subject:"\[\-empyre\-\] Introduction"

Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2020-05-13 Thread Byron Rich

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Thanks for the response, Sophia.

I’m particularly struck by this: “For example, my Embodisuit project is a 
garment covered in circuit boards to experience data haptically. Whether I 
exhibited this work in technical, art, or more everyday contexts, I was 
completely stunned that everyone defaulted to calling the circuit boards 
“sensors”. It was really a struggle for them to wrap their minds around the 
idea that you can have electronics on the body without sensors. That’s because 
tech companies only show us futures for wearables that heavily rely on sensors 
because they want our data to sell or serve us ads. Getting people to become 
aware of that narrow and biased vision for the future is something artists can 
do by drawing attention to the problem, imagining alternatives, and helping 
people envision different futures for themselves.” In considering this 
statement, and Ben’s comment “Put another way, we can't just build a great 
alternative, we have to also facilitate individual development of a critical 
reflex towards software and platforms so that when an alternative arrives 
people know and feel why it's important to shift.”, I can’t help but think of 
Anne Robert Jaques Turgot (1727-1781) who is often credited as being the 
“founding philosopher of progress”. Turgot believed that science and reason led 
to the enlightenment. Here we are two centuries later, and I can’t help but 
think about what Turgot would think about how reason and science have seemingly 
diverged, at least on a scale that we can use blanket critiques regarding 
society in terms of our relationship to emerging and established technologies 
with relative impunity. 

In Lepenies Art, Politics, and Development, a book I’m likely to keep 
referencing this month, he argues that during the time of Turgot and Condorcet, 
humanity wasn’t broadly grasping the future as something that could be defined, 
rather than something that would “automatically come by itself.” Interestingly, 
the lack of critical discourse, or even more worryingly, the lack of care 
despite the overwhelming information regarding data collection via social 
media, etc. in contemporary culture as we can see manifest in our Facebook 
feeds where (at least many of my) friends denounce the platform yet continue to 
rely on it as the point of connection. I guess what I’m getting at is a feeling 
of worry when the most critically aware of us are still so heavily reliant on 
these tools of communication that we are letting them as Ben stated “prescribe 
culture”. The work of artists like the three of you that have joined us this 
week seems more salient than ever as we all struggle to find points of 
connection in these uncharted waters. Hope exists thanks to the kind of 
critical discourse spawned by these interventions, and perhaps we’re 
approaching a point where defining the future is once again wedded to reason. 


-- 
Byron Rich 
Assistant Professor of Art
Director of Art, Science & Innovation
Global Citizen Scholar Faculty Director
Affiliated Faculty - Integrative Informatics 

Allegheny College
Doane Hall of Art, A204
Meadville, PA
(o) 814.332.3381
www.byronrich.com

Allegheny Lab for Innovation & Creativity
www.sites.allegheny.edu/alic/

Co-chair of Exhibitions & Events - New Media Caucus
www.newmediacaucus.org

Reference letters require three weeks of lead time. 

From: Sophia Brueckner
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2020 10:50 AM
To: Ben Grosser
Cc: Byron Rich; empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

Byron asked “As someone really invested, aware, and working in the discourse of 
social media and its proliferation of policy and culture, are you hopeful at 
all?”

Ben said: “As Geert Lovink said recently, artists have a ‘special 
responsibility’ to take on the tech corporations...artists can leverage their 
ability to build/create/amplify in ways that challenge the trillion dollar 
corporations and their billionaire leaders, to make works that help everyday 
users see that the designs of monopoly platforms *prescribe* culture. Put 
another way, we can't just build a great alternative, we have to also 
facilitate individual development of a critical reflex towards software and 
platforms so that when an alternative arrives people know and feel why it's 
important to shift.”

This has been such a great conversation! I wholeheartedly agree with Ben that 
one of the most important things I do as an artist is create work that helps 
everyday users understand how these tech companies are prescribing our culture, 
influencing our thoughts and behaviors, and providing us with some pretty sad 
visions for the future.

We do throw around the word “dystopia” a lot, and this conversation makes me 
want to express what I think a dystopia is in a more nuanced way. When I think 
of a dystopia, I think of a world where things are deeply broken, but it is so 
self-reinforcing tha

Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2020-05-12 Thread Sophia Brueckner

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Byron asked “As someone really invested, aware, and working in the
discourse of social media and its proliferation of policy and culture, are
you hopeful at all?”

Ben said: “As Geert Lovink said recently, artists have a ‘special
responsibility’ to take on the tech corporations...artists can leverage
their ability to build/create/amplify in ways that challenge the trillion
dollar corporations and their billionaire leaders, to make works that help
everyday users see that the designs of monopoly platforms *prescribe*
culture. Put another way, we can't just build a great alternative, we have
to also facilitate individual development of a critical reflex towards
software and platforms so that when an alternative arrives people know and
feel why it's important to shift.”

This has been such a great conversation! I wholeheartedly agree with Ben
that one of the most important things I do as an artist is create work that
helps everyday users understand how these tech companies are prescribing
our culture, influencing our thoughts and behaviors, and providing us with
some pretty sad visions for the future.

We do throw around the word “dystopia” a lot, and this conversation makes
me want to express what I think a dystopia is in a more nuanced way. When I
think of a dystopia, I think of a world where things are deeply broken, but
it is so self-reinforcing that people can no longer imagine an alternative.
The technologies we rely on today are broken, but I don’t think we are yet
heading towards that self-reinforcing state. We know that social media
technologies are addictive and shallow. However, most people I know feel
increasingly frustrated and want an out the more they use them. They just
don’t know how to get out yet. That awareness makes me hopeful even if new,
healthier technologies aren’t going to replace the ones we have any time
soon. Increasing that awareness is what motivates me!

For example, my Embodisuit project is a garment covered in circuit boards
to experience data haptically. Whether I exhibited this work in technical,
art, or more everyday contexts, I was completely stunned that everyone
defaulted to calling the circuit boards “sensors”. It was really a struggle
for them to wrap their minds around the idea that you can have electronics
on the body without sensors. That’s because tech companies only show us
futures for wearables that heavily rely on sensors because they want our
data to sell or serve us ads. Getting people to become aware of that narrow
and biased vision for the future is something artists can do by drawing
attention to the problem, imagining alternatives, and helping people
envision different futures for themselves.

One of the things I often talk about is “critical optimism”, which means
earnestly trying to build good things but also being able to critique the
weaknesses of your ideas. Instead of black or white thinking, imagine
medium to light grey thinking. :) I get really frustrated by both blindly
optimistic visions of the future as well as unconstructively pessimistic
ones. Both extremes are actually a form of passivity. Both extremes mean
you get to give up and not, as Donna Haraway so beautifully says, “stay
with the trouble.” As an artist, I can help people be more aware and
thoughtful, and I can help them feel like their individual efforts working
towards a better future are worthy and important even though they will
never be perfect. So, while I’m extremely critical of the technologies we
are forced to deal with now, my artistic practice overall is very hopeful.

--
Sophia Brueckner

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

Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2020-05-11 Thread Ben Grosser

--empyre- soft-skinned space--On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 10:10 AM Byron Rich  wrote:

> As we start to wind down week one, I’m really interested in your
> perspective on the future. As noted in the opening thoughts earlier this
> week, Margaret Atwood doesn’t like it when the word “dystopia” is thrown
> around without a level of criticality. As someone really invested, aware,
> and working in the discourse of social media and its proliferation of
> policy and culture, are you hopeful at all? Do you see potential in any
> emerging platforms to be less invasive like Vero or even Discord?
>

I suppose it depends on the time scale you're asking about. In the near
term, I don't have much hope. The big five for-profit tech corporations
(Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft) have a profound level of power
over our future, with the ability to influence who we listen to, what we
say, and what information we can find (or never see). Even if you presume
the best of intentions on the part of these corporations, their leaders
have proven time and again that they are incapable of anticipating—or
heeding predictive warnings about—ways their technologies can be weaponized
to support/extend/embolden existing power structures. This is further
complicated by the current moment, where COVID-19 has not only pushed more
of the world online than ever before, it's made us more dependent on the
network than we ever expected.

