[-empyre-] #remakemistresses

[melinda rackham]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
she launched into the silent void..  
while the globe seethed and heaved 
at what would become tomorrow 


And here is what I've been up to for 6 months in iso in the country - playing 
dress-ups and serious number crunching:

Why copy tired old masters when you can remake contemporary Australian 
mistresses?
https://subtle.net/remakemistresses
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/remakemistresses/

CoUNTess: Spoiling Illusions since 2008,
https://www.elvisrichardson.com/countess-book.html  
https://acca.melbourne/program/acca-book-club-elvis-richardson-melinda-rackham/ 

#remakemistresses responds directly to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent 
shutdown of the arts industry in Australia and Internationally. Following the 
lead of @tussenkunstenquarantaine‘s Stay At Home Challenge! on Instagram, the 
Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Getty in Los Angeles, the National Gallery of 
Australia (NGA), and many others who challenged their now at home audiences to 
playfully engage in the century’s old pastime of recreating famous paintings or 
tableau vivants.

#remakemistresses also responds to the postponed National Gallery of 
Australia’s (NGA)  Know My Name season of Australian women artists. Originally 
slated for early 2020 it is now rescheduled to open on 14 November 2020. As 
co-author with Elvis Richardson of the forthcoming book CoUNTess: Spoiling 
Illusions since 2008,  charting the history and legacy of the CoUNTess 
project’s and advocacy of gend er asymmetry in the art world, I am keenly aware 
that women are severely underrepresented in every national art collections – a 
mere 25% at the NGA.

Any call to create shared cultural moments from art collections primarily 
composed of “old masters” is ripe for parafeminist intervention. Both parody 
and femmage, my remakes of contemporary Australian women artists or “modern 
mistresses”  over 6 months from March till August 2020 are shot on an iPad 
using only materials at hand, and placing them in the midst of our COVID-19 
heightened visual culture (mostly without image manipulation) on Instagram and 
Facebook under the #remakemistresses hashtag. 

#remakemistresses is a femmage, honouring of the work of under seen, under 
collected and under acknowledged contemporary Australian Women artists. It 
encompasses research, curation, performance, photography and social media 
engagement to increase the visibility and knowledge of Australian contemporary 
women artists who work with painting, performance, photography, ceramics, 
sculpture, film, digital media, jewellery, body art, textiles, sound, drawing 
and collage. It makes visible the creative and personal networks and 
communities which support and inspire them.

#remakemistresses utilises parody and irony, not in a derogatory way, but 
playfully and critically. Each remake stands on its own as an image and a 
visual quip, however knowing or discovering the context of the artist and their 
original work adds a deeper level of viewing and thinking pleasure as the works 
speak to each other. It is an inclusive creative celebratory and bold public 
visual platform for the ageing female body.  Its humour embodies concepts that 
a diversity of women artists have created over decades, and it delights in 
fostering a celebratory and cohesive atmosphere among us.

I am planning on another edition of #remakemistresses in collaboration with 
other curators and encompassing  discussions with First Nations women artists 
on negotiating to recreate their work.

The book has been a fascinating, learning curve,  labour of love, co authoring 
with Elvis and having feedback from an articulate knowledgeable brains trust of 
women artists writers and curators. it.s  just at design and  will launching  
2021- there will be a party. 

Love to you all in our maddening world.

Melinda

warm regards,
   Melinda

Melinda Rackham
Artist & Author, PhD
Adjunct Research Professor
UniSA Creative
University of South Australia

a   P.O. Box 1109
North Adelaide 
South Australia 5006

e   meli...@subtle.net
m   +61 410 596 592
w   http://www.subtle.net


> On 3 Nov 2020, at 7:54 am, Renate Ferro  wrote:
> 
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> Hello -empyre- subscribers, 
> Dan Lichtman will be moderating this month, but in the meantime we will keep 
> our OCTOBER open call alive:  
> -empyre- tactics and strategies in the age of Corona Virus.
> 
> We ordinarily pick up our monthly discussions in September after summer break 
> but as we explained early in October we delayed. We acknowledge the extra 
> stresses of the Covid pandemic that have overtaxed so many of us.  We want to 
> be sensitive to our participants' extra responsibilities at home and the more 
> intense planning and workload at work and school.
> 
> Do you have an exhibition coming u

[-empyre-] Fwd: Bubbles and bodies

[Dr Melinda Rackham]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--

Renate:
> Others are finding themselves needing to suspend their art projects and 
> critical pursuits in other areas to dwell on the suddenness, danger, loss, 
> and peril wrought globally by COVID-19.

I am an other.
Thank you for having me sit with and feel through this cluster fuck as it 
unfolds, which in Australia comes immediately after the emotional, 
environmental, financial, species and spiritual devastation of bushfires. 
And thank you everyone for your poetic and thoughtful posts on soft skin and 
shape shifting as the small and simple novel corona virus restructures our 
lives.
And for the back channel hellos from old friends and comrades. 

Ive pulled a knobbly thread through some words of the week to try to shape 
sense and sensation:

Christina:
> Contentious, paradoxical, and perverse, Sor Juana presides, saint-like, over 
> this strange realization at the exact moment that the current contagion 
> spreads. She matters now because her writing grapples with the paradoxes of 
> speech and community in a time when many sense the capacities for horror in 
> the 'failed state.’ 
Tim:
> It’s strange to watch the sun shining on the bucolic setting in which we are 
> sheltering at home while health and economic darkness looms over the world.
Cengiz:
> More importantly, I hope this reflection allows us to reevaluate precisely 
> how our valuation of certain forms of life often come at the expense of 
> others 
Junting:
> The problem with our “porous borders” is that it often gives us a false sense 
> of security
Aviva:
> As stimulating as porous boundaries maybe (and are in so many ways), they 
> have also literally caused the present zoonosis throwing the entire world 
> into a state of chaos
Brett:
> Cicero Silva (S.P. Brazil)... a digital media artist so close to the eye of 
> the storm in terms of public health response, however I feel like his story 
> may not be able to be shared in real time due to his current 25 hour work days
Simon:
> A community to come... of the same... promises the same... when 
> communicability--whether through the transcendental frame or through the 
> porosity of borders and bubbles and bodies--reveals itself to be, is the 
> problem, or question?
Gary:
> "I have decided to refrain from writing on events as they are unfolding”... 
> Interestingly, Wendy Brown quotes this passage from Merleau-Ponty in her 
> chapter on ‘Moralism as Anti-Politics’ in Politics Out of History. To the 
> ‘trap of the event’ and the ‘terms of “the event”’ she adds the ‘trap of 
> existing discourses’.


