[spectre] The Boredom Patrol at Artivistic 2007!

[lotu5]

Artivistic 2007 [http://artivistic.org] is taking place in Montreal,
from October 25-27th. Artivistic is an international transdisciplinary
three-day gathering on the interPlay between art, information and
activism. Artivistic emerges out of the proposition that not only
artists talk about art, academics about theory, and activists about
activism. Founded in 2004, the event aims to promote transdisciplinary
and intercultural dialogue on activist art beyond critique, to create
and facilitate a human network of diverse peoples, and to inspire,
proliferate, activate.

The Boredom Patrol of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army
[http://circasd.org] will be there, playing with all the other amazing
creative people who are coming. The Boredom Patrol is a gaggle of clowns
who utilize their bodies to create chaos and laughter in the borderlands
to combat the dreadful seriousness and straight lines of borders and
their enforcers. Then, they take their actions online to public culture
spaces like YouTube, engaging anti-immigrant vigilantes in an online
dialog about the politics of immigration, along with anyone else who
wants to join in the fun. What ensues is a networked performance
[http://transition.turbulence.org/blog/?s=rebel+clown+army&x=0&y=0], an
empassioned, raucous dialog about contemporary politics of migration,
spurred on by the digitization of the bodies of the clowns, vulnerable
and silly, face to face with the anti-immigration activists. See their
videos and join in on the fun here: http://circasd.org/clown-media.html

Or even better, join them in Montreal at Artivistic for the premiere of
their video The Circus of (Im)Migration and a rebel clowning workshop!

More about Artivistic 2007:

For the third edition of Artivistic, the expression [ un.occupied spaces
] was chosen to stimulate new ideas in response to the hidden confusions
caused by the infinite networks of 21C globalization and neo-liberalism.
[ un.occupied spaces ] dares to link the charged issues of
environmentalism, indigenous and migrant struggles, and urban practices
together through the angle of occupation. In an interconnected world,
critical thought and action cannot but become flexible and
uncompromising at once. To think with occupation consequently becomes a
strategy for approaching these issues in a way that will reveal their
interdependence, and fuel creative and tactical collaborative actions
between “co-artists” (artists and non-artists). Built around three
interrelated questions, the event consists of roundtables, workshops,
interventions, exhibitions, performances, and screenings at our
temporary headquarters at 5455 av. de Gaspé, #701 and in different
venues and spaces of Montreal.


-- 

blog: http://bang.calit2.net/tts
gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] The Rubber Rose Gallery Announces XX Boys in November and New Curators

[lotu5]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Rubber Rose Gallery Announces XX Boys in November and New Curators

WHO: The Rubber Rose
WHERE: 3812 Ray St, San Diego, CA 92104

CONTACT: Rebeca L Rodriguez, 619.296.7009
 Micha Cardenas, 619-750-8851
 The Rubber Rose, 619-296-7673
www.therubberrose.com

WHEN: Photo Exhibition by Kael T. Block on display from: 11/10/07 to 		 
 11/30/07

  Closing Party of "XXBoys" - Friday, November 30th from 7 to 9pm

The Rubber Rose is pleased to announce their November exhibition of XX
Boys, a project of Kael T. Block, in honor of National Transgender Day
of Remembrance, which is observed on November 20th. The show marks the
Rubber Rose Gallery's first collaboration with an international artist,
Kael T. Block who is based out of Paris, France. National Transgender
Day of Remembrance was set aside to memorialize those who were killed 
due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. The event is held in 
November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998, 
kicked off the "Remembering Our Dead" web project and a San Francisco 
candlelight vigil in 1999. This is the second year in a row that The 
Rubber Rose has hosted an event in honor of National Transgender Day of 
Remembrance.  There will be a closing event for the XX Boys show on 
Friday, November 30th from 7 to 9 PM at The Rubber Rose, everyone is 
welcome.


From Kael T Block's bio:

"Kael T Block was working toward his Masters in Visual Communication and
Graphic  Design at Creapole (Paris). He stopped in 2005 to completely
engage himself in his political and artistic project XXBOYS, which aims
not only to document a younger generation of trans FtM in its great
diversity, but also to give his community sexy and positive
representation. Throughout his travels an international community of
transboys started to grow, as he captured the images and emotions of
FtMs across the globe.

