----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- Thanks Lola for taking care of the moderation on –empyre- these past weeks. I have been swamped with travel but I have been keeping up with the posts back channel. Last week the posts on the disabilities arts population was informative. I hope that Ezra, Anneli, and Yidan will continue this thread this week. It is unfortunate that we did not have time to develop the discussion a bit more. Thanks Ezra for mentioning Alice Sheppard’s piece DESCENT. I know that just about a month ago the piece was performed at EMPAC, The Experimental and Performing Art Center, in Troy, NY. Here is the link to the information in case our readers are not familiar. I am so very proud to say that our daughter Ashley Ferro-Murray curated the work for the center.
https://empac.rpi.edu/events/2018/descent Thanks for sharing Sheppard’s quote as well. ”Disability is more than the deficit of diagnosis. It is an aesthetic, a series of intersecting cultures, and a creative force." Reports are that the performance reached far into the surrounding community and a disabled friend of mine who lives three hours from the center made the trip to watch Sheppard on stage. The event was also live-streamed for audience members who could not attend. The web becomes a mode for allowing an aesthetic portal where intersecting cultures and forces can come alive. Yidan’s interventions into website auditing, captioning and audio description is important work and I am hoping that Yidan will share more of the work they are doing. My apologies to all that –empyre- is not up to snuff on image captioning and audio description but please know that Cornell is helping us revamp this website to include all of these allowances. Stay tuned for that. A little slow I realize. Anneli, I would love to hear more about the panel. For your information, you can post videos and images of the panel events at our twitter site @empyrelistserv or our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/empyrelistserv/ Your work on the algorithmic self leads well into this week’s discussion so I am hoping you all will stay on to join in this week. While algorithms are prescriptions for action the messiness and disruption of the hack pave ways in which the glitch, the anomaly or the hiccup can enable the creative imaginary. I have a couple of specific personal issues that I would like all of you to comment on specifically about the larger implications of Refiguring the Future that I will post a bit later tonight. In the meantime, really hoping that you all will feel open to share as much as possible with our community here but also imagery via Twitter and Facebook. Best to all of you, Renate -empyre- curator/managing moderator Renate Ferro Visiting Associate Professor, Art and Technology Director of Undergraduate Studies Department of Art Tjaden Hall 306 [email protected] On 3/18/19, 10:29 AM, "[email protected] on behalf of Lola Martinez" <[email protected] on behalf of [email protected]> wrote: ----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- Last week’s reflections on accessibility offered insights from creative utilizations of digital platforms to perspectives on world-building. Following these insights, we continue onto week 3 with conversation on Refiguring the Future’s exploration of the bodies entanglements with technology. Technoscientific biases categorize individuals according to markers such as race, gender, sexuality, and citizenship, and in turn undermine how we live and navigate our present and future worlds. These discourses attempt to remove agency from the body—either accidentally, as an insignificant detail, or intentionally, as a shell to be surpassed. Yet how can we lay claim to the position of a diversity of bodies as indispensable? Can alternative conceptions of science, from biology to ecology, be expanded to offer ways in living differently in relation to land, self, and other? Would these alternative systems or methodologies challenge the structural injustices embedded in technology? Ultimately, we aim to host dialogues that engage with the messiness and hackability of the body as an essential substrate of culture. I’m honored to be joined by Lee Blalock, whose work is on view as part of the exhibition at 205 Hudson Gallery, Kathy High and Camilla Mørk Røstvik, both who are a part of the REFRESH collective. Lee Blalock is a Chicago-based artist and educator who presents alternative and hyphenated states of being through technology-mediated processes. Inspired by science fiction, futurism, and technology, her work is an exercise in body modification by way of amplified behavior or "change-of-state." Blalock also works under the moniker L[3]^2, whose most recent live work embraces noise and fissure as a natural state of being for bodies living in the information age. Superimposing custom module-based "Instr/augment" systems (what the artist calls “sy5z3ns”) onto performers, L[3]^2 creates conditions for meditation through generative and repetitive behavior. Blalock is an Assistant Professor in the Art and Technology Studies Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BS from Spelman College, Atlanta. Kathy High is an interdisciplinary artist working in the areas of technology, science, speculative fiction and art. She produces videos and installations posing queer and feminist inquiries into areas of medicine/bio-science, and animal/interspecies collaborations. She hosts bio/ecology+art workshops and is creating an urban nature center in North Troy (NATURE Lab) with media organization The Sanctuary for Independent Media. High is Professor of Video and New Media in the Department of Arts, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. She teaches documentary and experimental digital video production, history and theory, as well as biological arts. Dr. Camilla Mørk Røstvik is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews. She works on the visual culture and institutional power structures of menstruation from 1970s to the present day. -- Lola Martinez | they/them Eyebeam/REFRESH Curatorial and Engagement Fellow EYEBEAM Visit Refiguring the Future: Exhibition Feb 8 - Mar 31 _______________________________________________ empyre forum [email protected] http://empyre.library.cornell.edu _______________________________________________ empyre forum [email protected] http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