One result of this pandemic-era shift to online everything has been an
uptick of public perception for companies like Facebook, as we need more
than ever the remote connection it and other dominant platforms enable.
Companies like the ones making Vero or Discord, despite improved
intentions, are still for-profits, funded by VC firms and/or billionaire
founders. One of the many lessons from the last four years is that putting
mass amounts of personal data into the hands of for-profit corporations not
threatens individual privacy, but puts democracy itself at risk. I
appreciate any attempt by any organization to build something outside of
the dominant "free" for the user ad-funded systems we have now. But because
of near monopoly effect of scale that Facebook, Google, and others enjoy,
it will take more than small alternatives to compete (to see evidence of
this, consider the negligible negative effect on Facebook of the various
#deletefacebook campaigns over the last few years). Instead we need to
start advocating for *public, non-profit *and/or *federally-supported*
infrastructure for social interaction that is decentralized,
advertising-free, and cost-free for users (because it's supported by tax
dollars or some other progressive public funding model). Until society
collectively assembles something like this, I don't see any realistic
competition taking on Facebook/Google/etc in a way that could encourage
sufficient migration to make it a viable alternative. Social networks—just
like internet access, web search, and a handful of other areas—are now just
as important for global progress as roads, libraries, etc were when they
emerged.

As Geert Lovink said recently, artists have a "special responsibility" to
take on the tech corporations. Government isn't going to jump start this in
any meaningful way. Private corps won't do it either. But artists can
leverage their ability to build/create/amplify in ways that challenge the
trillion dollar corporations and their billionaire leaders, to make works
that help everyday users see that the designs of monopoly platforms
*prescribe* culture. Put another way, we can't just build a great
alternative, we have to also facilitate individual development of a
critical reflex towards software and platforms so that when an alternative
arrives people know and feel why it's important to shift.

Oh, and as for your question about whether we can still use the term
"tactical media"—yes please, let's keep using it.

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

Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2020-05-10 Thread Byron Rich

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Thanks for the history, Ben. 

I think your work has an incredible amount of reach given that you’ve been 
featured in (relatively) conservative news outlets in addition to having widely 
shown your work globally. I, like most artists I think, have to spend time 
reflecting on what kind of impact their work is actually having more broadly. 
It seems like you’re in a position where you’ve found a sweet spot in terms of 
content vs. public digestibility. I mean that your work has a level of 
complexity, both technically and conceptually, that could be alienating, yet 
the way in which you deliver it in terms of its actual accessibility (Chrome 
web store for instance as a plugin in the case of Facebook Demetricator), but 
also aesthetically seems to give it a level of social permeability that is kind 
of rare for tactical media (are we still able to use that term?). It’s 
admirable, and I think incredibly rare to be able to produce such poignant but 
simultaneously, at least on the surface level, understandable work.

As we start to wind down week one, I’m really interested in your perspective on 
the future. As noted in the opening thoughts earlier this week, Margaret Atwood 
doesn’t like it when the word “dystopia” is thrown around without a level of 
criticality. As someone really invested, aware, and working in the discourse of 
social media and its proliferation of policy and culture, are you hopeful at 
all? Do you see potential in any emerging platforms to be less invasive like 
Vero or even Discord? 



-- 
Byron Rich 
Assistant Professor of Art
Director of Art, Science & Innovation
Global Citizen Scholar Faculty Director
Affiliated Faculty - Integrative Informatics 

Allegheny College
Doane Hall of Art, A204
Meadville, PA
(o) 814.332.3381
www.byronrich.com

Allegheny Lab for Innovation & Creativity
www.sites.allegheny.edu/alic/

Co-chair of Exhibitions & Events - New Media Caucus
www.newmediacaucus.org

Reference letters require three weeks of lead time. 

From: Ben Grosser
Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2020 8:03 AM
To: empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

Byron wrote: Do you ever worry that you’re doing the research of finding 
conceptual holes for the corporations whose platform you are critiquing? I 
mean, is there ever a concern that they use your work to actually close 
loopholes, or more actively suppress the very real marginalizing effects their 
platforms engender?

I don't worry much about this. I think this is because, while the corporations 
have at times used my research to make (or really, more, to announce potential) 
changes, the holes they might close by doing so would be—on balance—of benefit 
to the user. Further, even if it wasn't, it's my role as an artist to critique 
the platforms in ways that enable everyday users to see them differently. Doing 
so risks alerting the companies to those same critiques.

I'll use my social media demetrication projects as illustration. Back in 2012, 
when I first launched Facebook Demetricator, many thought hiding visible 
metrics on the platform was a strange idea ("without like counts how would I 
know what matters?" was a common refrain), or that Demetricator was meant for 
those "unpopular" people whose metrics were so low they couldn't bear to face 
them. Even so, Facebook developers tried it out and Silicon Valley talked about 
it for a while. In 2014 I published a research article detailing the negative 
effects of metrics that was covered in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. In the 
summer of 2016 Facebook (which now also owns Instagram) came after me legally 
to get my work kicked off the Chrome web store (I successfully fought back with 
pro bono help from the EFF). In other words, even though Facebook knew about my 
work, they weren't using it. Sometime after this, I built additional 
Demetricators for Twitter and Instagram.

But then came the 2016 US Presidential and UK Brexit votes, and social media 
corporations were all of the sudden facing significant scrutiny. Governments 
investigated them for their roles in the dissemination of disinformation and 
targeted advertising used to manipulate those elections. The public was up in 
arms about Cambridge Analytica and the misuse of personal data. The world was 
finding concern about the negative effects of social media on self-esteem, 
anxiety, and well-being. And so, finally, in 2019 the corporations had an 
amazing "original" idea: maybe we should hide some metrics! Jack Dorsey 
(Twitter CEO) started talking about the visible follower count as producing 
undesirable behavior. Facebook announced they would test hiding metrics. Adam 
Mosseri (Instagram CEO) said hiding the like count (for others) would improve 
user well-being and announced their first "tests" would commence. (If of 
interest, the influence of Demetricator on the social media corp

Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2020-05-09 Thread Roya Ebtehaj

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Byron, you made an interesting point about the complexities of
empowerment movements and coopting them, I have a lot to say about
that in the Iranian context!

We barely see international corporation’s ads on Iranian TV for two
reasons. One is that for the past 40 years, the Iranian regime is
strongly against cultural westernization. Secondly, because of
sanctions, Iran is cut off from the global corporate world. In Iran,
the biggest corporations are not private and are connected to the
government, and the rest are small businesses. So in national media,
they don't coopt any type of “sex positive” feminist ideas. They
minimize women's appearance and require them to strictly follow the
Islamic dress code. In this sense, they seem to be in agreement with
feminists who argue that women shouldn’t be objectified or sexualized
for advertising, but they consider this a part of Islamic ideology
unrelated to feminism. The government doesn't believe that we can look
to western social movements as a source of empowerment.

But if you ask me if this protects Iranian from western cultural
influence, my answer is No, not at all! First of all, globalization is
inevitable today. Secondly, for many people, the grass is always
greener on the other side, especially since the government imposes so
many restrictions!
Instagram is the most powerful uncensored media for Iranian people.
Because they lack any means for free expression domestically, Iranians
have to rely on Western platforms for this!
In this chaos, Iranian Instagram influencers play crucial roles to
showcase small businesses. Why? Simply because it is an economical way
to advertise to a vast audience. I can talk forever about the
hierarchical relationship between the advertisement industry, the
influencer and also the user’s thirst for more controversial content.
So these specific influencers borrow some aspects of feminism (like
not covering up the body, or my body is my choice,) to their
advantages but just at the virtual level.

Your comment about neo-colonialism has reminded me of Noam Chomsky's
definition of colonialism: One form of powerful system subdues others
and one form subdues their own population. I believe the issue in Iran
is more related to domestic repression than western neo-colonialism.
To answer your question about Plastic Makes Perfect, it would be naive
of me to think western corporations targeted my culture specifically.
To the corporation, it doesn't matter which ideal of cultural
perfection is promoted. It’s all about money for them. While Iranians
can't click on Instagram ads and add any products to their shopping
carts, you can still find any western product for triple its original
price in Iran. This is what I wanted to show in those two animations,
with a modified Louis Vuitton pattern for the background, Absolut
Vodka next to the male figure, and a Gucci bag in the female figure’s
hand.

