Re: [-empyre-] Welcome to Week 2 on -empyre_
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Thank you, Cengiz for sharing your op-ed on lean production with Anna Watkins Fisher. I'm particularly struck by this line: "This crisis is making visible the fragile social relations that have until now invisibly underwritten the new American way of life." I have been thinking about how the invisibility to the eye of the virus, and the uncertainty of its mechanism since it is novel, has the effect of rendering hyper-visible, or magnifying, existing structural contradictions that have held together capitalist regimes. As Sorelle writes of the "vast inequalities between people that have come to light"— it is perhaps not so much that these inequalities were hidden in the first place but it is harder now to avert our collective eyes from these inequalities. In the Singapore example Sorelle gave, the predatory treatment and othering of the mostly South Asian laborers in the construction and shipping industries have been both omnipresent, criticized for decades, and larger ignored but now that the status quo is threatening the health and economic wellbeing of its internal others, and the optics of Singapore's attempt to be a model example of handling the virus, temporary measures have been put in place, such as shifting workers out of perennially overcrowded dorms, etc. It remains to be seen, after the end of this long pandemic moment, what of the temporary and emergency measures that are being enacted within different states will remain permanent, at whose benefit. In Jonathan's formulation, "what makes us vulnerable to the worst is also what grants us the possibility of the best." If this global viral situation reveals us as intertwined lives that cannot be enclosed by borders, I wonder what renewed, hopeful logics can emerge in this crisis and its aftermath. ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
[-empyre-] Models and Simulations, Oh my!
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- Hello to all of you. I am feeling overwhelmed this week as Cornell actually began classes this week online. My job as Director of Undergraduate Studies also has me busy virtually reaching out to potential art students who were just accepted into our BFA program. It is great though to have this forum to hear about your thoughts on the pandemic as it relates to life and work. Yes Paul, today was the day we were supposed to be hosting you on campus and then celebrating afterwards. How sad but thrilled you can join us on -empyre.- I am so happy you mentioned your work revolving around genome-hype. I am thinking right now about the myth of simulations and models of all kinds revolving around the reporting of this pandemic. It appears that COVID models/ simulations are being run for all kinds of things. What's at stake is truth and understanding of a pandemic. The question is how can we more responsibly use models in simulating situations with clarity and with the understanding that manipulations and bias are the norm. From estimating who will get Covid to estimating who already has Covid to when the peaks will hit NYC or Philadephia or Detroit, to how many masks, shields, or ventilators we might need-- its all modeling and simulation. The percentages on morbidity rate has also changed, shifted, and is in flux. What I have learned from your incredible work is how all these things can be manipulated and shifted. I am thinking of your DNA shaped Copyright symbol and your America Project https://www.paulvanouse.com/ap/ So happy to have you join us and looking forward to Week 2. Best. Renate 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
Re: [-empyre-] Welcome to Week 2 on -empyre_
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- Thank you, Jonathan and Sorelle for sharing your writings. I have been always amazed at the amount of shared vocabularies between biology, philosophy, sociology, political science, and computation—— as we know, a vicious computer program is called “virus.” A computer simulation of cellular automaton by John Horton Conway is called “Life.” A piece of viral media content is called “meme,” a term Richard Dawkins made up to describe “living structures” in evolutionary biology. Yet despite their applications in diverging fields, these terms do seem to describe very similar yet fundamental mechanisms. Like Sorelle says, the “virus" may be mobilized in a political process of “othering” in Singapore. Or as Jonathan says, the machinery of the human body itself makes life and death, host and virus, inside and outside, so much intertwined; and this fact influences the ethical and political decisions we make. Junting Huang Department of Comparative Literature 240 Goldwin Smith Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
Re: [-empyre-] Welcome to Week 2 on -empyre_
