles??
>
>Trying myself to work through these
>
>best
>sl
>
>> On 12 Jun 2018, at 15:37, Ricardo Rene Dominguez > > wrote:
>>
>> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
>> Hola Tod@xs,
>>
>> I have been learning a great deal from the gestures and conversations
>
>> this month. And thanks Shulea for inviting me to participate.
>>
>> Rehearsing Networks of E-contagion (the Shrooms Next Door), or from
>> Cold War Universities to War on Terror Universities
>>
>> rehearse (v.)
>> c. 1300, "to give an account of," from Anglo-French rehearser, Old
>> French rehercier (12c.) "to go over again, repeat," literally "to
>rake
>> over, turn over" (soil, ground), from re- "again" (seere-
>> )
>+
>> hercier "to drag, trail (on the ground), be dragged along the ground;
>
>> rake, harrow (land); rip, tear, wound; repeat, rehearse;" from herse
>> "a harrow" (seehearse
>>
>(n.)).
>
>> Meaning "to say over again, repeat what has already been said or
>> written" is from mid-14c. in English; sense of "practice a play,
>part,
>> etc." is from 1570s. Related: Rehearsed; rehearsing.
>>
>> #Repeat #ToKnow
>>
>> Electronic Disturbance Theater has always already been rehearsing the
>
>> re-harrowing of the digital grounds towards a practice of coming to
>> know. Then repeat. This process is one of networks being on repeat
>> cycles that are unbound and rebound to networks that prepare the soil
>
>> and wounds for something that will always be a rehearsal. A
>> post-mycelium production that is never fully known and can never be
>> fully staged and presented.
>>
>> Rehearsals build on rehearsals that are not strategic (the gaining of
>
>> fully structured performances that no longer need rehearsing) vs.
>> tactical gestures that seed networks for more rehearsals to come
>> without any final performance on the horizon.
>>
>> #ReCycling
>>
>> About a month ago 

Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]

[Shu Lea Cheang]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Dear all

thanks for joining in we should continue this thread on invasive 
species. (great to hear so many voices and beyond the spores)


Meanwhile, allow me to bring us back to JJ's self-questioning propositions-

>>How do we create forms of life that no longer reproduce the machines 
of capital. How do we desert the system that has no outside. How do we 
refuse to become the fools in the palace, providing the progressive 
masks to the institutions whose very life blood is in the corporate 
military industrial realm…


>>How do we not separate our ethics and aesthetics ( as wittgenstein 
urged us not to do )


>>Do we refuse to collaborates ?

>>Can we hack from the inside ?

>>Do we desert and build counter powers ?

>>Or do we just cook up the poison mushrooms and feed them to those 
making money from death ?


Thanks also lots to Ricardo's bringing up the glorious days of 
Electronic Disturbance Theater, the targets, objectives seemingly 
clearly identified at the time of calling for actions. His insider 
report of War on Terroe Universities that brought DOD's tactical pursuit 
into school curriculum, involving students' research in greater hidden 
agendas of the Pentagon. Do we then all willingly participating in 
network rehearsals? that of MAVEN?


So, to bring back FRAUD's arguments-
What is deemed an acceptable compromise/sacrifice? How does one begin to 
discuss the simultaneous cultural livelihood and destruction of a nation?
.an interesting tension between the incomputable, the uncapturable, 
as a method of resistance and survival, as well as 
disappearance/extinction from the network.



REPEAT and CYCLE... repeat the cycles??

Trying myself to work through these

best
sl

On 12 Jun 2018, at 15:37, Ricardo Rene Dominguez > wrote:


--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Hola Tod@xs,

I have been learning a great deal from the gestures and conversations 
this month. And thanks Shulea for inviting me to participate.