If I conceptualise porosity as a border, a way through, a penetration, I don’t 
really get to feel it as a transitional dimension, as constant action, as multi 
temporal, as simultaneity, inside+outside, us+them, beach+ocean, 
virus+human+dog+tiger, always adding and subtracting from its conglomerations.

But is conglomeration just a big brown undefined blob renderd obsolete by a 
collapse of objectivity? Again and again I come back to that prophetic truism 
that a faked artwork, text or relic, appearing authentic in its own era, is 
easy to spot once fashion has moved on. Why would I even consider the pretence 
that I can be extracted from the events and discourses that fashion my life?

I have friends who are infected and in precarious situations, for whom I am 
genuinely concerned, however also I'm questioning from my privileged bubble:

Will the mass deaths of the poor, starving, under resourced, already ill, high 
density populations with little access to advanced health care affect me?  
Transition into my schema? Or are the just numbers that I already ignore?

Why does "doing more" suddenly look so #pathetic? Renew my donation to 
Medicines Sans Frontiers? Become vegan? Stop flying? Or will I say something 
whip smart, point out others complicity and, as we say in Australia, throw 
another steak on the barbie (BBQ)?

Can I placate my unease by justifying I am not one of the ones who can make 
difference like those billionaires riding this out holed up on private islands 
with attendant staff? 

Why do I act like I am not all part a whole.. moral outrage is a fickle as 
public attention, and about as reasonable. If I am not going to alter my 
behaviour, adapt to a different reality why should I even contemplate that 
those with skin in the game would?

But in the near future will contemplative luxury even exist?  

Over to our next guests >>>

Melinda



warm regards,
Melinda

Melinda Rackham
Artist & Author, PhD
Adjunct Research Professor
Art, Architecture and Design
University of South Australia

a   P.O. Box 1109
North Adelaide 
South Australia 5006

e   meli...@subtle.net
m   +61 410 596 592
w   http://www.subtle.net


___
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu

[-empyre-] Bubbles and bodies

[melinda rackham]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Renate:
>  Others are finding themselves needing to suspend their art projects and 
> critical pursuits in other areas to dwell on the suddenness, danger, loss, 
> and peril wrought globally by COVID-19.

I am an other.
Thank you for having me sit with and feel through this cluster fuck as it 
unfolds, which in Australia comes immediately after the emotional, 
environmental, financial, species and spiritual devastation of bushfires. 
And thank you everyone for your poetic and thoughtful posts on soft skin and 
shape shifting as the small and simple novel corona virus restructures our 
lives.
And for the back channel hellos from old friends and comrades. 

Ive pulled a knobbly thread through some words of the week to try to shape 
sense and sensation:

 Christina:
> Contentious, paradoxical, and perverse, Sor Juana presides, saint-like, over 
> this strange realization at the exact moment that the current contagion 
> spreads. She matters now because her writing grapples with the paradoxes of 
> speech and community in a time when many sense the capacities for horror in 
> the 'failed state.’ 
 Tim:
> It’s strange to watch the sun shining on the bucolic setting in which we are 
> sheltering at home while health and economic darkness looms over the world.
Cengiz:
> More importantly, I hope this reflection allows us to reevaluate precisely 
> how our valuation of certain forms of life often come at the expense of 
> others 
Junting:
> The problem with our “porous borders” is that it often gives us a false sense 
> of security
Aviva:
> As stimulating as porous boundaries maybe (and are in so many ways), they 
> have also literally caused the present zoonosis throwing the entire world 
> into a state of chaos
Brett:
> Cicero Silva (S.P. Brazil)... a digital media artist so close to the eye of 
> the storm in terms of public health response, however I feel like his story 
> may not be able to be shared in real time due to his current 25 hour work days
Simon:
> A community to come... of the same... promises the same... when 
> communicability--whether through the transcendental frame or through the 
> porosity of borders and bubbles and bodies--reveals itself to be, is the 
> problem, or question?
Gary:
>  "I have decided to refrain from writing on events as they are unfolding”... 
> Interestingly, Wendy Brown quotes this passage from Merleau-Ponty in her 
> chapter on ‘Moralism as Anti-Politics’ in Politics Out of History. To the 
> ‘trap of the event’ and the ‘terms of “the event”’ she adds the ‘trap of 
> existing discourses’.


If I conceptualise porosity as a border, a way through, a penetration, I don’t 
really get to feel it as a transitional dimension, as constant action, as multi 
temporal, as simultaneity, inside+outside, us+them, beach+ocean, 
virus+human+dog+tiger, always adding and subtracting from its conglomerations.

But is conglomeration just a big brown undefined blob renderd obsolete by a 
collapse of objectivity? Again and again I come back to that prophetic truism 
that a faked artwork, text or relic, appearing authentic in its own era, is 
easy to spot once fashion has moved on. Why would I even consider the pretence 
that I can be extracted from the events and discourses that fashion my life?

I have friends who are infected and in precarious situations, for whom I am 
genuinely concerned, however also I'm questioning from my privileged bubble:

Will the mass deaths of the poor, starving, under resourced, already ill, high 
density populations with little access to advanced health care affect me?  
Transition into my schema? Or are the just numbers that I already ignore?

Why does "doing more" suddenly look so #pathetic? Renew my donation to 
Medicines Sans Frontiers? Become vegan? Stop flying? Or will I say something 
whip smart, point out others complicity and, as we say in Australia, throw 
another steak on the barbie (BBQ)?

Can I placate my unease by justifying I am not one of the ones who can make 
difference like those billionaires riding this out holed up on private islands 
with attendant staff? 

Why do I act like I am not all part a whole.. moral outrage is a fickle as 
public attention, and about as reasonable. If I am not going to alter my 
behaviour, adapt to a different reality why should I even contemplate that 
those with skin in the game would?

But in the near future will contemplative luxury even exist?  