Kael T. Block started by taking pictures of himself. This work of
himself is a crucial part of his transition, to distance his image, in
order to see himself change, trans form, construct, to build an
empowered self image and identity, refracted by the  numerous images
which corresponded to his desire. This photographical experience as a
tool for identity construction and the desire to see images of transguys
out of the medical and documentary context led him to start the XX BOYS
project, and  to travel meeting other young trans in order to produce
images saturated with signs and colors, seductive pictures of a proud
and transgressive young trans generation. Block strives to depict FtMs
as sexy, to give his community alternative referential images. These
images carry an identity claim - Trans is sexy - and choose seduction as
the principal political weapon. It is his idea of Beauty that is at work
here.

If some of the boys photographed have a beauty that corresponds to the
criteria  established by Hollywood or fashion, others have a beauty that
comes from more eccentric mixes, asserted style and gender ambiguity.
Block's pictures play with this plurality. Most of the pictures are in
vibrant color with violent contrasts; making a celebration out of each
image; of the person photographed, of his body, of the moment shared  by
the photographer and the model. Kael T. Block's work creates new icons.
Immersed in the Image's contemporary culture of advertising images,
fashion, rock star pictures and their fans. Starting from his identity
and that of his community, Block too creates icons that can be
appropriated and taken as a model by trans and queers. These images are
to serve as a base from which to build a strong self-image.

Block's work is reminiscent of early 80's New York artists such as
Goldin, Wojnarovic, and O'Sullivan. It too is a journey into a peculiar
territory, populated with the marginalized, which is to say those forced
to choose their own freedom. It's not only about transgenderism or
homosexuality. Block's work, as that of his New York predecessors, is
not only documentarian. The marginality that forces us to constantly
invent ourselves- invent our lives, our bodies, our attitudes, our
pleasures- shows itself and directs itself in these images."

In addition, The Rubber Rose is pleased to announce its new curator
Rebeca L. Rodriguez and new assistant curator, Micha Cárdenas. Look for 
shows curated by the two in 2008.


Rebeca L. Rodriguez is a community activist and artist. Rebeca's
community activism includes work with Austin Indymedia, San Diego
Indymedia, Colectivo Zapatista and Ballet Folklorico en Aztlan. She has
experience working with and supporting many art and cultural spaces here
in San Diego, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. She has preformed at
the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, The Esperanza for Peace and Justice
Center, Our Lady of the Lake University, The University of Texas at
Austin and Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park.

Micha Cárdenas is an MFA candidate at the University of Cali

[spectre] Join the Imaginary Border Academy!

[lotu5]

http://borderacademy.org/

The Imaginary Border Academy (L’Académie de la frontière imaginaire) was 
initiated at the Artivistic gathering in Montreal , 25-27 October, 2007;


Details of the manifesto and curriculum were developed in a workshop 
hosted by Ralf Homann & Farida Heuck / Schleuser.net (DE), Nahed Mansour 
(Montreal), Kayle Brandon / Duo.Irational (UK), The Boredom Patrol of 
CIRCA (US), Mushon Zer-Aviv (IL), Andrew Paterson (SCO/FI), among others.


It is our aim to provide copyleft pedagogical resources for engaging all 
forms of borders.


As was agreed with the clink of two Caribs by an incomplete decision 
making body, the academy is within the tradition of Autonomous 
Education, Free Universities, Community Education and Free Skools. The 
academy strives to cultivate a non-hierarchical pedagogical approach to 
understanding, subverting and undermining borders.