Rehearsing Networks of E-contagion (the Shrooms Next Door), or from 
Cold War Universities to War on Terror Universities


rehearse (v.)
c. 1300, "to give an account of," from Anglo-French rehearser, Old 
French rehercier (12c.) "to go over again, repeat," literally "to rake 
over, turn over" (soil, ground), from re- "again" (seere- 
) + 
hercier "to drag, trail (on the ground), be dragged along the ground; 
rake, harrow (land); rip, tear, wound; repeat, rehearse;" from herse 
"a harrow" (seehearse 
(n.)). 
Meaning "to say over again, repeat what has already been said or 
written" is from mid-14c. in English; sense of "practice a play, part, 
etc." is from 1570s. Related: Rehearsed; rehearsing.


#Repeat #ToKnow

Electronic Disturbance Theater has always already been rehearsing the 
re-harrowing of the digital grounds towards a practice of coming to 
know. Then repeat. This process is one of networks being on repeat 
cycles that are unbound and rebound to networks that prepare the soil 
and wounds for something that will always be a rehearsal. A 
post-mycelium production that is never fully known and can never be 
fully staged and presented.


Rehearsals build on rehearsals that are not strategic (the gaining of 
fully structured performances that no longer need rehearsing) vs. 
tactical gestures that seed networks for more rehearsals to come 
without any final performance on the horizon.


#ReCycling

About a month ago I was invited to do a “Tactical Poetics” workshop 
for a wide area academic and research communities at Cornell 
University, where I am a Society for the Humanities fellow this year 
and the theme for the groups general research was on “corruption.” In 
order to prepare for the workshop I sent out email asking those who 
would attending what were the current concerns they would like to 
focus on? The majority sent back notes saying they wanted to consider 
what could be done to stop networks like Facebook and Cambridge 
Analytica from data scrapping and using the data for the 
micro-management of elections and its use of emotion contagion or 
affective political channeling.


As I started to think about what tactical gestures could be staged or 
what past tactical actions could be touched on to help the gathered 
communities rehearse the question, “What is to be done or could be 
done to counter these data-capturing networks” After a bit of 
counter-toiling the question. I did some ungrounding the local soil 
and to find the wounds at home.


The concerns of those network-things beyond was residing and were 
being rehearsed right at here at home. Cornell was part of the DOD 
(Department of Defense) research trajectory named Minerva since 2009 
that used Facebook as a testing ground and collected the data:

Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]

[John Jordan]

ts.
>  
> Cornell’s role in the 2012 mood manipulation study is still unclear, though a 
> statement released by the University Monday said neither Hancock nor 
> then-university affiliated researcher Jamie Guillory, who was involved in the 
> study, had direct access to the collection of private data.” (Or did they?)
>  
> https://ithacavoice.com/2014/07/new-questions-answers-cornells-facebook-experiment/
>  
> <https://ithacavoice.com/2014/07/new-questions-answers-cornells-facebook-experiment/>
>  
> https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2014/jul/01/facebook-cornell-study-emotional-contagion-ethics-breach
>  
> <https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2014/jul/01/facebook-cornell-study-emotional-contagion-ethics-breach>
>  
> Cornell stated in 2014 that because of ethical breaches the studies would 
> stop and so would the DOD funding. But of course it has not. Minerva is still 
> listed here:
>  
> Research - Cornell University <http://sdl.soc.cornell.edu/research.php>
>  
> sdl.soc.cornell.edu <http://sdl.soc.cornell.edu/>
>  
> We study the interplay between network topology and the dynamics of social 
> interaction, using computational models, data from on-line networks, and 
> laboratory experiments with human participants.
>  
> Rehearsing networks of e-contagion marks a shift in the networks of knowledge 
> production from Cold War Universities to War on Terror Universities. Just as 
> the Cold War university was constructed in what was named a ‘strategic 
> alliance’ between scientists and the military after World War Two, today 
> universities are being re-militarized and re-integrated into the national 
> security state in order to serve the US government’s perpetual and unbounded 
> ‘War on Terror.’ The War on Terror university is characterized by military 
> and defense-contractor funding of research, the orientation of research and 
> teaching to serving military, intelligence agency, and corporate goals 
> surveillance of faculty and students, and repressive policing of campuses:
>  
> “The problem, then, was not whether some sub agent of massive government 
> funding espoused problematic political designs. The danger lay in the 
> monolithic source of funding — always federal, despite its different 
> channels. The autonomy of science hinged upon the existence of multiple 
> non-governmental funders and sponsors. Academia, much like the mythical 
> market place, thrived when guided by an invisible hand.”
>  
> From the “Minerva Controversy”:
> http://essays.ssrc.org/minerva/2008/12/11/robin/ 
> <http://essays.ssrc.org/minerva/2008/12/11/robin/>
>  
> Multiple networks are always being rehearsed and it is always good to not 
> only eat local but see what poison shrooms are also being grown next door.
>  
> Next rehearsal network MAVEN.
>  
> 
> From: empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au 
> <mailto:empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au> 
>  <mailto:empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>> on behalf of Aviva 
> Rahmani mailto:ghostn...@ghostnets.com>>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2018 8:53:14 AM
> To: soft_skinned_space; shu lea cheang
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]
>  
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> ___
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au <mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu <http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/>