Over to our next guests >>>

Melinda


 
___
empyre forum
empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu

[-empyre-] Contagion

[melinda rackham]

 
in the global south



> On 3 Apr 2020, at 2:32 am, Renate Ferro  wrote:
> 
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> Welcome to Week 1
>Interfacing COVID 19: the technologies of contagion, risk, and 
> contamination
>Moderated by Renate Ferro, Junting Huang, Tim Murray
> 
> We feature two invited guests this week: long-time -empyre- moderator 
> Christina McPhee and Melinda Rackham our esteemed originator.  Junting Huang, 
> Tim Murray and I will also be chiming in this week as this month's moderators 
> to set up the month.  We have 21 guests from week 2 to 4 but we wanted to 
> keep this week a bit more open to consider who -empyre- is and to give our 
> 2200 plus subscribers an opportunity to post freely. 
> 
> It seems to me that the -empyre- platform might be a refreshing shift for 
> those of us who have been on ZOOM or other virtual interfaces these past few 
> weeks.  -empyre- soft-skinned space was originated in 2002 for exactly the 
> same purposes of networking together a group of artists and technologists who 
> wanted to converse together. Originally the list included a handful of 
> Melinda's close associates and now over 2200 subscribers. All -empyre- 
> subscribers are invited to post freely.  Narrative accounts, literary 
> contributions, theoretical ponderings, links to interesting reading material 
> associated with COVID, tactical strategies, health conscious tips, or 
> survival guides to working and producing are all acceptable. Please let us 
> know how you are doing, how your own work is adapting to the COVID 
> environment, and where you are writing from.  
> 
> We also look forward to hearing from Christine who is in California and 
> Melinda who is in Australia.  The biographies of our moderators and our first 
> two guests are copied below. 
> 
>Week 1:  April 1st- 7th
>Christina McPhee and Melinda Rackham with Renate Ferro, Junting Huang and 
> Tim Murray  
> 
> 
> Moderator’s Biographies: 
> 
>Renate Ferro’s creative work resides within the areas of emerging 
> technology, new media and culture. Her artistic work has been featured at the 
> Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), The Freud Museum (London), The 
> Dorksy Gallery (NY), The Hemispheric Institute and FOMMA (Mexico), and The 
> Janus Pannonius Muzeum (Hungary). Ferro is a Visiting Associate Professor of 
> Art at Cornell University.  She has been on the moderating team of -empyre- 
> soft-skinned space since 2007 and is currently the curatorial moderator. 
> 
>Junting Huang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Comparative 
> Literature at Cornell University. His research interests include Chinese and 
> Taiwanese literature, cinema, and media culture, Chinese diasporic culture in 
> the Caribbean. His dissertation project, “The Noise Decade: Intermedial 
> Impulse in Chinese Sound Recording,” examines an artistic encounter across 
> the Taiwan Strait between the 1990s and 2000s, where an aesthetic and 
> political discourse on “noise” intersected with the convergence of media. At 
> Cornell, he is also the Assistant Curator at the Rose Goldsen Archive of New 
> Media Art.
> 
>Tim Murray is a curator of new media and contemporary art and a theorist 
> of visual studies and digital culture.  He is Director of the Cornell Council 
> for the Arts, Curator of the Cornell Biennial and the Rose Goldsen Archive of 
> New Media Art, and Professor of Comparative Literature and English at Cornell 
> University. A member of the -empyre- moderating team since 2007, his 
> exhibitions include the 2018 Cornell Biennial, “Signal to Code: 50 Years of 
> Media Art in the Goldsen Archive” (2016), CTHEORY MULTIMEDIA with Arthur and 
> Marilouise Kroker (2000-03), and “Contact Zones: The Art of CD-Rom” 
> (1999-2002).  His books include Medium Philosophicum: Thinking Art 
> Electronically (forthcoming in Spanish, 2020) and Digital Baroque: New Media 
> Art and Cinematic Folds (2008). 
> 
>Guest’s Biographies
>Week 1
> 
>Christina McPhee’s images move from within a matrix of abstraction, 
> shadowing figures and contingent effects. Her work emulates potential forms 
> of life, in various systems and territories, and in real and imagined 
> ecologies. Her dynamic, performative, physical engagement with drawing, in 
> both her analogue and digital works, is a seduction into surface-skidding 
> calligraphies and mark-making. The tactics of living are in subterfuge, like 
> the dazzle ships of camouflage in war. Lines throw down rope-like bridges, 
> cat’s-cradling figures, or a search for grounding and commons. Cached and 
> clustered, fragments take exception to systems. Color sparks disruptions of 
> scale t

Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 3]

[Melinda Rackham]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Hi all,
 great monthly topics.. and DNA talk compels me to respond..
my take on DNA  is rather different as an Adopted person without knowledge of 
my racial/cultural heritage

I did as a kid dream I was misplaced child of European royalty, but alas my 
birth mum was just a young unmarried working class woman from the poorer 
suburbs shamed and bullied by society and religion into letting nuns take her 
child. she had another daughter she lost to adoption two years later. I have 
never met my 1/2 sister.

so I am using DNA to locate my relatives - and I agree ist full of clichés and 
stereotyping , especially when one runs ones results through different 
companies (ancestry, 23andMe, my heritage etc) . their ancestral algorithms are 
based on estimates and probabilities, not certainties,  and I come out racially 
differently in each result.

My Scandanavian is overtaken by western European, I get to be more english and 
less Irish/Scottish in others, my precious bit of Persian decreases, while my 
Italian gains.  As well there are no DNA testing companies that have reliable 
reference SNP data from Indigenous Australians -so bad luck if you are looking.

For me it is flawed on so many levels , but serious as its the only linkage I 
have to my paternal heritage, and to my adopted 1/2 sister. It also answers a 
few questions for me, like why having grown up in outback Australia I feel so 
at home safe and comfortable in European forests - why I feel very familiar 
with Denmark and Danish. 

Those that have the luxury of connection to heritage, I don't think could 
really understand what its like to not see anyone u look like, and that 
mirroring is a vital component of development, and have no threads to  
cultures, society, or land.  Its a little like being a refugee from birth .. 
grateful for food and shelter but stricken with grief and loss - cant go back 
uncertain about going fwd, a placeless person.