The Academy's Wiki - http://notyetbe.stikipad.com/iba/
The Mailing list - 
http://lists.borderacademy.org/listinfo.cgi/discuss-borderacademy.org


--

blog: http://technotrannyslut.com
gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] On the XX Boys at the Rubber Rose, Kael T. Block and Rape

[lotu5]

http://technotrannyslut.com/2007/11/12/on-the-xx-boys-at-the-rubber-rose-kael-t-block-and-rape/


On November 10th, the day that XX Boys show at the Rubber Rose was going 
to open, I was at the No Borders Camp. I headed over to the Queer 
Barrio, towards the Queers Against Borders banner, to let people going 
to SD on their way home know about the show. I walked up, told them 
about the show and was told by one of the youth there, “oh, that guy 
Kael T. Block raped my friend. He came into her room at night and raped 
her. He has a bad name all over San Francisco.”


This was the first time I had heard anything about the rape charges 
against Kael T. Block. Thank you all for your comments on my earlier 
post. I wish I had known earlier. In my opinion, the rapist will always 
claim innocence and the only option is to prioritize the voice of the 
victim. So, I do not want to have anything to do with Kael T. Block at 
all. As far as I can tell, the survivors testimonies are not online any 
longer, so I cannot link to them here.


Also, the same day that I learned about this, the Rubber Rose receive a 
phone call from one of the Kael’s victims, who was very, very upset 
about the show. This, I think, was the first they had heard of this 
situation as well. The survivor proceeded to email testimonies of other 
survivors and her own to the Rubber Rose. This was hours before the 
opening and the show was already hung. The owners of the Rubber Rose, 
Carly and Lea, decided to post a statement about the show and post the 
survivors stories and leave the show up for the opening, in order to 
support transgender visibility and bring the Kael’s crimes to light.


I think that the only conscientious way forward is for the Rubber Rose 
to take down the show immediately. I have told them so. As of today, the 
show was still up. I am awaiting a public statement from the Rubber Rose 
owners on this situation. I sincerely hope they issue a statement soon, 
because I have no desire to be associated with a gallery that would host 
Kael’s photos, even though I have known and loved Carly and Lea for so 
many years.


My understanding is that Kael has fled the US because of criminal 
charges against him in San Francisco and the state of California for 
this rape incident. My understanding is also that he hasn’t had a show 
in the United States since then, until now. Personally, I feel like this 
situation brings up a lot of issues regarding the way communities deal 
with rape and the way that the voices of the victims are silenced. I did 
find this one blog entry about how some in the SF queer community 
responded. Frankly, after reading the statements from the survivors, I 
don’t give a shit about what Kael has to say and I want to take no part 
in promoting or showing his work at all.


So, most importantly, I want to apologize to all the survivors of 
attacks by Kael T. Block for promoting the show at the Rubber Rose. I 
honestly did not know about the situation, and now that I know I am 
doing everything I can to make sure the show is taken down. My 
understanding is that the Rubber Rose is planning on taking down the 
show soon and are writing their statement about the situation. I feel 
responsible for issuing this public statement since I did work to spread 
the press release for the show around.


Further, I think this is additionally sad because FtM visibility is 
very, very important. I think that the photos are amazing, but I cannot 
look at them anymore because I’m haunted by wondering which of the 
models he raped, as the testimonies are all anonymous. Although this 
project does not represent all transgender people, as well, it will 
definitely serve to give some people more support for their conception 
that transgender people are mentally ill, unstable, dishonest, whatever 
other bullshit they might think.


I hope that people will see this as a call to do more work to bring 
visibility to the FtM community and the transgender community in all its 
amazing diversity and beauty. There’s no reason at all that people 
should feel like they have to choose to support Kael in order to show 
FtM or transgender solidarity.



--

blog: http://technotrannyslut.com
gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] The Circus of (Im)Migration video documentation

[lotu5]

Watch the 40 minute video documentation of the circus here:

The Circus of (Im)Migration

High quality version, 1.05GB
http://sdhacklab.org/circus-of-immigration-big.mov

Low quality web version, 240MB
http://sdhacklab.org/The-Circus-of-ImMigration-web.mov

The Circus of (Im)Migration took place in the spring of 2007. The 
traveling circus was an uncircus performed by the Boredom Patrol of the 
Clanestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army and volunteers and workshop 
participants in every city. The performance consisted of 3 acts: act one 
about the circus, act two about our personal stories about borders and 
act three about the immigration raids taking place around the US. Over 
750 people were deported through raids on homes on workplaces in April 
alone. In between the acts, the following youtube videos were shown:


Clowns vs. Minutemen Pt.2 Operation More Secure than Depends
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7rONLxzAA4

REAL Alien Invasion of "Our Minutemen" at a Home Depot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ59rvPGe_4

The third act took the form of the Theater of the Oppressed forum 
theater, where audience members were invited to join the performance and 
change the outcome of the scene.