On Sat, May 9, 2020 at 8:17 AM Byron Rich  wrote:
>
> Roya, I think this is well worth diving into a bit deeper. I was listening to 
> a podcast recently (which one, I can’t remember) and they were addressing the 
> co-opting of sex positive feminism by corporations to sell. They were using 
> examples like yours, of very surface level models of empowerment. I alongside 
> my friend Liz Flyntz have been working on a project entitled Epicurean 
> Endocrinology for a couple of years that confronts highly gendered tropes as 
> tools of both political control and as sales tools, both traditionally 
> masculine and feminine tropes, especially, that act simply to reinforce 
> stereotypes so I have a vested interest in this topic.
>
>
>
> I guess I’d be interested in hearing more from your perspective about the 
> complexities and intricacies of the intertwining nodes of empowerment 
> movements, feminism, and corporate/political appropriation or coopting of the 
> aforementioned elements in Iranian culture. Could you delve more into Plastic 
> Makes Perfect and the proliferation of western ideals in Iranian culture as 
> manifested in plastic surgery, and how your work confronts this corporate 
> neo-colonialism? I’d be really interested in you unpacking some of the 
> symbols and concepts embedded in the aesthetics.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Byron Rich
> Assistant Professor of Art
> Director of Art, Science & Innovation
> Global Citizen Scholar Faculty Director
> Affiliated Faculty - Integrative Informatics
>
> Allegheny College
> Doane Hall of Art, A204
> Meadville, PA
>
> (o) 814.332.3381
> www.byronrich.com
>
> Allegheny Lab for Innovation & Creativity
>
> www.sites.allegheny.edu/alic/
>
> Co-chair of Exhibitions & Events - New Media Caucus
> www.newmediacaucus.org
>
> Reference letters require three weeks of lead time.
>
>

Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2020-05-09 Thread Byron Rich

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Roya, I think this is well worth diving into a bit deeper. I was listening to a 
podcast recently (which one, I can’t remember) and they were addressing the 
co-opting of sex positive feminism by corporations to sell. They were using 
examples like yours, of very surface level models of empowerment. I alongside 
my friend Liz Flyntz have been working on a project entitled Epicurean 
Endocrinology for a couple of years that confronts highly gendered tropes as 
tools of both political control and as sales tools, both traditionally 
masculine and feminine tropes, especially, that act simply to reinforce 
stereotypes so I have a vested interest in this topic.   

I guess I’d be interested in hearing more from your perspective about the 
complexities and intricacies of the intertwining nodes of empowerment 
movements, feminism, and corporate/political appropriation or coopting of the 
aforementioned elements in Iranian culture. Could you delve more into Plastic 
Makes Perfect and the proliferation of western ideals in Iranian culture as 
manifested in plastic surgery, and how your work confronts this corporate 
neo-colonialism? I’d be really interested in you unpacking some of the symbols 
and concepts embedded in the aesthetics.

-- 
Byron Rich 
Assistant Professor of Art
Director of Art, Science & Innovation
Global Citizen Scholar Faculty Director
Affiliated Faculty - Integrative Informatics 

Allegheny College
Doane Hall of Art, A204
Meadville, PA
(o) 814.332.3381
www.byronrich.com

Allegheny Lab for Innovation & Creativity
www.sites.allegheny.edu/alic/

Co-chair of Exhibitions & Events - New Media Caucus
www.newmediacaucus.org

Reference letters require three weeks of lead time. 

From: Roya Ebtehaj
Sent: Wednesday, May 6, 2020 9:09 PM
To: Byron Rich
Cc: empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

I don’t see any way that tech giants and social media platforms can
really benefit from the commentary and critique that I am engaged in.
My work is about how social media shapes popular culture and
appearances, and I can’t imagine that the creators of Instagram truly
care about these consequences and cultural shifts. These giants are so
confident in the strength of social media culture and its widespread
use that they couldn’t possibly see me as a threat and I  am pretty
confident I’m not on their radar as an individual.

Social media is inherently objectifying, and they polish their
interface every day to hide what they truly do behind the curtain. Let
me give you an example:

A few months ago, the Instagram algorithm started to block images that
displayed women’s nipples, including painter's/photographers Instagram
posts because it violates Instagram guidelines. Some people started to
use hashtags like #freenipple and #mybodyisnotobscene in protest.
Today, if you search #freenipple you get this message:

“Recent posts are currently hidden because the community has reposted
some content that may not meet Instagram’s community guidelines.” So
who is this community, really?

What’s truly bizarre is how Instagram selectively enforces these
guidelines in a way such that much more overtly sexual content gets
posted undetected. The past few weeks, for example, I noticed certain
Iranian Instagram celebrities asked women to join them on live video,
and asked them to shake their butts while they were dressed in just
their underwear.  They would have a sexual Q with the girls and
eventually encourage people to sign up for their gambling websites in
order to live lives of luxury like them. It seems then that Instagram
has no problem with people using women's bodies and sexuality as they
wish as long as they meet their supposed guidelines.

On Wed, May 6, 2020 at 8:20 AM Byron Rich  wrote:
>
> I’m pasting Ben and Sophia’s intros to their work into this thread.
>
>
>
> Thank you all for your thoughtful intros to your work.
>
>
>
> I guess to start I thought I’d talk about why I’ve been drawn to your work 
> individually.
>
>
>
> In 2007 I was in undergrad and trying to reconcile with what I wanted to do 
> as an artist. I still feel that way. Anyway, my professor, Jean-Rene Leblanc, 
> introduced me to Ben’s piece Money Management and Electronic Mail  as he 
> thought it might help me envision a transition from being a painter to a 
> new-media artist. Ben’s work seemed omnipresent in my way of thinking and 
> contextualizing the stuff I was producing from 2007 to 2013. I was hugely 
> inspired by it when I made my collaborative piece Paint-by-Numbers in 2013. 
> Ben’s consideration of the political effects of software, and “websites and 
> software as fluid” resonated immensely, even though I wasn’t and still am 
> not, adept enough at writing code to produce such culturally resonant works.
>
>
>
> Sophia entered my radar in 2013

Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2020-05-07 Thread Sophia Brueckner

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Byron wrote: Do you ever worry that you’re doing the research of finding
conceptual holes for the corporations whose platform you are critiquing? I
mean, is there ever a concern that they use your work to actually close
loopholes, or more actively suppress the very real marginalizing effects
their platforms engender?

I am deeply critical of existing social networks, but this isn't something
that worries me. To be honest, I think the brokenness of popular social
networks is structural, and there is no way they could fix it with the
addition of a new feature at this point.

I mentioned to Ben recently that I’ve been doing some writing about this.
The need for social distancing has made the limitations of these
technologies more apparent. People want to connect, and, despite having all
these social technologies, people are still feeling frustrated and
isolated.

I think this is because when we think we are “sharing” on a social network,
we are actually performing online for others. The word you see plastered
all over social networks is “share”. Sharing is supposed to be a good
thing. Sharing is generous. It’s unselfish. Sharing is a way of connecting
with people. These positive connotations are exactly why tech companies
homed in on the word “share”. As a result, “sharing” online has come to
mean *broadcasting monetizable content*. Sharing isn’t broadcasting, but
we’ve been conditioned by tech companies to think that it is. This
evolution has happened slowly so that most people haven’t noticed the
change. There is no good synonym for “share” in the English language, and I
worry about what will happen when soon there will be people who never knew
“sharing” before social networks co-opted the word.

Making people aware of this is what drives my work as well as helping
people imagine how things could be different.

Just because popular social networks don't allow for genuine sharing
doesn’t mean technology has to be this way. In Captured by an Algorithm (
https://sophiabrueckner.com/romance.html), I’ve uncovered an existing
example of a social network where people are sharing without broadcasting
through Amazon’s Kindle Popular Highlight feature. A passage in a Kindle
e-book becomes a Popular Highlight after a certain number of people
independently highlight the same passage. Popular Highlights show up as
underlined along with the number of people who highlighted that passage.
Kindle Popular Highlights in romance novels surprisingly often focus on
loneliness and grief. These passages are not the sort of thing that people
would broadcast. They aren’t something people would highlight to return to
later or post on Goodreads. When a reader highlights one of these Popular
Highlights, it is as if they are saying "I understand" or "me too!" Not
having to perform through a persona allows people to express their empathy
and vulnerability.

My hardware projects (https://sophiabrueckner.com/amulet.html,
https://sophiabrueckner.com/embodisuit.html) all explore ways we could
connect with others that are totally different than how social networks
function now. In preliminary research with incarcerated youth, I’ve been
working with Nokia Bell Labs to reduce social isolation in juvenile
detention centers. We are working to transform physical walls into
interfaces bridging incarcerated youth anonymously with the outside world.
Using physical sensations, we aim to create an anonymous sense of presence
and generosity between the youth and the surrounding community. Maybe if we
hadn’t ignored the situation of people who struggled with isolation before
the Covid crisis, such as those who are incarcerated or the elderly, we
wouldn’t be struggling so much now with how online personas interfere with
authentic connection. By focusing on those who are now the most vulnerable
and affected, maybe we can learn how to help the greater community. Popular
social networks focus on attention instead of presence. They emphasize
attention instead of generosity. Attention is prioritized because attention
is monetizable.