DNA promises a lot, but it doesn't deliver - almost like gambling- get a lead 
follow it, then people don't respond, etc.. .MyHeritage has a pro bono 
initiative DNA Quest which is supposed to  help adoptees and their birth 
families reunite through DNA testing- sending out 15,000  DNA kits for free.  
But u still need the dedication to do the work to find and follow links and 
build thier network and info.  My favourite line in their blurb:
" We hope to make this project a shining light for corporate philanthropy and 
an example to be followed by other commercial companies in their own lines of 
expertise, to help make our world a better place."

And in all of this heart-felt searching, most companies ask if they can retain 
our DNA records for medical research .. building a Biodata Empire, and most 
people, thinking they are helping their fellows, say yes.

happy testing 

Kerri Anne Burgess
as I was on my birth certificate before I was legally transformed into Melinda 
Rackham


> On 19 Jun 2018, at 10:03 am, Christiane Robbins  
> wrote:
> 
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> Brett,
> 
> I couldn’t agree more in that DNA kits are ripe for parody … the clichés the 
> stereotyping, the narrow bandwidth of race is utterly sophomoric and 
> misleading.  That said, I take issue with the focus of your position below - 
> the “will toward cultural appropriation”, identity theft and the rush to 
> judgement of an the exploitive branding as an identity prop for purposes of 
> cultural appropriation…. or if, as you may be implying, for financial gain.
> 
> I, too, state this as a citizen of the USA.  My own ancestor was Robert Coe - 
> an original puritan ( colonizer) displaced from the UK and arriving in MA - 
> and a rather prolific one at that!.  My blood lines ( as it were ) speak to 
> the amalgam of immigration patterns in the east coast of USA since 1635 .
> These include the Lenape Tribe ( the original peoples,)  the British, the 
> Irish, the German, the Italian, the Spanish, the Finnish and the Lebanese - 
> and all of these speak to their own migratory patterns throughout the 
> millennia that in themselves have been racialized and nationalized.  
> 
> I am simply an exemplary example of 4 centuries of migratory co-mingling in 
> what is now called the USA.   All are verifiable in my DNA analysis as well 
> as the patriarchal names ( Coe, Maier, Cassidy, Allaway, etc.) And most 
> significantly via an oral history that has been handed down to me through my 
> matriarchal line - my mother.  This oral history is most incredible but now 
> pales in responding to the evidentiary demands of verifiable data analysis of 
> the 21st c the DNA analysis which has now taken center stage .  This is 
> simply an apt metaphor for our moment in history.
> 
> FYI, throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th century in the USA th

Re: [-empyre-] OPEN POST -empyre-LIFE AND WORK IN THE DIGITAL AGE: can you add to this bibliography

[Melinda Rackham]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Some recent references:

Runway #32 Re/production,  edited by VNS Matrix, 2016
http://runway.org.au/archive/32-reproduction/

Cyberfeminist Manifesto VNS Matrix, 1991 
https://vnsmatrix.net/the-cyberfeminist-manifesto-for-the-21st-century/

Xenofeminist Manifesto, Laboria Cuboniks,  http://www.laboriacuboniks.net/

Xenofeminism Helen Hester , Polity, 2018

a more quantitive look: 
Melissa Gregg, Works Intimacy, Polity, 2011


cheers 
Melinda


> On 3 May 2018, at 10:44 am, Renate Terese Ferro  wrote:
> 
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> Sarah Cook, the curator and writer from the UK, posted this post on FACEBOOK 
> a few days ago. 
> “just made a list of good, non-fiction, cautionary tales about life and work 
> in the digital/information age, and they're all by men. Help.” 
> 
> Please help me make a bibliography of self-identified women writers who have 
> written books, articles about life and work in the digital/ information age 
> and I will share it with Sarah— Thanks Sarah and FB friends for this 
> beginning. 
> 
> Clicking In by Lynn Hershman
> Nature and Wellbeing in the Digital Age by Sue Thomas
> The Digital Human (BBC radio podcast)
> Hello World: travels in virtuality (2004), a travel memoir of cyberspace by 
> Sue Thomas
> Technobiophilia: Nature and Cyberspace (2013), a study of nature metaphors in 
> digital life with history, culture and wellbeing woven in by Sue Thomas
> https://www.wired.com/story/social-media-makes-us-soldiers-in-the-war-against-ourselves/
> Virginia Heffernan 
> Ellen Ullman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Ullman
> 
> Also: 
> María Fernández books Cosmopolitanism in Mexican Visual Culture (Texas 
> University Press 2014) and with Faith Wilding and Michelle Wright she edited 
> Domain Errors: Cyberfeminist Practices.
> Trans Desire/Affective Cyborgs (Think Media) Micha Cardenas
> Love, Robot by Margaret Rhee
> 
> Please add to this list!  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

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Re: [-empyre-] ListServ

[melinda rackham]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Thank you for posting your perspective Sarah,
 It’s great to read.
 Can I ask how you research for information when u have to complete assignments 
or projects at uni?
- is it through publications in print/ online?
- discussions with peers in your field of study?
 -asking more senior engineers questions ?

Melinda

Sent from my iPad



Sent from my iPad
> On 15 Feb 2018, at 5:03 am, Sarah Jeon  wrote:
> 
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> Dear Empyre users,
> 
> I’m one of Renate’s students, a freshman in Engineering. 
> This is my first time using empyre, but also my first time being involved in 
> the list serve community. Reading these posts, I especially sensed the 
> generation difference between the 21st generation and the older generations. 
> 
> Computers were entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 
> 1980s. Around that time ListServ arose.  ListServ first began in 1986 by an 
> engineering software program to automate the management of email lists. It 
> provided functions that made it possible for users to search list archives 
> for messages about various topics. ListServ was something many people turned 
> to, because it was their way of social networking back in the old days. 
> Because computers were new to many people and ListServ was a way for many 
> people to network online for the first time, I believe that those people 
> still have an attachment with ListServ to this day. However, I believe it is 
> much more difficult for the newer generation to start using it, because it is 
> often underrated due to other social networking options that are much more 
> entertaining and relatable to them. The newer generation seeks for instant 
> gratification, short writings, pictures and videos. And since LIstServs often 
> consist of long posts, teens tend to get scared to participate. I enjoyed 
> exploring empyre, but I can most definitely see how this network will be 
> inconvenient for many of the younger generation. The younger generation 
> usually only use Listserv when they want updates from their favorite shopping 
> website or clubs they are in. Otherwise, if they were signed up for multiple 
> Listservs, they would get millions of emails daily hiding important emails. 
> 
> I hope the older generation keeps the ListServ community thriving.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Sarah 
> ___
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
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[-empyre-] Vale Adrian Miles - -empyre-'s second facilitator

[melinda rackham]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--

Today I bear the sad news that our colleague and friend Adrain Miles has passed 
away at the weekend. He had a heart attack while riding his bike.

