----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
Thanks Mark for your comments.
First, I believe it is critically urgent to teach ALL of our students how to
create fake news. Why? Because this first-hand engagement with the manipulation
of the truth is the best way, in my opinion, to understand the manipulative
power of language to distort meaning. It is also a powerful way to demonstrate
how fake news can infiltrate the real world of information.
The reason why fake news is so dangerous is because so many people lack the
critical skills to differentiate between manufactured news and the real thing.
When this criticality is introduced to our students, they become the front line
to defend humanity against the tyranny of the fake. The reason why TRUMP was
elected is because there were enough people in this country who lacked the
skills to see propaganda and fakery being wielded by domestic and foreign
sources. This is how tyrants rise to power: preying upon the emotions of a
constituency that is unable to interpret the source of their manipulation.
So, I say, WE who are educators are actually on the front lines of a battle to
protect the integrity of truth and meaning. Unless we instill the ability to
discern the tactics of fakery in the next generation, perhaps by training them
to render its machinations, we are truly sunk.
Randall
From: Mark Marino <markcmar...@gmail.com>
Date: Friday, June 16, 2017 at 4:18 AM
To: Randall Packer <rpac...@zakros.com>
Cc: soft_skinned_space <empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Speaking of Fake...
Randall,
That sounds like a perfect teaching moment, if a bit harrowing for you. Sounds
like both you and the student survived unscathed! It's interesting how fake
stories flourish when they touch upon either likely content ("there they go
again") or cultural panics.
What other assignments in fakery have folks on the list done?
I must admit that I have from time-to-time found myself in a little warmer
water with some of my teaching antics.
One was the seemingly innocuous LA Flood Project, which imagines Los Angeles
submerged under an epic deluge. That project has a Twitter flood simulation
side to it that occasionally crosses paths with folks who monitor either
university news or weather news.
Some people get angry when they think we are in the Fony Fake territory, when
we thought we were in the Fantasy Fake or Funny Fake land. I suppose that just
shows how subjective these realms are -- or to speak more to your experience --
how the partial attention we pay to and partial context we encounter on social
media creates the perfect soup for misunderstanding.
Ah, misunderstanding soup.
Anyone else have similar stories to tell?
- Mark
On Mon, Jun 12, 2017 at 5:43 PM, Randall Packer <rpac...@zakros.com> wrote:
Greetings Mark and greetings list, I wanted to jump in here at the suggestion
of how to teach fake news. Well, I’m not sure I have any real answers to Fake
News Pedagogy, but I wanted to share a little story about my Internet Art &
Culture class at the School of Art, Design & Media / Nanyang Technological
University in Singapore.
Now Singapore may seem like an odd place to be infiltrating the academy with
Fake News skills, but in fact my students embarked on a project to use Facebook
Live to incorporate artistic fakery into their online practice. One of the
students decided to stage a live broadcast from the student union as a fake
reporter announcing that the university had gone 100% vegan. This seemingly
harmless fake prank managed to get the attention of the university press
office, and well in Singapore, you DO NOT WANT student parody to enter into the
mainstream media (MSM) because people simply don’t do things like this and the
press will think it’s the actual truth.
This little incident made it all the way up the administrative ladder until our
Chair asked the faculty whose student this was and that they needed to attach a
disclaimer. I eagerly said me, because I recognized a real teaching moment here
for my terrified student. The fact is, my student had a first-hand experience
understanding how fakery can make its way into the MSM, and just how corrosive
and disturbing it is to manipulate or distort the truth. In our everyday social
media life on the Net, we forget just how volatile and viral our fake
utterances can be.
Of course, I have always believed that art should be dangerous and this
assignment turned out to be the perfect way to educate the next generation of
digital artists.
Yours “truly,”
Randall
From: <empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au> on behalf of Mark Marino
<markcmar...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
Date: Sunday, June 11, 2017 at 12:21 AM
To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: [-empyre-] Speaking of Fake...
----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
We continue our discussion of the art of Fake News and art and Fake News (etc.)
with a somewhat unusual course.
At the start of 2017, launching on Inauguration Day, Talan Memmott and I
offered a course through UnderAcademy College entitled, How to Write and Read
Fake News: Journullism in the Age of Trump. UnderAcademy College is a
non-degree granting un-institution founded on the model of Black Mountain
College.
The course offered to teach how to write Fake News (is my capitalization of
that bugging anyone else but me?), although we may not have entirely been in
bed with the devil. Or if we were in bed with the devil, we were doing an
awful lot of faking it. And, consequently, were quite unsatisfied with his
performance but had forfeited our right to blame other people for the bed we
had made. So you know, basically feeling like most of America. You can see the
sillybus here:
https://medium.com/the-fake-news-reader/the-fake-news-course-sillybus-d68953d6abf5
All of the materials for this class are freely available online for your own
adaptation and perversion. And I should mention that this course, like all
UnderAcademy College courses, is free and that I (still) have not been paid for
teaching said course.
Our first lesson was: How to Fake News, which you can see here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex8Zi15UTJo
In that lesson, we introduced our (patent-pending) 80-20-10 method for writing
Fake News. Now, none of our 100-or-so students, real and fake, have reported
back on whether or not this lesson led to them making mad money from their
Fake News writing, but most accounts suggest that in spite of (or actually
because of) a growing awareness of the scourge of Fake News, there's big money
to be had.
And in the age of Trump, what more evidence of a successful educational
operation could their be than loads of money -- or at least lawsuits?
How do you feel about teaching people to write Fake News as a response to Fake
News? Does that sound sophomoric or are you just being uptight? We realize
those aren't the only two options, so we have an open essay response we're also
accepting but probably won't count towards your grade.
Love,
Mark
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http://markcmarino.com
http://haccslab.com
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Micro-novel (limited edition) (being published one sentence at a time via my
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with my friends. Sentences will be updated periodically.
_______________________________________________
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