ZAD FOR EVER <https://zadforever.blog/> a new blog in english, dispatches from 
the liberated territory where we now live.

 <https://labofii.wordpress.com/>The Laboratory of Insurrectionary 
<https://labofii.wordpress.com/>Imagination 
Laboratoire d'Imagination Insurrectionnelle 
Mailing list <https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/labofii>
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<https://www.facebook.com/groups/58916936705/?fref=ts> group
twitter:  @labofii 
mobile:+33 (0) 6 80 85 71 88

Notre livre-film "Les Sentiers de L'utopie" (Editions Zones/La Découverte 2011)
twitter: @nowtopia. 

www.labofii.net











___
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu

Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]

[Ricardo Rene Dominguez]

 in order to serve the US government’s perpetual and unbounded 
‘War on Terror.’ The War on Terror university is characterized by military and 
defense-contractor funding of research, the orientation of research and 
teaching to serving military, intelligence agency, and corporate goals 
surveillance of faculty and students, and repressive policing of campuses:



“The problem, then, was not whether some sub agent of massive government 
funding espoused problematic political designs. The danger lay in the 
monolithic source of funding — always federal, despite its different channels. 
The autonomy of science hinged upon the existence of multiple non-governmental 
funders and sponsors. Academia, much like the mythical market place, thrived 
when guided by an invisible hand.”



>From the “Minerva Controversy”:

http://essays.ssrc.org/minerva/2008/12/11/robin/



Multiple networks are always being rehearsed and it is always good to not only 
eat local but see what poison shrooms are also being grown next door.



Next rehearsal network MAVEN.





From: empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au 
 on behalf of Aviva Rahmani 

Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2018 8:53:14 AM
To: soft_skinned_space; shu lea cheang
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
___
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu

Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]

[Aviva Rahmani]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Thanks you for this moving testimony. I have just been writing about ecocide in 
relation to my own project, The Blued Trees Symphony, which asserted a new 
definition of public good and art to assert copyright law in resistance to 
corporate habitat destruction. In too many places around the world, the valiant 
fight seems to be failing. I know for some time, I have thought dictators and 
environmental injustice are the perverse biogeographical corrections on human 
over-population. I am trying to decide if my pessimism is truly based in 
reality. I reach out to you in solidarity and in the spirit of mycelium to 
resist ecocide with defiance and faith.