I have known Adrian for several decades both on and offline. I can't recall 
which conference I met him at, but it was somewhere in the mid 1990’s when we 
were a few of dissident voices of the superhighway hype. His enthusiasm for 
everything was astounding! His generosity to others as a teacher and mentor, 
his love of a good debate, his enquiring mind and his sense of humour. He 
always had a smile and a quirky line. 

Adrian was an original member and active participant of -empyre-. As I knew he 
was smart, trustworthy and equitable he was the first person I approached to 
assist facilitating when -empyre- was growing exponentially in its first six 
months and was too much for one person to manage. 
 
He joined up behind the scenes and first facilitated on his favourite topic in 
June 2002: 
+ Hypertext, Blogs and Video Blogs (vogs)
Adrian Miles and Jill Walker
http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/2002-June/date.html

and in September 2002: 
 Alter_Forms  
+ codeWurk with Mez & Methodicist Manifesto with Hideki Nakazawa
http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/2002-September/date.html

Adrian left the team as more facilitators joined in 2003, and was a vital 
member of "fibreculture" another Australian listserve and publisher set up on a 
more academic model http://www.fibreculture.org.  However he remained a long 
timr supported of and occasional guest on -empyre-, the last being on Practice 
Led Research in 2013.

Tributes are currently being written by others for ELO, RMIT and other places. 
Our thoughts are with his loved ones.
x
Melinda 

From around the web today:
 
Jason Nelson:
"Tragic news from Australia. Adrian Miles has passed away.
A pioneering digital media artist, thinker and writer, early hypertext creator, 
vlogger and Professor at RMIT, Adrian continued for decades to be a force in 
combining new forms of narrative/writing/communication and media in Australia 
and around the world. Damn"

Lisa Gye:
"Terribly saddened by the news of Adrian Miles' death last weekend. He was 
generous, challenging and thoroughly supportive. I know many Australian and 
international media studies scholars will be shocked and dismayed by this news."

Rosie Cross:
"Vale Adrian Miles, @vogmae on #Vimeo https://t.co/gF5PcpBxzH #RIP #pioneer 
[#geekgirl]"
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Re: [-empyre-] -empyre- in 2002- a trip down memory lane

[melinda rackham]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
And I still have a black on black M I N D S P A C E  Tshirt  in my early net 
artifacts archive !

M



Sent from my iPad
> On 7 Feb 2018, at 1:46 am, patrick lichty  wrote:
> 
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> There was also another great one called Mindspace, which was run by early
> Cyberspace pontificator Peter Anders.
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> [mailto:empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Ana Valdés
> Sent: Tuesday, February 6, 2018 7:08 PM
> To: soft_skinned_space 
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] -empyre- in 2002- a trip down memory lane
> 
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> 
> ___
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
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[-empyre-] mushrooms, oysters & creeping clouds

[melinda rackham]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Ben wrote:

“I think this is incredibly ripe territory for creative exploration. How might 
we use mushrooms as material and also as metaphor? Perhaps all the information 
we need in order to de-contaminate ourselves and our planet is already embedded 
within our folk knowledge? “ 

To remix metaphors perhaps it is just a matter of finding the right handshake. 
Jerne's  Network Theory of Immunity proposes:
The (Immune) system has no way and no need to distinguish self from foreign. It 
knows nothing alien to its composition. It only knows of itself and itself is 
the network of endogenous activity...  By means of somatic mutation it has 
already anticipated, inside 'self,' every variety of the 'nonself' that it 
could ever meet.

So if everything on the planet is a oneness, stemming from the same root, it is 
all in balance. Like I discovered rolling on the ground trying to get the 
perfect image of a 2000 year old Yew tree a few months ago at Dartigton Hall in 
Devon, that the antidote Doc Leaves grow next to the Stinging Nettles. 

Another project from the ‘Art Bunker’ as Ricardo names it, is a small oyster 
farm set up near the MONA jetty which aims to reddress the Derwent River’s 
toxic deposits of mercury, cadmium, lead, zinc and copper form an industrial 
past. Like mushrooms oysters, particularly the Pacific and native angasi 
oysters are very effective heavy-metal filtration systems. They live for few 
weeks sucking up the toxins, die, are harvested, dried and cast into concrete 
or glass.  

Similar to the elaborate semantic gymnastics of processings radioactive waste 
at Onkalo, they are entombed ‘safely’ in an oyster mausoleum, officially known 
as the Heavy Metal Retaining Wall. Channeling her sense of dominion over the 
earth’s creatures curator Kirsha Kaechele describes the dead oysters as 
''soldiers for the cause'' while her partner David Walsh estimates it would 
take 1.1 trillion oysters to die to extract all the heavy metal deposits from 
the river.

But back on the mainland, there is another sort of remediation. In recent 
years, indigenous artists have been making powerful works inspired by the 
imagery of radiation clouds blowing over Maralinga the site of almost 20 series 
of British nuclear tests in the 1950s. This huge region in the remote western 
areas of South Australia, home of the southern Pitjantjatjara people still 
remains contaminated.

Yhonnie Scarce’s Thunder Raining Poison from 2015 (see image link below) was 
made for TARNANTHI  ( https://www.tarnanthi.com.au ) an unmissable annual 
festival of indigenous arts in South Australia (unfortunately funded with 
contaminating BHP money). Tinkling and glittering, this cloud of 2000 clear 
hand blown small glass yams (potato like bush food) hangs ominously over 
gallery viewer . Scarce uses breath and glass as during the tests the blasts 
were so hot that the ground turned to glass and puyu (black mist) exposed the 
traditional owners to radiation causing illness and early death. 

Her later work Death Zephyr (2016-2017) of black and clear glass yams elates to 
the Woomera Prohibited Area -  a Department of Defence no-go zone. Wommera was 
also where the Australian Government interred up to 2000 asylum seekers  
between 1999 and 2003 in facility built for 400 people, and source of the great 
artivist computer game “Escape from Wommera”.( 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZwNm_ru6Kc ) The human rights abuse 
perpetrated under the border politics of the Australia government paints 
refugees and asylum seekers as a potent contaminators of our ‘safety and 
Australian way of life’.