The engineer in me knows that it would require the resources of a tech
company to build a new kind of social network, and I hope one day they do
build a social network that I would be happy to pay for with actual money
rather than my attention and data.
___
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu

Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2020-05-07 Thread Ben Grosser

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Byron wrote: *Do you ever worry that you’re doing the research of finding
conceptual holes for the corporations whose platform you are critiquing? I
mean, is there ever a concern that they use your work to actually close
loopholes, or more actively suppress the very real marginalizing effects
their platforms engender?*

I don't worry much about this. I think this is because, while the
corporations have at times used my research to make (or really, more, to
announce potential) changes, the holes they might close by doing so would
be—on balance—of benefit to the user. Further, even if it wasn't, it's my
role as an artist to critique the platforms in ways that enable everyday
users to see them differently. Doing so risks alerting the companies to
those same critiques.

I'll use my social media demetrication projects as illustration. Back in
2012, when I first launched Facebook Demetricator
, many thought
hiding visible metrics on the platform was a strange idea ("without like
counts how would I know what matters?" was a common refrain), or that
Demetricator was meant for those "unpopular" people whose metrics were so
low they couldn't bear to face them. Even so, Facebook developers tried it
out and Silicon Valley talked about it for a while. In 2014 I published a
research article detailing the negative effects of metrics that was covered
in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. In the summer of 2016 Facebook (which now
also owns Instagram) came after me legally to get my work kicked off the
Chrome web store (I successfully fought back with pro bono help from the
EFF). In other words, even though Facebook knew about my work, they weren't
using it. Sometime after this, I built additional Demetricators for Twitter
and Instagram.

But then came the 2016 US Presidential and UK Brexit votes, and social
media corporations were all of the sudden facing significant scrutiny.
Governments investigated them for their roles in the dissemination of
disinformation and targeted advertising used to manipulate those elections.
The public was up in arms about Cambridge Analytica and the misuse of
personal data. The world was finding concern about the negative effects of
social media on self-esteem, anxiety, and well-being. And so, finally, in
2019 the corporations had an amazing "original" idea: maybe we should hide
some metrics! Jack Dorsey (Twitter CEO) started talking about the visible
follower count as producing undesirable behavior. Facebook announced they
would test hiding metrics. Adam Mosseri (Instagram CEO) said hiding the
like count (for others) would improve user well-being and announced their
first "tests" would commence. (If of interest, the influence of
Demetricator on the social media corporations was the subject of a
comprehensive
article in *OneZero*)

To be clear, these CEO/corporate PR statements haven't led to much action
yet. Twitter hasn't hidden any metrics in their core product. Tests by
Facebook haven't been observed or talked about publicly since the
announcement. And while Instagram has garnered significant positive media
attention for their *announcements*, so far their actions have been limited
to hiding only the like count for certain users under specific conditions
in a subset of countries (not including the US). In other words, these
tests have been small to non-existent so far, so perhaps the influence is
limited. But even if Instagram does move forward and hide like counts in
all countries for all users, it's still a limited co-option of the idea of
hiding metrics platform-wide. That said, I hope they do it anyway as it
would be interesting to see the results.

Loopholes closed in response to some of my other works might be less
balanced than Demetricator (I'm thinking about ScareMail
potentially enabling the NSA
to further refine its surveillance algorithms, or Go Rando
showing Facebook they need to
analyze a user's words in addition to user "reactions" if they want to
surveil user emotion). But even in these cases, the primary purpose of the
works is not to severely thwart these companies' activities (if I did that
they'd just use a pile of lawyers to shut me down instantly). It is instead
to enable regular users to develop their own critical lens on the platforms
in a way that not just alerts them to problems with the particular
interface component of concern, but also to the need to scrutinize
*whatever* these platforms want from us and to question why one feels
compelled to give them just that.

Ben
___
empyre forum

Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2020-05-06 Thread Roya Ebtehaj

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
I don’t see any way that tech giants and social media platforms can
really benefit from the commentary and critique that I am engaged in.
My work is about how social media shapes popular culture and
appearances, and I can’t imagine that the creators of Instagram truly
care about these consequences and cultural shifts. These giants are so
confident in the strength of social media culture and its widespread
use that they couldn’t possibly see me as a threat and I  am pretty
confident I’m not on their radar as an individual.


Social media is inherently objectifying, and they polish their
interface every day to hide what they truly do behind the curtain. Let
me give you an example:

A few months ago, the Instagram algorithm started to block images that
displayed women’s nipples, including painter's/photographers Instagram
posts because it violates Instagram guidelines. Some people started to
use hashtags like #freenipple and #mybodyisnotobscene in protest.
Today, if you search #freenipple you get this message:

“Recent posts are currently hidden because the community has reposted
some content that may not meet Instagram’s community guidelines.” So
who is this community, really?


What’s truly bizarre is how Instagram selectively enforces these
guidelines in a way such that much more overtly sexual content gets
posted undetected. The past few weeks, for example, I noticed certain
Iranian Instagram celebrities asked women to join them on live video,
and asked them to shake their butts while they were dressed in just
their underwear.  They would have a sexual Q with the girls and
eventually encourage people to sign up for their gambling websites in
order to live lives of luxury like them. It seems then that Instagram
has no problem with people using women's bodies and sexuality as they
wish as long as they meet their supposed guidelines.

On Wed, May 6, 2020 at 8:20 AM Byron Rich  wrote:
>
> I’m pasting Ben and Sophia’s intros to their work into this thread.
>
>
>
> Thank you all for your thoughtful intros to your work.
>
>
>
> I guess to start I thought I’d talk about why I’ve been drawn to your work 
> individually.
>
>
>
> In 2007 I was in undergrad and trying to reconcile with what I wanted to do 
> as an artist. I still feel that way. Anyway, my professor, Jean-Rene Leblanc, 
> introduced me to Ben’s piece Money Management and Electronic Mail  as he 
> thought it might help me envision a transition from being a painter to a 
> new-media artist. Ben’s work seemed omnipresent in my way of thinking and 
> contextualizing the stuff I was producing from 2007 to 2013. I was hugely 
> inspired by it when I made my collaborative piece Paint-by-Numbers in 2013. 
> Ben’s consideration of the political effects of software, and “websites and 
> software as fluid” resonated immensely, even though I wasn’t and still am 
> not, adept enough at writing code to produce such culturally resonant works.
>
>
>
> Sophia entered my radar in 2013 with Musical Painting, and like Ben, 
> drastically altered my perception of how to make. Since then, her blending of 
> craft and software through her ability to unveil the underlying political and 
> polarizing effects of software, and it’s inability to be neutral continues to 
> inspire me. For instance, Camo, her 2018 work that lays bare the complex 
> reality of a system of tropes, images, and signs regarding masculinity, 
> militarization, political allegiances, etc. is profound in it’s subtle 
> subversions and ability to move between cultural extremes.
>
>
>
> Roya is an artist who I’ve recently come to know and feel equally as inspired 
> by as I do Ben and Sophia. Softwar(e) was the first work of Roya’s that I 
> came across in late 2018 as I was researching AR/VR works by artists dealing 
> with immigration and surveillance for a class I was teaching on Sci-Fi and 
> Art. What I found particularly compelling was confronting the topic from a 
> non-western point of view by examining nation states’ “purification” of 
> information to suit a political end. Her work Plastic Makes Perfect has 
> proven to be an amazing teaching tool when working with students coming to 
> grips with how software and technology cannot be apolitical.
>
>
>
> Perhaps we can have a conversation regarding, as Ben states, “software as 
> fluid”, and how this fluidity can at once be a canvas for profound cultural 
> contributions via art making, while at the same time enable a system of mass 
> suppression of thought, and manipulation. Each of you confronts this fluidity 
> in your work in one way or another, from Ben’s complex critiques of 
> “friendship foregrounded friend count”, Sophia’s compelling use of Amazon 
> Kindle text highlighting, and Roya’s confrontation of western beauty 
> standards and the social media paradigm that enforces them. Do you ever worry 
> that you’re doing the research of finding conceptual holes for the 
>

Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2020-05-06 Thread Byron Rich

--empyre- soft-skinned space--I’m pasting Ben and Sophia’s intros to their work into this thread.

Thank you all for your thoughtful intros to your work.

I guess to start I thought I’d talk about why I’ve been drawn to your work
individually.