Aviva Rahmani, PhD
www.ghostn...@ghostnets.com<http://www.ghostn...@ghostnets.com>
Watch ³Blued Trees²:  https://vimeo.com/135290635
www.gulftogulf.org<http://www.gulftogulf.org/>



From:  on behalf of John Jordan 

Reply-To: soft_skinned_space 
Date: Tuesday, June 12, 2018 at 8:40 AM
To: shu lea cheang 
Cc: soft_skinned_space 
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
___
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
___
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu

Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 2]

[John Jordan]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hey everyone sorry for late reply … 

The transition between mycelium and performing acts within a network of 
activism is wonderful. For us at the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, 
we try to break all separations, especially that between everyday life, 
activism and art and its for this reason we are inspired by mycelium and use it 
in our work to create tools of creative disobedience against capitalism and all 
those who profit from the economy of death, the logic that puts life after 
commodities, profit before people, algorithms infront of the living relations 
that we all share…

Mycelium teaches us like Deleuze, to begin alway in the middle, to see the 
world as relationship, not a network of things, not a web of objects, but a 
rich interdependent always changing, always situated complex system from which 
emerges the intelligence of life… 

We live at the moment on the zad, 4000 acres of land squatted against an 
airport and its world, in france, that despite winning against the airport is 
now being destroyed, because as David Graeber writes (in the preface to a 
recent book about the zad)  “ Over the past 40 years it become an imperative of 
global governance to destroy any sense of possible alternative futures and to 
stamp them out, or, when that's not possible, to make sure no one knows about 
them. The rulers don’t mind if people say, “I hate you, I want to overthrow 
you” nearly so much as they say “You guys are ridiculous and unnecessary.” 
That’s why they really fear places like the zad. For the rulers of the world, 
such visible alternatives shatter the sense of inevitability, that despite 
crisis after crisis, the system must, necessarily be patched together in the 
same form. It has become a kind of obsession to those that try to govern us, 
that those who challenge existing power arrangements can never, under any 
circumstances, be perceived to win..”
 Below is a chapter just written by us,  for the same book which comes out in 
france tomorrow ELOGES DES MAUVAISE HERB 

 h writing about what the zad has given us, by Bruno Latour, David Graeber, 
Vandana Shiva, Starhawk, Kristin Ross etc.. )  which might be a good way of 
starting a conversation about these issues… 

FOR MORE INFO about the zad see this english language blog ZAD FOR EVER 
 and a long read we wrote about the violence of the 
evictions these last few months THE REVENGE AGAINST THE COMMONS  
 (also 
published on further field  
) 

love and rage 
JJ

THE COMMONS OF RESISTANCE

The police helicopter hovers above, its bone rattling clattering never seems to 
stop. At night its long godlike finger of light penetrates our cabins and farm 
houses. It has been so hard to sleep this last week. Even dreaming, it seems, 
is a crime on the zad. And that’s the point: these 4000 acres of autonomous 
territory, this zone to defend (zad), has existed despite the state and 
capitalism for nearly a decade and no government can allow such a place to 
flourish. All territories that are inhabited by people who bridge the gap 
between dream and action have to be crushed before their hope begins to spread. 
This is why France’s most largest police operation since May 1968, at a cost of 
400,000 euros a day, has been trying to evict us with its 2500 gendarmes, 
armoured vehicles (APCs), bulldozers, rubber bullets, drones, 200 cameras and 
11,000 tear gas and stun grenades fired since the operation began at 3.20am on 
the morning of the 9th of April 2018.

The state said that these would be “targeted evictions”, claiming that there 
were up to 80 ‘radical’ zadists that would be hunted down, and that the rest, 
the ‘good’ zadists, would have to legalise or face the same fate. The good 
zadist was a caricature of the gentle ‘neo rural farmer’ returning to the land, 
the bad, an ultra violent revolutionary, just there to make trouble. Of course 
this was a fantasy vision to feed the state’s primary strategy, to divide this 
diverse popular movement that has managed to defeat 3 different French 
governments and win France’s biggest political victory of a generation: 
l’abandon de l’aéroport de Notre-Dame-des-Landes.

The zad was initially set up as a protest against the building of a new airport 
for the city of Nantes, following a letter by residents distributed during a 
climate camp in 2009, which invited people to squat the land and buildings: 
‘because’ as they wrote ‘only an inhabited territory can be defended’. Over the 
years this territory earmarked for a mega infrastructure project, evolved into 
Europe’s largest laboratory of commoning. Before the French state started to 
bulldoze our homes, there were 70