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Hello everyone, I think my situation here is similar to many of you who are primarily experiencing this pandemic as a slow-down, isolate, stay-at-home, talk-to-your-family-on-phone, wait-to-see-if-I’m-sick, worry-about-family-and-friends period. I’m not quite able to imagine how this will be over soon, yet also unable to imagine the implications for future public events (like university courses and art shows) as we know them. University at Buffalo ended on-campus classes on March 13 as did the public schools, so since then I’ve been a stay at home artist/professor and home-school dad. Coincidentally, I was supposed to be talking at Cornell today, where I was looking forward to meeting up with Renate and Tim in person, so its a fitting day to begin a conversation on empyre. I haven’t yet composed an inspired manifesto for this particular moment, rather I dwell on particular ironies and dialectics. (1.) The impacted: The perversity of this pandemic in the US, which now is having a disproportionate mortality rate in African American populations, exacerbated by the delayed national response and historical, structural racisms. Like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005 and Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017, once again, non-white US populations continually finding oursevles disproportionately in harms way and without timely assistance. Likewise, grocery store clerks and delivery persons are now forced to the front lines in a survival struggle that could’ve been minimized. (2.) Knowledge production: In the US there is a long tradition of denigrating intellectuals and learned experts in the name of “common sense”. If common sense can be correlated to lived experience, it is particularly unsuited for “novel” things like COVID 19, epistemic shifts and post-anthropocentric world-views, all of which are needed at this point. Conservative values are pitted against paradigm shifts, cultural awareness, novel solutions—the out of the ordinary must be decared usual or denied existence. (3.) Life-sciences: Much of my artwork of the last twenty years has sought to undermine genome-hype. This hype is epitomized in tropes like, genetic-fitness, genetic-destiny, and even genetic disease. My objection has been on at a political, ethical, aesthetic and philosophical level, for instance, my own philosophical objection to reductivism in the bio-sciences. When I first heard of Watson and Crick’s famed “Central Dogma of DNA” in the 1990s, that ALL information in a cell flows from DNA->RNA->Proteins, I thought something so rigid simply has to be wrong and probably for multiple reasons. Retro-virus like HIV, are composed of viral RNA that reverse transcribes itself into human DNA for instance. Virus like Corona are composed of RNA is directly translated into proteins by a host human cell’s organelles. Like Jonathan noted in his recent contribution, we humans are being confronted by bugs that don’t fit into our definitions of life and confound our ontologies, our models, our central dogmas. Our challenges are perhaps outgrowing our models. (4.) Naming: In the US, Trump continually repeats ethnocentric slurs like “China Virus”. Contagions seldom seem to get the correct names. For instance, we still use the term “Spanish Flu” for the 1918 pandemic, even though the Flu didn’t originate in Spain, nor wreak the most havoc there, rather it was named so because Spain was one of few European countries during WWI not under censorship policies and able to publish reports on the disease. Unless other nations feel left out, I would suggest the name Trump Flu is better fitting. Here in the US, we could desribe this as the battle of Trump Flu vs. Obamacare. Anyway, I hope everyone is well and safe and looking forward to connecting with everyone this empyre week… take care, Paul Paul Vanouse Professor Department of Art Director of Coalesce Center for Biological Art University at Buffalo On Apr 9, 2020, at 11:25 PM, Sorelle Henricus mailto:sorelle.henri...@gmail.com>> wrote: --empyre- soft-skinned space-- Thank you Renate, Jonathan, and Elizabeth, and to Junting for inviting me to participate. I've really appreciated the thoughtful and measured, yet personal reflections in my first weeks at empyre as I have been attempting to limit my consumption of news media. However, ironically, the more isolated we become from each other as people, from borders closing, and subsequently this week a bill enforcing a 28 days "circuit breaker" [https://www.gov.sg/article/covid-19-circuit-breaker-heightened-safe-distancing-measures-to-reduce-movement] where households are prohibited from mingling, enforcing "social distancing," the more we are forced to consume news if only to keep abreast of the law. The rhetoric about the pandemic in Singapore has been driven largely by a paternalistic state,
Re: [-empyre-] Welcome to Week 2 on -empyre_