This year at TARNANTH the creeping clouds manifested as as Kulata Tjuta - 
wooden kulata (spears) made by Anangu  men, hovering in  an explosive cloud 
above the hand-carved piti (wooden bowls) of Anangu women. This work was 
initiated in 2010 by senior men from across the Anangu Pitjantjatjara 
Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, where I currently live, as both a remembrance of 
the tests sixty years ago and a cultural maintenance project. Kulata Tjuta 
means many spears and teaches young Community men the skills of wood carving 
and spear production. This is a remediation of culture contaminated, decimated 
by 250 years of white invasion and genocide.

more tomorrow
Melinda

Thunder Raining Poison Images:
https://www.google.com.au/search?dcr=0=1440=506=isch=1=MmIeWve2JIH78QXWgKHYBQ=yhonnie+scarce+thunder+raining+poison=Yhonnie+Scarce+Thunder_l=psy-ab.1.0.0i24k1.15013.15585.0.17108.2.2.0.0.0.0.417.700.2-1j0j1.2.00...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.1.2830.VsyISUAf4xU

Kulata Tjuta images:
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=Kulata+Tjuta=0=lnms=isch==0ahUKEwiVtvWmouPXAhVDjZQKHQvJBnEQ_AUICigB=1440=506

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[-empyre-] becoming symborg - two decades later

[melinda rackham]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Hello again –empyre-  and all our other guests

I want to say something about flour and dough and weeds and mushrooms and the 
folly of Onkalo but first Bishnu, Andrea and Rahul I am very interested in the 
work you have been doing in terms of living as multispecies. In thinking about 
how a state of purity never existed I’d like to revisit “carrier” a web work I 
created two decades ago in 1997 -  http://www.subtle.net/creative_carrier.html

The work originated from my own bodily experience of living with the chronic 
viral illness Hepatitis C. In the spirit of the experimental first wave of net 
art my research encompassed gender, queer theory, alife, the fabulous work of 
Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, immunosemiotics and Niels Jerne's Nobel Prize 
winning Network Theory of Immunity. I consumed popular media on Ebola and 
computer virus outbreaks (Melissa was the celebrity virus at the time) and read 
scholarly texts on tantric sex.

It’s a love story really - a romance between and virus and the receptive human 
host. carrier eroticises the contagion via intertwining of genetic codes and 
repositions viral infection/species contamination as positive biological 
merging - between intelligent beings, rather than the defensive medical 
response which sites the virus an invader and the body as a detached 
battleground.

It also integrated the dynamic of interrelating pure codes, whether they be 
within the immune system or the computer operating system eg software viruses 
utilise breaches in systems, so they help software to evolve in almost an 
organic way in response to them, just as biological viruses shape the evolution 
of biological creatures.

I saw carrier as a model of becoming symborg at the turn of the new millennium, 
a way to think about ourselves in symbiosis as distinct from cyborgian 
assemblages, as the concepts of natural/artificial/species boundaries were 
dissolving, or so I thought in the heady 1990’s. Here’s an excerpt from an 
interview I did with Eugene Thacker for CTheory in 2001: 
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=28

“My infectious agents.. invite an erotic embrace, a warm wet viral merging. And 
they are your best friends, your closest confidant, your perfect lover, spliced 
together forever at the cellular level.

But Viruses.. mimic others protoplasmic signatures to slip into places where 
the immune system would rather they not go — with the resulting viral 
cross-species merging being sex in its rawest form — the virus inserts its 
genetic material inside our cells, using our proteins to make an offspring, an 
almost perfect copy of itself. “

The language needs a little updating but the idea is the same.  My intent with 
carrier was to explore the textures of melding rather than contrasts of 
oppositions, and included intimate real life experiences of living with chronic 
viral illness, which were contributed anonymously from the internet.

One of the very interesting things I about this work is it is diminished now - 
almost none of it works.  Evolution of software and Operating Systems have 
breed it out of existence over 20 years . Java script and Java don’t always 
work, Shockwaves don’t function; the VRML pluggins are not available; the pop 
up windows that looked to be contaminating your screen with viral strains are 
mostly blocked.  

Here is some very dodgy documentation of a later version of carrier. 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qdbyk4dtrndygjk/VTS_01_1.VOB?dl=0

till tomorrow (if I have electricity and a network -its rainy season here)
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[-empyre-] seepage

[melinda rackham]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Hello everyone-

thank you for inviting me to join this discussion Renate - its very close to me 
on a number of fronts and depths. Ive resonated with the discussion so far and 
am delighted to have new links to explore so thank you other guests for your 
insight into residual, viral and network contamination, symbiotic relations, 
boundary crossings, contaminate affect etc.  However I have just driven in the 
APY Lands - Indigenous Homelands in central Australia where I live for 6 months 
of the year today and am exhausted so will respond more fully tomorrow after a 
good sleep.

I just wanted to comment on one aspect of contamination briefly, harking back 
to Renate's initial post on contamination as boundary seepage.. almost a 
persona  "contamination creeps and has a slowness about it.” Yesterday I 
noticed in my news feeds a story of radioactive waste seepage accelerated by 
climate change on the remote Marshall Islands, halfway between Australia and 
Hawaii. on googling i discovered its not a new story- heres a link to the 
Guardian’s 2015 coverage  
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/runit-dome-pacific-radioactive-waste

A concrete dome, known locally as “the Tomb”, containing tonnes of radioactive 
waste including about 400 lumps of plutonium left over from 60 United States 
Pacific Nuclear tests on atolls in the 1940s and 1950s is seeping - or has been 
for quiet a while.  What really struck me was that the dump site is sitting 
directly on the earth- ie it is not actually sealed and just has 18 inch slabs 
of concrete on top to conceal it - hardly a forward thinking containment 
strategy. Did the US not learn anything from the marvels of German engineering 
in WW 11 on how to build indestructible concrete megastructures like the 
Flakturms in Germany and Austria with 3.5 m (11 ft) concrete walls reinforced 
with steel cables. But the obscene absurdity of 18 inches of concrete icing on 
top of the radioactive cake?  But what I want to comment on is that for 50 
years its contents have already been seeping into the Pacific Ocean through the 
permeable earth, creeping into the planets living systems, and we have been 
unconcerned.

