----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- Welcome to the May discussion on –empyre- soft-skinned space:
Collaboration: Art Practice, Theory, Activism Moderated by Ana Valdes (UR), Renate Ferro (US), and Tim Murray (US) with invited discussants ___________________________________________________________ In February of 2004 Trebor Sholze and Geert Lovink hosted an –empyre-discussion entitled “Networks, Art, and Collaboration.” Citing both the positive and negative connotations of the word collaboration, a good deal of the discussion revolved around online cultures that allowed for shared information systems. During the past few months threads of discussion have referenced real time collaborative alliances. This month on –empyre- soft-skinned space we pick up threads from past discussions to highlight collectives, alliances, partnerships of artistic capacities for rhizomatic production. Regardless of rank or hierarchy, we are particularly interested in networks where art, theory and activism infiltrate diverging aspects of culture and society. What role does technology have in the making of those relationships? Real interactions as well as virtual labs and virtual artistic collaborations create constellations with new shapes and reformulations of old terms. A cybernetic and intelligent swarm, using the concepts of multitude as formulated by Negri and Hardt, Deleuze and Guattari. Week 1 May 3, 2013 Tim Murray (US), Renate Ferro (US), Ana Valdes (UR), Carol-Ann Braun, Erin Manning (CA) Week 2 May 10, 2013 Cecelia Parsberg (SE) Week 3 May 17, 2013 Marc Garrett (UK), Ricardo Miranda Zuniga and Brooke Singer (US) Week 4 May 24, 2013 Alonso+Craciun, Zach Blas (US) Biographies: Monthly Moderators: Ana Valdes (UR) I was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. Spent four years in jail as political prisoner (belonged to the gerilla Tupamaros, actually in power in Uruguay) and was deported to Sweden where I lived for 34 years. I moved back to Uruguay one year ago but I travel to Sweden back and forth. I am a writer (14 books published) and an anthropologist, specialized in digital culture and urbanism. Renate Ferro (US) is a conceptual artist working in emerging technology and culture. Most recently her work has been featured at The Freud Museum (London), The Dorksy Gallery (NY), The Hemispheric Institute and FOMMA (Mexico), The Janus Pannonius Muzeum (Hungary), and The Free University Berlin (Germany). Her work has been published in such journals as Diacritics, Theatre Journal, and Epoch. She is a co-moderator for the online new media list serve -empyre-soft-skinned space. Ferro is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at Cornell University teaching digital media and theory. She also directs the Tinker Factory, a creative research lab for Research Design, Creativity, and Interdisciplinary Research. Tim Murray (US) Tim Murray is Curator of the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Director of the Society for the Humanities and Professor of Comparative Literature and English at Cornell University. Managing Co-Moderator of -empyre-, he sits on the Executive Committee of the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC). Author of Digital Baroque: New Media Art and Cinematic Folds (Minnesota 2008) and Zonas de Contacto: el arte en CD-ROM (Centro de la imagen, 1999), he is completing two books on Virtual Archives and Media Art in Asia, and editing volumes on Jean-Luc Nancy and Xu Bing. Week 1: Erin Manning, is a philosopher, visual artist and dancer, and is currently a University Research Chair at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University, Montreal. She is also a founder and director of The Sense Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory on research, creation and an international network focusing on intersections between philosophy and art through the sensing body in motion. Erin Manning received her Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Hawaii (2001) and has been teaching philosophy, political theory, visual studies, cultural studies, and film theory. She is a member of the editorial board for the online journal Inflexions and the author of works on movement and ephemerality, for which she frequently collaborates with Brian Massumi. Carol-Ann BRAUN (US/FR) is a Paris-based American artist who has been working with digital technologies since 1985. Her work ranges from still images to animations to interactive immersive text-based environments (inner-media.org). Closely affiliated with the Atelier du CUBE (lecube.com ), she has extended her artistic practice beyond esthetics to include “social media”. The first prototypes involved chat spaces as a search engine. This led to the design of polling technology (http://cie.acm.org/articles/braun-phones-kids/). Last month Concert-Urbain launched a poetic polling platform on the subject of happiness: lebonheurbrutcollectif.org. The project’s intention is to find contribute to defining new criteria for measuring the ineffable nature of happiness...It will be gathering momentum over the next three years. The Ministry of Culture and the Region Ile de France have taken a particular interest in “Le Bonheur Brut Collectif, ” which is also being followed by a research team at the CNAM (Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers), Paris. Week 2: Cecilia Parsberg (SE), visual artist, lives and works in Stockholm. Since Jan 2011, PhD student in Fine Arts