----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- I wanted to pick up on this thread with Emily, Renate, and Anneli, thinking about Renate's question: "What platforms work best or are most efficient to reach a global audience? Is the listserv meeting the needs of a broad community? Would a blog be better? What else could be imagined?" as well as Anneli's response, a small excerpt quoted here: "We cannot rely on outside companies to control the way we communicate. We cannot rely on these companies to maintain our archive. When a certain platform is popular, it seems permanent, but time and time again we see their immortality. At moments like this I think it’s important to visualize the reality of the Internet: many cables connected underground and underwater, our files stored on many computers all over the world."
These two posts came to mind this weekend, while Lola and I were talking about our relationships to email and how those relationships have shifted over the last 5 years, maybe 10 years. We both agreed that we find it increasingly hard to concentrate and spend time emailing for personal, social, and intellectually pursuits. Email allows us to constantly work and it is easy to be connected and laboring at all hours. In our current moment as we spend so much work time, and often an increasing number of work hours on email and looking at screens, how do we engage actively and fully with listservs like –empyre– and with other online communities. How do others feel about this? Have folks found ways to combat this fatigue? Can we imagine a platform that could provide the community and connection, without feeling tethered to the same type of production as our the day-today email labor required of many of our jobs? –Sarah On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 1:45 PM Renate Ferro <[email protected]> wrote: > > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- > Dear all Refiguring the Future: > ~Anneli wrote: > “Hearing about what Zach Blas and Micha Cardenas have proposed is the type of > network I am contemplating. Of > course, as Renate brought up, democratizing Internet platforms, or > maintaining community run platforms requires an enormous amount of labor > and energy. Once we leave the reliance on corporations, there is a price to > pay. Perhaps the answer has to do with a move away from for-profit systems > and frameworks... At moments like this I think it’s important > to visualize the reality of the Internet: many cables connected underground > and underwater, our files stored on many computers all over the world.” > > You have caught me at home today working in my studio and trying to organize > next month’s discussion on –empyre- and an ode to three artists we lost these > past few weeks: > Grace Quantanilla (MX), Barbara Hammer (US), and Carolee Schneemann (US). > > I do have to qualify that both Zach and Micha never did follow through with Q > or perhaps maybe one or two issues as I recall. The work behind this forum, > the listserv, is inordinately labor intensive. It is so different than the > blog in that participants need to be nurtured, enticed, and allowed to chime > in at their own pace. That is often in resistance to real life/work demands > that these days are incredibly stressful for most of us who are artists, > curators, technicians, writers and so much more. There are also back-channel > tinkerings that keep our listserv going. There are times that it is populated > with many posts and other times that the pace is slow or non-existent. > > The corporate response whether the web, or Facebook, or Instagram certainly > does not nurture individuals at all, or perhaps does that through > algorithms. I am not sure if you saw this this interview of Tim Berners-Lee > who was lamenting the state or his internet in 2019. > https://livestream.com/internetsociety/web30/videos/188647858 > > Looking forward to hearing from you more about your work in this area. Can > you tell us about your own design/coding work? Best. Renate > > Renate Ferro > Visiting Associate Professor > Director of Undergraduate Studies > Department of Art > Tjaden Hall 306 > [email protected] > > > > On 3/20/19, 12:44 PM, "[email protected] on behalf > of Anneli Anne Goeller" <[email protected] on behalf > of [email protected]> wrote: > > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > empyre forum > [email protected] > http://empyre.library.cornell.edu _______________________________________________ empyre forum [email protected] http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