In 2007 I was in undergrad and trying to reconcile with what I wanted to do as
an artist. I still feel that way. Anyway, my professor, Jean-Rene Leblanc,
introduced me to Ben’s piece Money Management and Electronic Mail as he
thought it might help me envision a transition from being a painter to a
new-media artist. Ben’s work seemed omnipresent in my way of thinking and
contextualizing the stuff I was producing from 2007 to 2013. I was hugely
inspired by it when I made my collaborative piece Paint-by-Numbers in 2013.
Ben’s consideration of the political effects of software, and “websites and
software as fluid” resonated immensely, even though I wasn’t and still am not,
adept enough at writing code to produce such culturally resonant works.

Sophia entered my radar in 2013 with Musical Painting, and like Ben,
drastically altered my perception of how to make. Since then, her blending of
craft and software through her ability to unveil the underlying political and
polarizing effects of software, and it’s inability to be neutral continues to
inspire me. For instance, Camo, her 2018 work that lays bare the complex
reality of a system of tropes, images, and signs regarding masculinity,
militarization, political allegiances, etc. is profound in it’s subtle
subversions and ability to move between cultural extremes.

Roya is an artist who I’ve recently come to know and feel equally as inspired
by as I do Ben and Sophia. Softwar(e) was the first work of Roya’s that I came
across in late 2018 as I was researching AR/VR works by artists dealing with
immigration and surveillance for a class I was teaching on Sci-Fi and Art. What
I found particularly compelling was confronting the topic from a non-western
point of view by examining nation states’ “purification” of information to suit
a political end. Her work Plastic Makes Perfect has proven to be an amazing
teaching tool when working with students coming to grips with how software and
technology cannot be apolitical.

Perhaps we can have a conversation regarding, as Ben states, “software as
fluid”, and how this fluidity can at once be a canvas for profound cultural
contributions via art making, while at the same time enable a system of mass
suppression of thought, and manipulation. Each of you confronts this fluidity
in your work in one way or another, from Ben’s complex critiques of “friendship
foregrounded friend count”, Sophia’s compelling use of Amazon Kindle text
highlighting, and Roya’s confrontation of western beauty standards and the
social media paradigm that enforces them. Do you ever worry that you’re doing
the research of finding conceptual holes for the corporations whose platform
you are critiquing? I mean, is there ever a concern that they use your work to
actually close loopholes, or more actively suppress the very real marginalizing
effects their platforms engender?

Below are the intros given by each artist in case you missed them.
--

Ben
Hello Everyone,

Byron asked me to start with a brief introduction to my work...

I focus on the cultural, social, and political effects of software. What does
it mean for human creativity when a computational system can make its own
artworks? How is an interface that foregrounds our friend count changing our
conceptions of friendship? Why do we become emotionally attached to software
systems and what does this attachment enable for those who made them? To
examine questions like these, I construct interactive experiences, machines,
and systems that make the familiar unfamiliar, revealing the ways that software
prescribes our behavior and thus, how it changes who we are.

My primary artistic research method is one of "software recomposition," or the
treating of existing websites and other software systems not as fixed spaces of
consumption and prescribed interaction but instead as fluid spaces of
manipulation and experimentation. Many of my works are browser extensions that
get in between the user and the systems they use every day, enabling them to
critically examine their own experiences with software. Examples include
Facebook Demetricator (hides all metrics across the Facebook interface), Go
Rando (obfuscates how you feel on Facebook), Safebook (Facebook without any of
the content at all), and ScareMail (tries to make your email "scary" to the
NSA). Other works examine algorithmic agency, including Computers Watching
Movies (shows what a computational system sees when it watches popular film),
and Interactive Robotic Painting Machine (a robot that makes paintings while
considering what it hears as input). Sometimes I set code aside and work
on/with video or sound. My recent film

[-empyre-] Introduction

2020-05-06 Thread Roya Ebtehaj

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hello everybody,

I am Roya Ebtehaj, an Iranian artist based in the Bay Area, CA. I
incorporate XR technology (VR/AR), 3D, video, animation, web, and
installation to reflect on the themes of identity, stress, and digital
chaos. My practice stems from looking for new methodologies, taking a
multidisciplinary approach, and merging creative production and modern
technology.

My current research navigates between two directions. The first is Multiple
Identities, which reflects my questions about my own personal dual identity
based on the society where I grew up. Byron’s wonderful introduction also
reminded me of the days I grew up alongside the transition from analog to
digital as I was learning ways to bypass Iranian internet filtering in
order to check my Orkut account!

The other aspect of my research focuses on 21st century digital
exploitation. Imperialism and capitalism have taken on a new form in the
digital age. Corporations misuse our data (and we are complicit) and
globalisation and consumerism have become the new normal.
One of the themes I explore is “Plastystopia,” a horrific dystopia where
everything is fake. With this idea in mind, in 2019,  I created an
installation called “Plastic Makes Perfect”. Below is a link to this piece,
where you can learn more.
https://www.digitalamerica.org/plastystopia-roya-ebtehaj/

Thanks to Byron and those who introduced me to this community, I am very
happy and honoured to be part of it! I hope you enjoy the rest of your week
in this uncertain time!


Roya



-- 
Roya Ebtehaj
Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Art and Art History
Santa Clara University
https://www.royaebtehaj.com/
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empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu

Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2018-06-09 Thread Jenny Pickett

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

The mycelium subject has been one we have been have been approaching via a 
couple of projects recently, not least in relation to networked audio practices 
that apo33 has been developing over the last 20 years.


Here's a quick introduction to APO33 and mycelium projects


APO33 Collective

APO33 is an interdisciplinary artistic, theoretical and technological 
laboratory that develops various collective projects combining research, 
experimentation and intervention in the social space.

Apo33 aims is to work with the dynamics of the free software movement: a 
modular space, initiating collaborative projects and creative processes and 
exploring new modes of artistic and creative production and dissemination.

Through workshops, sharing workshops, seminars, interventions in the public 
space, creations, international meetings, online projects, publications etc., 
APO33 works to develop the current transformations of artistic and cultural 
practices, consequences reappropriations and uses of Information and 
Communication Technologies.

This objectives leads APO33 to work on the margins of the cultural field to 
explore the passages and crossings that can take place between creation and 
other social disciplines or practices (political activism, mediation or social 
action, hard sciences and human sciences, urban planning, ecology, economy …).


Mycelium Projects

We are working for the last couple of years on Mycelium and plants e-waste 
recycling and feedback radio transmission using moisture.

Two projects come up with their different relation to the mycelium, networks 
and audio diffusion.


MotherPlant Computational Spores Recycling Network

Using dead motherboards from old computer, we turn them into micro-farm land to 
recycle the components of the motherboard and to produce minimal electrical 
current in order to create alternative new free way of computational data 
exchange.


Mycelium Feedback radio transmission

Apo33, had been working with feedback to produce a range of body works using 
these rejected sounds and processes embedded in computer science and other 
cybernetic theories of communication. We are looking at the non-communicative, 
pure energy feedback production contained within nature, from plants to 
mycelium and using old technologies of radio and electromagnetic transmission.



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

Sent: 08 June 2018 22:41
To: soft_skinned_space
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
I am very interested in this thread because I'm very interested in literal 
mycelium. My project, The Blued Trees Symphony, which Kathy participated in in 
2015, is seeking Earth rights protection for forest ecosystems. The 
communicative relationships between mycellium as proof of alternate sentience 
are crucial to that argument. The week of June 18, I'll be participating in an 
interdsiciplianry workshop at Hubbard Brooks reserve in NH, where we'll be 
looking at a variety of ways to sonify aspects of forest systems- water, leaves 
etc, but no one in attendance is sonifying mycellium. Is anyone trying to 
sonify actual mycelium? I look forward to following posts on topic.

Aviva Rahmani, PhD
www.ghostn...@ghostnets.com<http://www.ghostn...@ghostnets.com> 
<http://www.ghostn...@ghostnets.com>
Aviva Rahmani : Ecological Artist<http://www%2eghostn...@ghostnets.com/>
ghostnets.com
Ecological artist Aviva Rahmani, grounded in feminist performance art,virtual 
and acoustic experimentation doing international site specific environmental 
restoration in collaboration with other artists, scientists, activists and city 
planners concerned with global warming and wetlands loss.