http://www.konstnarligaforskarskolan.se ”Five Actions” in South Africa and eight projects in Palestine and Israel have shaped my view of art and its meaning. It is not the image of an event that counts, I produce the images because of the encounter. And then how and where the image is mediated is a political question. The title for my PhD projekt is : Private politics (& Public Secrets) A practical project that I started last year is “How to be a successful beggar in Sweden?” I have conducted a market survey, a method which commercial companies looking to launch a product/service usually do. I have also interviewed ten beggars in Gothenburg, written a thesis performed at some international conferences, and more to come… ( see: http://tiggerisomyrke.se ) The overriding research issue can be formulated as follows: How can public structures be shaped, influenced or even created by individuals? It’s about the gift – to give/take, gift economy and the ability of the individual to change existing structures of power. Week 3: Marc Garrett (UK) is a net artist, curator, writer, street artist, activist, educationalist and musician. Emerging in the late 80's from the streets exploring creativity via agit-art tactics. Using unofficial, experimental platforms such as the streets, pirate radio, net broadcasts, BBS systems, performance, intervention, events, pamphlets, warehouses and gallery spaces. In the early nineties was co-sysop (systems operator) for a while with Heath Bunting for Cybercafe BBS. Co-director and co-founder, with artist Ruth Catlow of the net arts collectives and communities- furtherfield.org, furthernoise.org, netbehaviour.org, also cofounder and co-curator/director of the gallery space called, London UK. Currently involved in co-running and getting the Node London festival happening for March 2006. Also co-curating various contemporary Media Arts exhibitions, nationally and Internationally. Brooke Singer (US) Brooke Singer engages techno-science as an artist, educator, non-specialist and collaborator. Her work lives "on" and "off" line in the form of websites, workshops, photographs, maps, installations and performances that often involves public participation in pursuit of social change. Recent awards and commissions include a Madrid Council’s Department of the Arts commission, Turbulence.org commission, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) Individual Artist award, a Headlands Center for Arts residency and a fellowship at Eyebeam Art + Technology. She is currently Associate Professor of New Media at Purchase College, State University of New York, and co-founder of the art, technology and activist group Preemptive Media. Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga (US) approaches art as a social practice that seeks to establish dialogue in public spaces. Having been born of immigrant parents and grown up between Nicaragua and San Francisco, a strong awareness of inequality and discrimination was established at an early age. Themes such as immigration, discrimination, gentrification and the effects of globalization extend from highly subjective experiences and observations into works that tactically engage others through populist metaphors while maintaining critical perspectives. Ricardo has established a socially investigative creative practice that utilizes whatever media possible to present content in a manner that may generate interaction and discussion by others. Ricardo has a Masters of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Arts in Practice of Art and English Literature from the University of California at Berkeley. He is based in Brooklyn, NY and is an Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at CUNY Hunter. Ricardo’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Week 4: Alonso+Craciun Zach Blas (US) is an artist-theorist working at the intersections of technology, queerness, and politics. He is the creator of the art group Queer Technologies, a founding member of The Public School Durham, and a PhD candidate in Literature, Information Science + Information Studies, and Visual Studies at Duke University. Currently, he is developing a series of works that responds to technological control and informatic capture through tactics of queer escape, opacity, disappearance, imperceptibility, and illegibility. Zach’s recent exhibitions include Trans Technology, Rutgers University, 2013; the HTMlles Feminist Festival of Media Arts + Digital Culture, Montreal, 2012; and Abandon Normal Devices Festival, Manchester, 2012. He has published writings in the “Five Videos” essay series, commissioned by rhizome.org and the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology for the 2012 Liverpool Biennial, and the Viral issue of Women Studies Quarterly. Zach holds a Master of Fine Art, Design Media Arts, University of California Los Angeles. Currently, he is an artist/researcher-in-residence at the b.a.n.g.lab and Performative Nanorobotics Lab, University of California San Diego. -- Renate Ferro Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Cornell University Department of Art, Tjaden Hall Office #420 Ithaca, NY 14853 Email: <r...@cornell.edu> URL: http://www.renateferro.net http://www.privatesecretspubliclies.net Lab: http://www.tinkerfactory.net Managing Co-moderator of -empyre- soft skinned space http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre _______________________________________________ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