Meanwhile on a larger island at the bottom of Australia a 6000 square metre 
three level sandstone lined bunker houses the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). 
In early interviews on the Museums owner David Walsh (the internet gambling 
trillionaire who built this whimsy to house his massive collection of 
antiquities and contemporary art) would speak about how the gallery is cut from 
rock deep beneath a tidal river, his engineers have told him in about 50 years 
water will seep in and slowly immerse the gallery spaces, making it a 
subterranean mausoleum. 
https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/february/1366597433/richard-flanagan/gambler

Walsh saw this as a completely fitting outcome for MONA - colloquially known as 
the museum of sex and death - both inevitable in life cycles. Walsh would be 
dead - entombed in one of his large collections of urns in the internment wall, 
with MoNA offering lifetime membership for $75,00 where your cremated ashes can 
be urned up in the sandstone wall as well. That sort of talk about submersion 
has unfortunately now disappeared from any discussions of the Museum as I guess 
Walsh doesn't want to scare away paying visitors and gamblers now he is 
building a casino there. However for me this planned obsolesce through tidal 
seepage into the pinnacles of art and culture was the most interesting concept 
of the whole project, pitting nature as the contaminant.

more tomorrow

Melinda










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Re: [-empyre-] Eating dirt vs. biting the dust.... (and the insect layer)

[Melinda Rackham]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
thank you all for your thoughtful and deeply felt resonances — looking fwd to 
reading more

I saw a very moving spoken word performance on roadkill "Badger Dissonance" 
earlier this year at   "In Other Tongues"  a three-day creative summit and five 
day workshop at Dartington Hall in the UK in June with a similar thematic t 
this months empyre discussion , which may be of interest to many of you-

The Dark Mountain Project Blog has published some aspects of that conference---
" invited six contributors – artists, writers, academics, poets, performers – 
to explore the ways in which language and culture are influenced by the 
non-human, and more-than-human, voices that permeate and shape our world. We 
start with a piece by Dougie Strang, based on his unforgettable roadkill 
litany…"

http://dark-mountain.net/blog/in-other-tongues-badger-dissonance/

I am also  very enamoured by Alison Halletts tale of migratory stones:
http://dark-mountain.net/blog/in-other-tongues-the-migration-habits-of-stones/

cheers 
 Melinda


> On 9 Oct 2017, at 1:53 am, margaretha haughwout 
>  wrote:
> 
> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> I was on roads in so many different ways this week -- it seemed somehow I'd 
> fallen under an -empyre- spell woven by Lissette and Valentine. It made me 
> less able to write in because rather than being behind a computer I was 
> continually dealing with fixing my car and walking on roads that don't often 
> host human pedestrians. At one point I decided to walk several miles of an 
> oft-driven country road in upstate NY. It seemed like a really good way to 
> get to know my new home, as I'm a recent transplant. Cars flew by. 
> Occasionally a tractor trudged by. The smell of shit permeated the air -- 
> this is a big cattle area.
> 
> As I walked I saw so many casualties of the road in many stages of decay. 
> Skunks, raccoons, snakes... Bones of other small animals -- perhaps weasels. 
> Frogs also often get hit in this area at night. I saw monarchs who bit the 
> dust presumably on their fall migration route, along with other insects. I 
> remembered a project on grief I did with a collaborative, where we asked 
> about how to grieve the loss of species in the Capitalocene. One participant 
> recalled driving roads in England in 1970s, and how the layer of dead insects 
> on his car was so much thicker than it is these days. A strange way to mark 
> the change in insect numbers, but one that many participants resonated with. 
> We began listing off names of insects, most of which I have a very fraught 
> relationship with, relationships which I am often compelled to end. But 
> somehow this was a moment where profound collective grief was palpable.
> 
> I also noticed that amidst the kill of the road there was a lot of life, 
> crickets and flies, sumac and chicory. I know Elaine in Week 4 will help us 
> think through these dynamics; disturbances and death perpetrated by speedy 
> roads and cars, pesticides, or toxic waste to name a few, enable what Deborah 
> Bird Rose terms a "double death" -- a death we cannot grieve -- don't 
> necessarily create spaces on non-living; there is still teeming life. As (I 
> believe) Elaine would argue, it is however, life car drivers are out of sync 
> with. I'm looking forward to thinking more about this because I don't think 
> I'm articulating it accurately. I initially wanted to say that it is life 
> "we" are out of sync with, but of course, who is this "we".
> 
> I also thought about personhood and power and the necessity of exchanging 
> personhood when entangling and enlivening. I wondered about the distinctions 
> that could be drawn between the Man of the Enlightenment and a personhood 
> that works across a matrix of human and non-human beings.
> 
> My best,
> -M
> 
> 
> --
> beforebefore.net
> guerrillagrafters.org
> coastalreadinggroup.com
> --
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Oct 4, 2017 at 9:25 PM, Lissette Olivares 
>  wrote:
> >
> > --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> > As I opened my facebook today I saw a post from Che Gossett, whose 
> > trans*activism and archival research, mediated in part through their 
> > facebook feed is an inspiring and constant source of 
> > engagement/entanglement with the Black Radical tradition; they posted this 
> > last night: "there's a way in which animal studies reflections on animal 
> > suffering make legible and intelligible and empathizable the zero degree of 
> > unimaginable suffering that is never acknowledged or thought of when it 
> > comes to Black suffering.”
> >
> > I’d like to try to knot this to Margaretha’s question about what it means 
> > to make a radical eco aesthetics, with Randall’s  “radicle” (having roots) 
> > and Valentine’s becoming with edaphon, and her demanding question about 
> > "how we live in myriad 

[-empyre-] another year...

[Melinda Rackham]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Hi there empyre, 

thank you for the invite to post, as like Tracy and Simon I’m a bit of lurker 
these days. Not that I’m away from the computer, rather I’m immersed in 
acquiring new bodies of knowledge for my various writing projects. So much to 
discover, such little time. Thank you to the people who've posted already  - 
great to see what u are up to. 