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Thank you Renate, Jonathan, and Elizabeth, and to Junting for inviting me to participate. I've really appreciated the thoughtful and measured, yet personal reflections in my first weeks at empyre as I have been attempting to limit my consumption of news media. However, ironically, the more isolated we become from each other as people, from borders closing, and subsequently this week a bill enforcing a 28 days "circuit breaker" [ https://www.gov.sg/article/covid-19-circuit-breaker-heightened-safe-distancing-measures-to-reduce-movement] where households are prohibited from mingling, enforcing "social distancing," the more we are forced to consume news if only to keep abreast of the law. The rhetoric about the pandemic in Singapore has been driven largely by a paternalistic state, which has been sending reassuring messages to the public while taking measures in phases. The first phase was during the initial outbreak in Wuhan, when travellers from the region were barred from entering or transiting in Singapore. These restrictions were expanded to other affected regions as the centers of the spikes were identified, so Europe and the ASEAN followed by the USA. The narrative was that the threat was coming externally and that by isolating travellers and returning citizens it could be contained. The government had been encouraging working from home and two weeks ago closed bars and nightclubs, barring public or private gatherings of over 10 people. Schools remained open, sending a mixed message to citizens who were wearing masks and using sanitizer and hoarding toilet paper. My daughter has only started "Home Based Learning" three days ago this Wednesday, the day after the circuit breaker bill was passed. The xenophobia towards the Chinese that was seen in February began to abate as the concerns shifted more internally. The Singaporean population a majority of Chinese ethnicity calls Chinese nationals "PRCs" and considers them "other," often resentful of new immigrants and is expressed on the "blogosphere" and other informal channels. [ https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Singaporeans-call-Chinese-people-PRCs] The past few days, the focus has shifted to a different foreign threat. Foreign workers, largely South Asian, who work in construction and maintenance services in Singapore. https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/covid-19-record-287-new-cases-spore-219-infections-linked-dorms-foreign-workers-who-had-visited https://www.ricemedia.co/current-affairs-features-chaos-confusion-migrant-workers-fears-safety-salaries-covid-19/ There was even a kerfuffle where a former minister was embarrassed for calling out foreign workers for gathering at an open field on Sundays their day off saying residents were often inconvenienced by these gatherings and that "it takes a virus to empty the space". https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/yaacob-ibrahim-apologises-facebook-remark-foreign-workers-gathering-near-kallang-mrt The situation of bodies, governed by ethnicities and "place-ness", within the microcosm of a society organised by the vector of "the economy" has come to the forefront of thought and discussion with the emergence of Covid-19 as a threat to "life": sustaining the life of bodies, the lived experience of communities, the "health" of the economy, and what is hoped can be eliminated...the epidemiological life of the Covid-19 coronavirus. In this arrangement, I look to my friends Jonathan (as a reader of biological science like myself) and Elizabeth (who, amongst other things, has worked on aspects of racial representation in migrant diasporas). As a reader of Derrida, I tend to agree with Jonathan on the paradoxical nature of the scientific understanding of "life" and what we might infer from it. Thank you for putting it so beautifully: "It is impossible to render oneself entirely immune to viruses without eliminating the life in oneself." I am finding that, in Singapore and perhaps all over the world, the threat of contagion is linked essentially to an "other." At the most basic level this other is the "coronavirus" but also, more distinctly, the concern is who is carrying it as a host. For me, this distinction is an iteration of the basic distinction between mind/body, self-other, that is outlined by Derrida as "autoimmunity." The autoimmune thought in this way is a condition that constitutes conscious life. I have been thinking for some time that when Derrida states that “the living ego is auto-immune,” (Specters of Marx, 141) he describes a constitutive operation of the self that is an intervention in the thinking of the relation between “natural life” and “life of the spirit” and is an update to the understanding of Cartesian “dualism” which often stands in as the figure of rationality and allows something like the study of bodies that is "biology." What's intriguing now with the rhetoric and practice of life in a global pandemic might be how the