Watch ³Blued Trees²:  https://vimeo.com/135290635
www.gulftogulf.org<http://www.gulftogulf.org> <http://www.gulftogulf.org/>



On 6/8/18, 1:59 PM, "empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of 
Christina McPhee"  wrote:

--empyre- soft-skinned space--

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

Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2018-06-09 Thread Shu Lea Cheang

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
in response to Aviva's



Is  anyone trying to sonify actual mycelium?
yes, one of our long time sonic collaborator Martin Howse started a 
project called Radio Mycelium and has been conducting workshops since 2011,


"Radio Mycelium proposes the construction of a series of experimental 
situations examining a new networked imaginary, the single organism of 
the fungal mycelium, in relation to pathogenic, electromagnetic 
communications. Participants will learn how to construct simple 
measurement devices, and culture shiitake, blue oyster and Enokitake 
mushrooms, amongst other simple moulds." - Quoting Martin Howse, 
https://fo.am/radio_mycelium/



Further note: This year, Mycelium Network Society as a project entity 
has been invited to Join Taipei Biennale 2018 which focuses on


Post-Nature-A Museum as an Ecosystem

https://www.tfam.museum/News/News_page.aspx?id=1123=en


We will be constructing a molecular structure of 17 atoms based on C_7 
H_6 O_4 /formula of Patulin//. //Each atom is built with transparent 
acrylic glass inside which we implement the living habitation to grow a 
bed of /ganoderma lucida (LingZhi) mycelium/mushroom. In an attempt to 
examine cross-spore germination between two parallel wide-area networks; 
between radio-based communication technologies and the single organism 
network of the mycelium, we install radio mycelium with Fungal 
transceivers sprouting mycelial antennas forming an imaginary 
underground network. There will also be screen display to show 
participating network nodes' mycelium related activities.



the proposal - http://myceliumns.net/proposals/MNS-taipei-biennale-web.pdf

This may also answer somehow Patrick's investigation of fungal nature of 
electronic nets?



This week 1 discussion has been very inspiring thank you all for 
posting.


sl



On 09/06/18 00:41, Aviva Rahmani wrote:


--empyre- soft-skinned space--
I am very interested in this thread because I'm very interested in literal 
mycelium. My project, The Blued Trees Symphony, which Kathy participated in in 
2015, is seeking Earth rights protection for forest ecosystems. The 
communicative relationships between mycellium as proof of alternate sentience 
are crucial to that argument. The week of June 18, I'll be participating in an 
interdsiciplianry workshop at Hubbard Brooks reserve in NH, where we'll be 
looking at a variety of ways to sonify aspects of forest systems- water, leaves 
etc, but no one in attendance is sonifying mycellium. Is anyone trying to 
sonify actual mycelium? I look forward to following posts on topic.

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


On 6/8/18, 1:59 PM, "empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of Christina 
McPhee"  
wrote:

 --empyre- soft-skinned space--

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


___
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Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2018-06-08 Thread Aviva Rahmani

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
I am very interested in this thread because I'm very interested in literal 
mycelium. My project, The Blued Trees Symphony, which Kathy participated in in 
2015, is seeking Earth rights protection for forest ecosystems. The 
communicative relationships between mycellium as proof of alternate sentience 
are crucial to that argument. The week of June 18, I'll be participating in an 
interdsiciplianry workshop at Hubbard Brooks reserve in NH, where we'll be 
looking at a variety of ways to sonify aspects of forest systems- water, leaves 
etc, but no one in attendance is sonifying mycellium. Is anyone trying to 
sonify actual mycelium? I look forward to following posts on topic.

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

On 6/8/18, 1:59 PM, "empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of 
Christina McPhee"  wrote:

--empyre- soft-skinned space--

___
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empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
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Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2018-06-08 Thread Christina McPhee

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Reading about Mai-ling’s architectural design work in the Liverpool
Biennial suddenly reminds me of some superb and whimsical mycelium
furniture by DEZEEN - by chance encountered at the London Design Week show
at Somerset House last September 2017:

https://www.dezeen.com/2017/09/20/mushroom-mycelium-timber-suede-like-furniture-sebastian-cox-ninela-ivanova-london-design-festival/


— on the commercial end of design research ...

Bests

Christina







On Fri, Jun 8, 2018 at 8:06 AM High, Kathy  wrote:

> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> Dear empyre Community!
>
> Greetings. And forgive my delayed introduction, but I have been traveling.
> Thank you Renate and Tim for your continued dedication to empyre and
> keeping it going as a community based discussion! And thank you Shu Lea for
> pulling us fungal types all together!
>
> By way of introduction I would like to talk about the project that I am
> currently coordinating called NATURE Lab. NATURE Lab stands for North Troy
> Art, Technology and Urban Research in Ecology. This project started about 6
> years ago in tandem with an amazing community media arts organization that
> I have been on the board of directors for the past 13 years called The
> Sanctuary for Independent Media. The Sanctuary started in an old church in
> North Central Troy, New York, about 150 miles north of New York City in a
> post-industrial city that is at the head of the Hudson River. At The
> Sanctuary, we have dedicated our energies to develop a space for
> independent voices, politics and art creation in a neighborhood that is
> economically and environmentally devastated. We have created a local
> “campus" repurposing abandoned lots and buildings (think Detroit). We have
> an ongoing presentation series of music, film and speakers, a low power FM
> radio station with local news shows, youth media and environmental
> education workshops, and have planted multiple gardens and food forests.
>
> Situated one block from the Hudson River, we find our location adjacent to
> brownfields, industrial waste remains and an abundance of toxic lead soil.
> NATURE Lab seeks to understand and remediate this urban landscape and
> create new resources and inspiration in the urban ecologies around us. We
> have just purchased an old building (this is among three others that we
> have) for $7500. We will develop this space into the home for NATURE Lab,
> with a community bio science lab offering ongoing workshops and eco-artist
> projects to create a sense of our surroundings and an appreciation for our
> ruderal ecologies.
>
> When Shu Lea came to us this past spring with the idea of joining the
> Mycelium Network Society, we jumped at the chance to do so. I have been
> close to Shu Lea since the 1980s when we were in NYC together. As my own
> media work has shifted to a focus on bioart, and ecological systems and
> concerns, the opportunity to collaborate with a rhizomic network of
> nurturing like minds seemed perfect. The work I have done with mycelium has
> been around soil remediation. Five years ago the eco-artist Oliver
> Kellhammer was in residence at NATURE Lab. Oliver is a permaculturist and
> artist who works extensively with plighted environments thinking about
> re-growth and recovery – the symbiont relationships that we all need to
> consider now. We used mycelium as an accumulator in a toxic soil bed – and
> it was truly successful. But what to do with that material in the end is a
> question we still struggle with!
>
> Going forward, an architect Mae-Ling Lokko, who teaches in the
> Architecture School at my university (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
> will be working with NATURE Lab to think through mycelium’s strengths. Mae
> is in UK at present for the Liverpool Biennial using mycelium for an
> exhibition at RIBA. Mae is interested in thinking about “how to develop a
> staged performance piece on the ‘natural decay’ of the mycelium structure
> that is built in Liverpool as the focus for a project for the Mycelium
> Network Society.” She has made a 20 foot tunnel with mycelium panels and is
> “ thinking about how to use this opportunity to ‘stage’ [the mycelium’s]
> graceful return into the environment.”
>
> I thank Shu Lea for this opportunity to join forces and share our creative
> energies! Also thank you to everyone for your wonderful posts to date.
> More to come, Kathy
>
>
>
>
> ___
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
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[-empyre-] Introduction

2018-06-08 Thread High, Kathy

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Dear empyre Community!

Greetings. And forgive my delayed introduction, but I have been traveling. 
Thank you Renate and Tim for your continued dedication to empyre and keeping it 
going as a community based discussion! And thank you Shu Lea for pulling us 
fungal types all together!

By way of introduction I would like to talk about the project that I am 
currently coordinating called NATURE Lab. NATURE Lab stands for North Troy Art, 
Technology and Urban Research in Ecology. This project started about 6 years 
ago in tandem with an amazing community media arts organization that I have 
been on the board of directors for the past 13 years called The Sanctuary for 
Independent Media. The Sanctuary started in an old church in North Central 
Troy, New York, about 150 miles north of New York City in a post-industrial 
city that is at the head of the Hudson River. At The Sanctuary, we have 
dedicated our energies to develop a space for independent voices, politics and 
art creation in a neighborhood that is economically and environmentally 
devastated. We have created a local “campus" repurposing abandoned lots and 
buildings (think Detroit). We have an ongoing presentation series of music, 
film and speakers, a low power FM radio station with local news shows, youth 
media and environmental education workshops, and have planted multiple gardens 
and food forests.

Situated one block from the Hudson River, we find our location adjacent to 
brownfields, industrial waste remains and an abundance of toxic lead soil. 
NATURE Lab seeks to understand and remediate this urban landscape and create 
new resources and inspiration in the urban ecologies around us. We have just 
purchased an old building (this is among three others that we have) for $7500. 
We will develop this space into the home for NATURE Lab, with a community bio 
science lab offering ongoing workshops and eco-artist projects to create a 
sense of our surroundings and an appreciation for our ruderal ecologies.