Im just at the pointy end of "Catherine Truman: Touching Distance”  - a 
monograph with many lovely big pictures on the 35 year interdisciplinary 
practice of Catherine Truman. Initially  as  jeweller/carver working in the 
sensuous interiors of the body, ( slides- I’d forgotten about old media!) 
studying anatomical collections around the world, and, who has for the past 
decade been embedded in neurological research laboratories working with 
scientists.  She continually questions how we see, construct, touch and 
interact with the world.  Due out in June/July with a launch in Adelaide at the 
Art Gallery of South Australia, and in Amsterdam later in 2016.

Still pottering along on Attachment— my memoir around Forced Adoption and its 
consequence for mother and child and future generations. Our Steering Comittee 
have just commissioned artists to start the construction process of a large 
back granite Forced Adoptions memorial situated in the River parklands behind 
Adelaide University, which will be opened mid 2016 with an yet to be planned 
event.
 
I’m loving Beastly - an experimental writing group with the very talented 
Francesca di Rimini and Ros Prosser. We write across genres and technologies, 
meet and read and talk --- challenging and nourishing.

I’ll be doing a 3 month residency mid year at Saubier House, a 1860’s farmhouse 
on an estuary of the Onkaparinga River in Port Noralunga. Situated in what was 
a culturally and resource rich Aboriginal meeting place, I’ll be writing 
directly onto/scratching into the buildings internal walls, the experience of 
dislocation and alienation and various other madnesses of a white women there 
150 years ago. 

More projects are bubbling away about art and water, refugees, interventions, 
tradition…etc. I will be setting up another studio on the far South Coast where 
hopefully I'll get time to play with actual things other than keyboards.

On the home front I’m expanding my fur family of "only cat" 5 year old Mr 
Jones, with young Gunsmoke Grey, a cheeky Korat stray who appears for dinner on 
our front verandah each night. Its a joy to see an animal who was starving have 
regular food. I’m within 2 ft of him/her now so its an ongoing process to 
touching distance.

I plan to be in Scotland, Finland, Netherlands and Denmark later in the year so 
hope to catch up with some of you.

 warm regards from one of the the hottest cities on earth
 
Melinda 
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Re: [-empyre-] Week 3:Welcome back Melinda Rackham.

[Melinda Rackham]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
Kath - yes propose a month on something networked you want to talk about!!

I wanted to pull out some texts on vulnerability and giddiness

Renate..
  The hope for a space that can and will work out new
 potentials is a utopia but I think most of us do not want to let go of
 that ideal. Our own list-serve acknowledges that the tension between
 writing as a performative gesture and one that is conversational, probing,
 vulnerable or giddy provides an interesting interstitial space. A space
 that can be informative but also one that is inquisitive and questioning.

and Ben.. 
 In the spirit of vulnerability I admit I've been quite intimidated by the 
 list, largely
 because of the academic language and references I have not read. I was
 at ISEA 2011 but did not have the guts to come out to the empyre
 get-together in person. I can't quite explain my recent and consistent
 burst of activity on here, perhaps my own language has changed and I've
 become that which had intimated me so. This certainly involves an
 interesting question of access, not just in terms of tools and technical
 requirements, but also in terms of knowledge and language.

In the early days of -empyre- I  created two subscribers who were aliases for 
me to use to guide the conversations and to create that soft space. They spoke 
in plain language, they asked for clarification, questions that I believe 
others were afraid to ask.., they were giddy, they were excited, they were 
vulnerable. I really enjoyed creating them, their unique writing and spelling 
style - and trying to keep them congruent over time. As you say Renate -empyre- 
is a LOT of work to manage, and eventually the community itself took over as 
the holder of the common space and my virtual colleagues retired.  I'm sure 
that this intervention, manipulation even, accelerated the terraforming of 
-empyre- into an environment were poets, performers, technicians, scholars and 
just plain interested people could feel safe to venture without fear of not 
speaking the right language, then having it appear in a search engine forever.

But -empyre- was always archived - centrally at UNSW where I did my Phd and I 
also kept an offline archive plus off site back up. Later it was archived 
extensively by Cornell.  But perhaps it was when we started print publishing 
outcomes from the online discussions that the community became more self 
conscious in what they posted. The first was the Lab3D and Web3D Art Reader 
produced in conjunction with Kathy Rae Huffman @ Cornerhouse in Manchester 
which I co-edited with Taylor Nuttall in 2003. Then especially the three 
moderated conversations on the three documenta 12 leitmotifs for the documenta 
12 Magazine Project, superbly edited by long term -empyre -facilitator 
Christina McPhee in 2006 - 2007, and printed and presented by documenta at 
Kassel. Links to those publications in .pdf format : 
http://www.subtle.net/empyre.html

In late 2005 three hefty 3cm books with no title or author arrived in my post 
office box.  I was bit shocked when I opened the first page and saw my intro 
post to the -empyre- February 2005 discussion I had facilitated, titled To 
Save or not to Save. The book was a word for word reprint of the whole months 
conversation, including every quote and requote in the plain text email format. 
I had no prior knowledge of the project which originated from an archiving 
exhibition at the Art Gallery of Knoxville in November 2005. Theres great 
circularity there and its pretty funny.  It became obvious that -empyre- was an 
exploratory forum, but articles, Phds and entire books were also being 
researched and published from here. It wasn't a casual neighbourhood 
conversation anymore. -empyre- had evolved into a differently effective tool 
for the artist, philosopher, scholar, curator, creative technologist and 
cultural producer. 

Renate I have no idea about the longevity of list serves - Charlotte Frost 
probably knows about that if she is reading..? 
Also I wanted to say something about generalism, but it fell out of the 
conversational flow.
maybe tomorrow
Melinda



 On 26 Feb 2015, at 10:03 am, Renate Terese Ferro rfe...@cornell.edu wrote:
 
 --empyre- soft-skinned space--
 Kath Melinda was the innovator of our present day -empyre-soft-skinned
 space.  We welcome ³less academic² topics at any time by any person
 interested in organizing a topic around networked culture.  Sure hope you
 will consider hosting one soon on a topic of your choice. Renate
 
 
 Renate Ferro
 Visiting Assistant Professor of Art,Cornell University
 Department of Art, Tjaden Hall Office:  306
 Ithaca, NY  14853
 Email:   rfe...@cornell.edu mailto:r...@cornell.edu
 URL:  http://www.renateferro.net http://www.renateferro.net/
  http://www.privatesecretspubliclies.net
 http://www.privatesecretspubliclies.net/
 Lab:  http://www.tinkerfactory.net