Re: [-empyre-] Welcome to April on -empyre- Interfacing COVID 19: the technologies of contagion, risk, and contamination
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- On 3/04/20 4:44 AM, Renate Ferro wrote: let us know how you are doing, how your own work is adapting to the COVID environment, and where you are writing from Dear <>, It is good to hear from Melinda and Christina. I was in this space of soft skin first I recall with a CRT monitor, Altavista search engine, public computer we'd installed at Cafe Brazil, before opening hours, scrabbling to put a few cogent words together, not to speak of ideas, and ending up with fugues, and in a fugal state, running up the roller door, pumping the coffee handles, for the first customers and playing International People's Gang really loud. I'm thinking of the soft skin of bubbles how they froth and you can surf them--champagne for my real friends! we say after Francis Bacon in the surf. Real pain for my sham friends!--and I am in a bubble with my small family on a small island in the harbour of a bigger island of a small nation composed of several at the top of the Pacific, depending on which way you look at it, independent of which, wartime seems a poor analogy: from cognitive bubbles we seem to have softly segued into biopolitical froth. (I am writing about this at http://squarewhiteworld.com/ or is that from?) Thank you Christina--the enigmas you have drawn on Sor Juana for are appropriate raw and saintly garments or winding cloths, unwinding. Thank you Melinda for the gift of this space in the first place and for the time, as you write, it allows. Best, Simon ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
[-empyre-] Sensuous
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- For some reason this email did not go out to the list yesterday. I resend ita gain. Dear Christina and to all of you, I am responding quickly for now but will respond in depth more later tonight. First forgive me for not updating your short bio which I copy below. Thank you so much for sharing your drawings and it is so wonderful for you to join us again. Is there handmade paper that I see? How amazingly lush they are-- especially in light of the fact that most of us have been sitting in front of our screens and ZOOM these past few weeks. Please share more about the making of these amazingly sensuous pieces. I post the link you shared http://www.christinamcphee.net/trekking-toward-a-hellish-plight-caminando-al-tormento/ I also have a series of very large drawings that I am attempting to work on between my screened sentence of late. I am curious to hear what other -empyre- subscribers are doing with their down time away from technological screen. The lyrical poems you share take me away to such a different zone than this one I write in this afternoon. We all need a place of centeredness. That sounds rather cliché but I feel that it is more important than ever right now. Updated Biography: Christina McPhee is a North American mid-career visual artist of European descent, working in drawing, painting, and electronic media. Her map-like, contingent, topologic works, through low relief and tesselated forms, reflect on shapeshifting, intersubjectivity, and ecologies. Solo museum exhibitions include American University Museum in Washington, DC and Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden. Internationally, she has shown in museum exhibitions at MAMM (Colombia), Bildmuseet, and Thresholds Perth (Scotland); as well as documenta 12 and Bucharest Biennial 3. American museum collections of her work include the ICP and Whitney Museum of American Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Sheldon Museum. She received the MAP award for performance in 2012 with Pamela Z for their collaborative intermedia work, Carbon Song Cycle. Born in Los Angeles, she lives and works in southern California. (Pronouns: she/her) www.christinamcphee.net Renate Ferro Visiting Associate Professor Director of Undergraduate Studies Department of Art Tjaden Hall 306 rfe...@cornell.edu Renate Ferro Visiting Associate Professor Director of Undergraduate Studies Department of Art Tjaden Hall 306 rfe...@cornell.edu ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
[-empyre-] FW: Sensuous
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- Dear Christina and to all of you, I am responding quickly for now but will respond in depth more later tonight. First forgive me for not updating your short bio which I copy below. Thank you so much for sharing your drawings and it is so wonderful for you to join us again. Is there handmade paper that I see? How amazingly lush they are-- especially in light of the fact that most of us have been sitting in front of our screens and ZOOM these past few weeks. Please share more about the making of these amazingly sensuous pieces. I post the link you shared http://www.christinamcphee.net/trekking-toward-a-hellish-plight-caminando-al-tormento/ I also have a series of very large drawings that I am attempting to work on between my screened sentence of late. I am curious to hear what other -empyre- subscribers are doing with their down time away from technological screen. The lyrical poems you share take me away to such a different zone than this one I write in this afternoon. We all need a place of centeredness. That sounds rather cliché but I feel that it is more important than ever right now. Updated Biography: Christina McPhee is a North American mid-career visual artist of European descent, working in drawing, painting, and electronic media. Her map-like, contingent, topologic works, through low relief and tesselated forms, reflect on shapeshifting, intersubjectivity, and ecologies. Solo museum exhibitions include American University Museum in Washington, DC and Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden. Internationally, she has shown in museum exhibitions at MAMM (Colombia), Bildmuseet, and Thresholds Perth (Scotland); as well as documenta 12 and Bucharest Biennial 3. American museum collections of her work include the ICP and Whitney Museum of American Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Sheldon Museum. She received the MAP award for performance in 2012 with Pamela Z for their collaborative intermedia work, Carbon Song Cycle. Born in Los Angeles, she lives and works in southern California. (Pronouns: she/her) www.christinamcphee.net Renate Ferro Visiting Associate Professor Director of Undergraduate Studies Department of Art Tjaden Hall 306 rfe...