When Shu Lea came to us this past spring with the idea of joining the Mycelium 
Network Society, we jumped at the chance to do so. I have been close to Shu Lea 
since the 1980s when we were in NYC together. As my own media work has shifted 
to a focus on bioart, and ecological systems and concerns, the opportunity to 
collaborate with a rhizomic network of nurturing like minds seemed perfect. The 
work I have done with mycelium has been around soil remediation. Five years ago 
the eco-artist Oliver Kellhammer was in residence at NATURE Lab. Oliver is a 
permaculturist and artist who works extensively with plighted environments 
thinking about re-growth and recovery – the symbiont relationships that we all 
need to consider now. We used mycelium as an accumulator in a toxic soil bed – 
and it was truly successful. But what to do with that material in the end is a 
question we still struggle with!

Going forward, an architect Mae-Ling Lokko, who teaches in the Architecture 
School at my university (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) will be working with 
NATURE Lab to think through mycelium’s strengths. Mae is in UK at present for 
the Liverpool Biennial using mycelium for an exhibition at RIBA. Mae is 
interested in thinking about “how to develop a staged performance piece on the 
‘natural decay’ of the mycelium structure that is built in Liverpool as the 
focus for a project for the Mycelium Network Society.” She has made a 20 foot 
tunnel with mycelium panels and is “ thinking about how to use this opportunity 
to ‘stage’ [the mycelium’s] graceful return into the environment.”

I thank Shu Lea for this opportunity to join forces and share our creative 
energies! Also thank you to everyone for your wonderful posts to date.
More to come, Kathy




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[-empyre-] introduction for rehearsal of a network - [week 1]

2018-06-06 Thread Stephanie Rothenberg

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hello Empyre list!

First an introduction – I am an artist and professor at University at
Buffalo. I’ve been working with networks exploring the space between the
real and the virtual for many years in both my art and pedagogical
practice. These early artistic inquiries focused on how the network was
shifting labor from the perspective of both how work gets done and who was
doing the work – a new demographic of geographically distributed laborers
vastly ranging from former migrant workers in China that were digging for
gold online to underemployed single mothers in Eastern Europe navigating
mturk.

Over the past several years I’ve been examining how social media platforms
are creating new financial networks. I started working with non-human
media, aka house plants, because I craved a tactile and visceral
counterpoint to the abstractions of these networks – as a strategy to make
visible the real world consequences of inequality and inequity. I use
plants as data points in physicalized large-scale visualizations. The
plants become symbolic for human life and introduce an element of
unpredictability and thus disruption into these normally streamlined
systems.
http://www.pan-o-matic.com/projects/reversal-of-fortune-the-garden-of-virtual-kinship
http://www.pan-o-matic.com/projects/planthropy

Continuing to work with plants has led to my newfound fascination with the
networks of mycelium and its slimy sidekick physarum polycephalum as well
as other organisms. I’m also a big fan of Jason Moore and his theory of
Cheap Nature and Donna Haraway’s theory of the Chthulucene (both theorists
discussed at length on Empyre last fall).

My recent experiments are deeply inspired by their work, engaging play and
wonder with a hint of Marxism. Merging economic idioms with DIY/kid science
models of sustainable technology such as lemon batteries, dirt energy and
bread mold, I question what it might look like if non-human forces could be
put in the driver’s seat of our so-called anthropogenic crisis. What
happens when models of non-human ecological systems are used to identify
and rethink the dysfunctional systems, the “fairy tales,” that are
currently troubling our social welfare, economy, and governance? For
example, can we draw connections between the reproduction of rhizopus
stolonifer (aka common bread mold) and the reproduction of student debt in
the U.S?

With that said I bring up a few thoughts on MNS in response to some of She
Lea’s initial questions:

-- -- In terms of a society, what will a Buffalo MNS node look like? And
how will it be both similar and different to nodes in other locations based
on ecological histories, economic histories and current resources?

-- On the issue of resources, is it important to track the networks of
funding and their impact on research as all these nodes emerging in
different countries are dependent on different types of financial systems –
academic in the U.S. vs government cultural funding in Europe and/or
corporate funding for others

-- In starting this network, what are both the risks and the possibilities
in the anthropomorphic?

--
Stephanie Rothenberg
Associate Professor
Director of Graduate Studies
Head of Graphic Design Concentration
Department of Art | University at Buffalo | SUNY
rothenberg.stepha...@gmail.com
www.stephanierothenberg.com
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Re: [-empyre-] Introduction: Between Biology and Art Welcome Byron Rich

2017-02-11 Thread Byron Rich

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Greetings everyone. I’m pretty happy to be a part of the conversation.

I’ll start with a bit about what I do. 

I’m really most into designing absurd solutions to ecological and social 
problems. I like pushing back against the idea of “techno-solutionism” as I 
find it has a weird relationship to Libertarianism as it’s practiced in Silicon 
Valley. I worry about the insertion of non-holistic approaches into culture 
without careful consideration of the context and consequences of them.

For instance, when in Germany for a residency two summers ago I was working 
quite a bit with invasive species, specifically Ragweed. Ragweed runs rampant 
throughout Germany and was particularly bad in the area of Leipzig where I was 
living. Every effort at mitigating the ragweed was failing, so I developed a 
terrible robot to help. What I was sort of struck by was the irony of the panic 
over this North American species in a way colonizing Europe. What I did was 
create a robot that could access weather data and Google Maps to plot a course 
to the port in Rotterdam where theoretically the robot could board a ship and 
carry a couple ragweed plants back to North America. Of course on the way it 
would inevitably spread ragweed only making the problem worse. Additionally, 
the robot could only travel 1 km on a full charge, then would have to wait as a 
small solar cell tried to recharge the battery pack. 

Needless to say, GARRy (GPS Assisted Ragweed Robot) didn’t really work as a 
solution. It did however function exactly as designed in that it could 
autonomously plot a course and navigate to it’s intended destination. I’m now 
using the same technology to develop nomadic ecosystems that travel on 
dirigibles. Aesthetically they are loosely based on La Minerve, a 19th century 
vision of the future of air travel. I love the idea of extending the 
capabilities of non-human actors as a kind of reaction to climate change. I can 
talk more about this project later.

Currently I am artist-in-residence at The University at Buffalo’s Coalesce lab 
where I am working on developing a transgenic bioluminescent yeast biosensor 
for the detection of estrogen and estrogen mimickers in water samples. There 
are some problems with the complexity of the transformation in that there are 
two plasmids in play, one for reporting and one for detecting. It’s still a bit 
beyond me, but should be doable. 

Perhaps that is enough of a first post? Please forgive any grammatical or 
spelling errors as I’m on my phone. 

Thanks for reading!

> On Feb 10, 2017, at 8:14 PM, Renate Terese Ferro  wrote:
> 
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> We will begin our Introductory posts for the topic Between Biology and Art 
> this weekend joined by Byron Rich.  Byron and I will be setting the 
> foundation for our discussion over the next three and a half weeks. These 
> generative iterations create grounds of tension for creative and critical 
> engagement within the fields of biological and artistic research and 
> production.
> Historically we all recall the case of Steve Kurtz, SUNY Buffalo and Critical 
> Arts Ensemble member who in May of 2004 was accused of bio-terrorism because 
> Homeland Security agents mistook his biologically based performance inspired 
> by the global GMO contaminated food system.
> 
> This is not the first time we have hosted bio science artists into our 
> –empyre-soft skinned space. In February 2013 we hosted a memorial discussion 
> in honor of artist Beatriz DaCosta. Beatriz was a leading voice in socially 
> activist artistic work in the areas of biology, engineering, and technology.
> 
> I was inspired to host this topic this month because at this past summer’s 
> ISEA conference in Hong Kong I noted so many young artists who were doing 
> research.
> Inspired by all of them empyre invites new media artists, researchers, 
> historians and others to join us to investigate current topics such as germs,
> fermenting, probiotics, skin, ecologies and many more intersections between 
> biology, technology, and new media practices.
> 
> Hope these comments will inspire some of our subscribers to write in. And I 
> am thrilled that Byron has so valiantly agreed to start things out with me.  
> Here is his biography: 
> 
> Byron Rich (CA) is an artist, professor and lecturer born in Calgary, 
> Alberta, Canada. His work exploring speculative design, biology futures and 
> tactical media has been widely shown and spoken about internationally. He 
> pursued a degree in New-Media at The University of Calgary before finding 
> himself in Buffalo, New York where he obtained an MFA in Emerging Practices 
> at The University at Buffalo. He now teaches Electronic Art & Intermedia at 
> Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. 
> 
> 
> Renate Ferro
> Visiting Associate Professor
> Director of Undergraduate Studies
>

[-empyre-] Introduction: Between Biology and Art Welcome Byron Rich

2017-02-10 Thread Renate Terese Ferro

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
We will begin our Introductory posts for the topic Between Biology and Art this 
weekend joined by Byron Rich.  Byron and I will be setting the foundation for 
our discussion over the next three and a half weeks. These generative 
iterations create grounds of tension for creative and critical engagement 
within the fields of biological and artistic research and production.
Historically we all recall the case of Steve Kurtz, SUNY Buffalo and Critical 
Arts Ensemble member who in May of 2004 was accused of bio-terrorism because 
Homeland Security agents mistook his biologically based performance inspired by 
the global GMO contaminated food system.