Our attempt was to create an interactive, communal, openly participatory 
space for dialog about immigration, migration control, borders and 
freedom of movement. We see this practice in the tradition of using 
humor against fascism, as a way to open up dialog within a climate of 
fear and repression, with the hope that this dialog and laughter can be 
healing. Further, we are using the inbetween space of the clown, with 
our faces hidden and revealed by greasepaint, inbetween genders, 
ethnicities, roles, in order to challenge the rigid conceptions of 
identity, nationality and citizenship that underlie the rhetoric around 
immigration.



--

blog: http://technotrannyslut.com
gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Public Statement from The Rubber Rose regarding the exhibit of XX Boys by Kael T. Block

[lotu5]

Hi, sorry for sending three emails on this topic, which you may have no 
intrest in, but it is important to me to send the official statement 
from the Rubber Rose as well as correction to my previous email...


This statement was published on The Rubber Rose’s myspace page
[ http://myspace.com/therubberrose ] last night

///

November is an important month for us, both personally and politically. 
In order to further the awareness of November 20th, Transgender Day of 
Remembrance, we showcase an artist or art that highlights the issues of 
gender and gender identity. This year we chose “XXBoys” by Kael T. 
Block, a photo project celebrating the vibrant and growing international 
f2m community. We worked very hard to bring in his work and were excited 
to have it hang in our gallery in order to honor a community that we 
know and love, to bring the pride, beauty, strength and diversity of the 
f2m community to a larger audience.


On Saturday, November 10th, on the day of our opening, it came to our 
attention that Kael T. Block has been accused of rape, that multiple 
women have spoken up and shared their stories about surviving. We 
received a heartfelt phone call from San Francisco, were mailed a long 
list of testimonials and email exchanges detailing their experiences. 
This caller, along with members of the San Diego community, questioned 
our intent, our knowledge, and even our politics on this matter.


And our hearts were broken. Torn between showing you the work and its 
historical significance, and supporting our hurting/healing community, 
we chose to go ahead with the opening - almost as planned. In light of 
the new information, we felt it necessary to display the statements we 
received, those of the survivors, those of Block’s, and a statement of 
our very own presenting the confusion and uncertainty we felt in the 
moment. We posted all of this next to the artist’s bio in order to give 
all who viewed the exhibit full disclosure.


It has now been 5 days since that decision… and in that time we hope 
that the portraits have been viewed and enjoyed simply for the sake of 
those brave enough to step in front of the camera, regardless of who 
might have been on the other side…


And yet we still have the question of accountability.

Regardless of how much information we do or don’t have, we recognize 
above all else that we are accountable to the community we are connected 
to. The accusations surrounding Kael T. Block directly conflict with our 
mission statement and our wish to create a safe space for sexual 
empowerment.


We have decided to take the exhibit down before its scheduled closing of 
November 30th.


It has not been an easy decision to make.

However, in the midst of this struggle, something beautiful and tangible 
has grown. The shock of the information shared during the exhibition’s 
opening night inspired some of our f2m friends and customers to see each 
other and celebrate each other as heroes, rather than placing public 
strangers like Kael on pedestals.


As we remove the work of Kael T Block we will be replacing it with 
portraits of the f2m community here in San Diego, taken in this space 
within the next few days.


In closing, we would like to thank Kael T. Block for his photographs and 
the “XXBoys” project- the pieces we received are beautiful and we 
recognize that this is an important project to undertake.


We would like to thank those that spoke out on the issues surrounding 
these allegations, as it took courage and strength.


We would like to thank the people here in San Diego that have given us 
the support and encouragement to make the tough decisions we have had to 
make in the past few days.