@cornell.edu On 4/2/20, 3:34 PM, "empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of Christina McPhee" wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
[-empyre-] Contagion
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- Hi -empyre- I believe there will be great things to come out of COVID19 enforced change, and am loving #thevirusisus #wearethevirus etc I know people are pilloried for saying that publicly, seen as fool hardy, selfish and insensitive. And there are many experiencing COVID19 as a severe and life threatening illness, perhaps between 1- 5% will die- the majority being elderly, the already ill, the poor and and the least able to afford health care . But meanwhile the new mantra of flattening the curve has other consequences - women are subjected to increased domestic violence, huge number of people have lost their jobs, income, personal identity and ideals of ‘freedom’ as surveillance is increases. The ASX tanks, our beaches are closed, people are fined for going outdoors and brothels are being raided. We have friends who live in Sri Lanka with two teenagers who are lockedin and running out of food. No Uber Eats for them. But the reality for a lot of the planet is different - our contagion is fear. I’m over 60 with a compromised immune system and respiratory vulnerability so Ive moved down to my partners house in a coastal town, while she’s living at my house in the city, deemed an essential worker in mental health. Im lucky, and it xenophobic here. I had to get vouched for as local to buy some winter vegetable seedlings which then appeared from behind the garden centre counter; the supermarket in each small town keeps supplies for locals out the back to make sure city people don’t come here spreading the virus and taking all the toilet paper and cereal. Lucky I eat the gluten free bread and the goats yogurt that few others want. Im no stranger to viral infection and no stranger to isolation. In fact I rarely talk about this but -empyre- was gestated in 2001 when I was undergoing 6 months interferon treatment for my HCV. It was a moral imperative then to cure yourself- to contain infection, to shield others from my blood. I had done a lot of research before i did the chemo type treatment fascinated with immunosemiotics, network theorists of immunity, contagion, I made the Carrier artwork www.subtle.net/carrier and wrote extensively the eroticisation of Ebola, the horror of homophobic responses and then success of normalisation of HIV campaigns; the queerness and intelligence of the trans virus slipping covertly into host cells to reproduce itself. I couldn’t leave the house through fatigue except for medical visits, I was suicidially depressed at points, my hair was falling out. I was struggling with my Phd but needed the stipend to survive, but I had the internet . -empyre- saved me - a project of connection with a global community - a thread reaching out to people who thought about the things I liked to think about ( when I could concentrate) No-one had to see me or how long it took to write a post. And you know it was a magnificent time. I lived just for the day as I couldn’t really plan ahead. The days I did leave the house were filled with sensorial pleasure. The warm sun on my cheek, the cool autumn breeze. That virus changed my life. Im finding now an addictive hypervigilence around figure updates as I'm just finishing book which utilises data about unequal power relations in the art world - maybe I will say more on that tomorrow More than 1,002,000 people have been diagnosed with the COVID-19 disease worldwide, The death toll surpassed 51,000 today 1000 people are dying each day in Spain I am amazed at how the resources of the planet can be switched to finding a cure, artists making masks, gin distilleries now make hand sanitiser. I started playing Plague after it was discussed in last months -empyre- forum (thanks everyone- it was a great month) strategising which nation would be vulnerable to a different sort of viral or bacterial spread- the n egarly waiting till a ship or plane carried my little infectious cluster to another part of the world- very theraputic.! But what I am amazed at is how this viral fear drives us to action, to bail outs, to unprecedented social lock down, to global collaboration. Maybe because its a solvable thing that we can feel good about in the not unforeseeable future? No one is throwing money at climate change initiatives, or fighting over having safe drinking water all over the globe , or rushing to ensure everyone on the planet has access to education or to stop child trafficking. Because there are another set of figures that are staggering: 821 million suffer chronically from hunger around the globe. 91 million die each year from starvation - 60% are women and girls who have less access to power and food. 25,000 die each day from hunger- Solvable global hunger. I want to see the global hunger stats on my feeds every day, I want to see those co2 emission and temperature rise graphs. Will that ever happen? Cheers Melinda in the