This is not the first time we have hosted bio science artists into our 
–empyre-soft skinned space. In February 2013 we hosted a memorial discussion in 
honor of artist Beatriz DaCosta. Beatriz was a leading voice in socially 
activist artistic work in the areas of biology, engineering, and technology.

I was inspired to host this topic this month because at this past summer’s ISEA 
conference in Hong Kong I noted so many young artists who were doing research.
Inspired by all of them empyre invites new media artists, researchers, 
historians and others to join us to investigate current topics such as germs,
fermenting, probiotics, skin, ecologies and many more intersections between 
biology, technology, and new media practices.

Hope these comments will inspire some of our subscribers to write in. And I am 
thrilled that Byron has so valiantly agreed to start things out with me.  Here 
is his biography: 

Byron Rich (CA) is an artist, professor and lecturer born in Calgary, Alberta, 
Canada. His work exploring speculative design, biology futures and tactical 
media has been widely shown and spoken about internationally. He pursued a 
degree in New-Media at The University of Calgary before finding himself in 
Buffalo, New York where he obtained an MFA in Emerging Practices at The 
University at Buffalo. He now teaches Electronic Art & Intermedia at Allegheny 
College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. 


Renate Ferro
Visiting Associate Professor
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department of Art
Tjaden Hall 306
rfe...@cornell.edu



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Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

2015-06-12 Thread Natasha Myers

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Thanks so much, Alana, for getting our 2nd week conversation moving.

I was sad to miss the performance of the Ghillie Suit last summer, but remember
seeing remarkable images. I love the haunting, looming, lurking and uncanny
effect of the plant-human form that seems to shape-shift in a space of near
invisibility. Can you say more about the kinds of shifts the performance
effects in human/plant encounters? Does the piece perhaps speak to the ways
that plants are so often relegated to the undergrowth, the backdrop on the
stage where human and animal agencies are so actively performed?

What is your experience of wearing the suit. Of nearly disappearing? Is there a
way that the piece encourages the performer to vegetalize their movements and
sensorium? I've been spending a lot of time thinking about where the human
(always more than human) sensorium meets the vegetal sensorium...and am
becoming convinced that the sensorium of those whose lives and work turns
around plants gets vegetalized...

I would love to hear more!

I'm also so glad to hear of your engagement with Jo Simalaya's work Singing
Plants. Such a remarkable piece that I have been thinking about for a number of
years in conversation with the scientific works of Indian polymath JC Bose, who
saw it as his life's work to give voice to the unvoiced life of plants. Very
much looking forward to sharing that work soon!

This would also be a great opportunity for our other moderators this week to
tell us more about the Plant Sex Consultancy...Such a remarkable work that will
I'm sure produce some fascinating threads of conversation!

All the best,
Natasha

On 2015-06-11, at 11:42 AM, he...@alanabartol.com he...@alanabartol.com
wrote:

Forms of Awareness: Ghillie Suit is a series that reveals and examines the
prevailing set of aesthetic and environmental concerns in North American
culture. The ghillie suit is traditionally used by military snipers and
hunters to camouflage the human body, allowing the wearer to blend into
various natural landscapes. In this series, the suit is repositioned in the
open air of suburban and urban spaces. Wearing the suit, I appear as Ghillie
in transitional zones, naturalized areas and green spaces. The appearances or
“un-camouflagings” are captured through photography and video.

I first learned about ghillie suits when I was living in Vermont and was
introduced to the suit at a nearby military base. It wasn’t until I moved
back to Windsor, Ontario, a city fraught with many environmental and
socio-economic issues, that the character “Ghillie” evolved and I began
making and wearing the suits.

The suits are made of a combination of natural and synthetic materials, which
are tied and woven into a netting base. I then weave dried weeds, grasses and
other plants (found in the discarded yard waste), into the suit. In suburban
neighbourhoods, Ghillie appears in transitional zones, 'naturalized' areas
and green spaces. While Ghillie inspires many reactions including fear,
confusion, anger and laughter, she often remains unnoticed.

As my hands hovered above the plants, I was met with a chorus of chants,
beats and pulsating rhythms. Another woman (who I did not know) stood next to
me and we soon began a collaboration of sorts as we experimented with the
movement of our hands in relation to the plants and sound. There is power and
magic in technology...

Upon receiving the transmission, I felt immersed in and permeated by the
sound. The sound

[-empyre-] Introduction

2015-06-11 Thread hello

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Hello Everyone! I am delighted to join this discussion. Thank you Natasha for
inviting me to participate. I am an interdisciplinary artist, working in
performance, video, drawing, environmental art, installation and
community-engaged art. My collaborative and individual works explore concepts
of visibility and survival through our relationships with nature and each
other.
Forms of Awareness: Ghillie Suit is a series that reveals and examines the
prevailing set of aesthetic and environmental concerns in North American
culture. The ghillie suit is traditionally used by military snipers and hunters
to camouflage the human body, allowing the wearer to blend into various natural
landscapes. In this series, the suit is repositioned in the open air of
suburban and urban spaces. Wearing the suit, I appear as Ghillie in
transitional zones, naturalized areas and green spaces. The appearances or
“un-camouflagings” are captured through photography and video.
I first learned about ghillie suits when I was living in Vermont and was
introduced to the suit at a nearby military base. It wasn’t until I moved back
to Windsor, Ontario, a city fraught with many environmental and socio-economic
issues, that the character “Ghillie” evolved and I began making and wearing the
suits.
The suits are made of a combination of natural and synthetic materials, which
are tied and woven into a netting base. I then weave dried weeds, grasses and
other plants (found in the discarded yard waste), into the suit. In suburban
neighbourhoods, Ghillie appears in transitional zones, 'naturalized' areas and
green spaces. While Ghillie inspires many reactions including fear, confusion,
anger and laughter, she often remains unnoticed.

This work has also been developed in collaboration with others. Last year I
worked in partnership with a group of teenagers to create their own ghillie
suits and develop a site-specific performance in Guildwood Park (Toronto) for
Restless Precinct, an exhibition and performance series. Jo also participated
in the exhibition and I had the pleasure of encountering Singing Plants
Reconstruct Memory. It was one of the most memorable pieces from the
exhibition and I wanted to share a short reflection on the experience:
As my hands hovered above the plants, I was met with a chorus of chants, beats
and pulsating rhythms. Another woman (who I did not know) stood next to me and
we soon began a collaboration of sorts as we experimented with the movement of
our hands in relation to the plants and sound. There is power and magic in
technology...

Upon receiving the transmission, I felt immersed in and permeated by the sound.
The sound was intense but I continued the playful collaboration with the
stranger beside me. Reflecting back on it now, the experience created a bodily
awareness that is often absent in my everyday encounters.
Thank you Jo for creating such a moving and poignant work. I wonder how the
installation for the Restless Precinct exhibition differed from other
iterations of the piece? How did you feel about presenting the work in a park?

Thank you and I look forward to the ongoing discussion.

Alana

Works from the Ghillie Suit series can be found here:
http://alanabartol.com/section/333127-Forms-of-Awareness-Ghillie-Suit-A-Series-of-Un-camouflagings.html
Video:
http://alanabartol.com/artwork/3716498-Forms-of-Awareness-Ghillie-Suit-An-Un-camouflaging.html

Information about Restless Precinct can be found here:
http://restlessprecinct.ca

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[-empyre-] introduction for rehearsal of a network - [week 1]

Re: [-empyre-] Introduction: Between Biology and Art Welcome Byron Rich

[-empyre-] Introduction: Between Biology and Art Welcome Byron Rich

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[-empyre-] Introduction

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