And finally, we would like to invite you to join us for Twister, a trans 
social/mixer celebrating the diversity of southern California’s f2m 
community on Friday, November 30th. It will also be opening night for 
this new project where you will find a representation of our local f2m 
trans guys and the significance of a community united.


With love and respect,
Lea and Carly
The Rubber Rose

If anyone is interested in participating by being photographed or by 
taking the photos themselves, please email therubberrose (at) hotmail 
(dot) com.


///


Also, I want to make a note of clarification. My previous blog post 
stated that the caller to the Rubber Rose was one of the survivors, but 
I have since been corrected. I did not receive the call, the Rubber Rose 
did. The caller was anonymous and did not claim to be one of the 
survivors. I have no idea who the caller was.


I am no longer working with the Rubber Rose [ http://therubberrose.com ] 
in any “official” capacity, so please direct any further comments or 
questions on this matter to them.



--

blog: http://technotrannyslut.com
gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media cult

[spectre] Sharing is Sexy Release Party, Fri jan 4th!

[lotu5]

Sharing is Sexy Release Party!

Open Source Porn Laboratory / Sex Positive Collective

Friday, January 4th, 2008

featuring:

DJ Lotu5
porn/queer/intl hiphop

DJ OMG
electro-queer

Photography by The Sharing is Sexy collective!

@ Homos, Hoochies and Hooligans night at Kadan
4696 30th St.

http://www.sharingissexy.org goes live on January 4th! Join us!

Flyer at http://sharingissexy.org/release-party-flyer.jpg


--

blog: http://technotrannyslut.com

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Sharing is Sexy.org is live

[lotu5]

//We are sexy guerillas, running through the city at night with ski 
masks on and our dildos strapped to the barrels of our M16's like 
grenade launchers for orgasms. You've probably seen us at a sex party, 
or a queer film screening, but we were blending in, totally clandestine, 
hiding our g and p spot powers under our ordinary sexy as hell 
appearance. We are artists and activists who you've marched with, locked 
down next to, screamed beside, sipped wine at ridiculous art openings 
with and chuckled at the whole situation, or painted banners and fixed 
your bikes with, or sat across from on the bus. We like our anonymity 
and try to maintain it...//


Finally, after a year of collective love, sweat and juices, 
http://www.sharingissexy.org is available for your horny little eyes. We 
encountered a lot of difficulty along the way, institutional resistance 
from a university that was hosting the site, the challenges of getting 
our legal questions answered while operating on an anti-capitalist's 
(i.e. no) budget, our own hesitations and changing energy levels, but 
now its here.


I'm writing this announcement on my own, its not a collective statement, 
but it is still my hope that this project can help spread queer love and 
lust and help to overthrow heteronormativity, capitalism, war and 
monogamy. I hope that people will look at our little creation and get 
off, and that might help them imagine a world without gender (and 
national) borders, might help them get out of the army by cross dressing 
into the mess hall, might help bring an end to capitalism by adding 
eroticism to the world of copyright free imagery.


But are we doing enough? Do we even know who we are? Or what we want? 
That is the most important part o the project for me, is the process of 
experimentation, exploring the orifices of my identity and the spurtings 
of my desire, finding that what I want isn't available on a shelf and 
isn't compatible with the drives of global militarized capitalism.


In a way what we're doing is so very much in line with the kind of 
vanity capitalism that we see in myspace and facebook, and seems even 
similar to the avatarism of Second Life, so we're dangerously close to 
simply taking those commercial drives one step further. Still, I think 
that we've taken those drives to their illogical conclusion beyond the 
acceptable limits, and will continue to do so, and we meet resistance 
almost every day that embodies those limits and their police.


On monday we'll have more writing for you about the project, but for 
now, I'd love any feedback you might have on the project... See for 
yourself at http://sharingissexy.org



--

blog: http://technotrannyslut.com

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Radio CUBO PROJECT, trasmitting this Saturday february 2nd

[lotu5]

 Original Message 
Subject: [people-rasd] Radio CUBO PROJECT, trasmiting this Saturday 
february 2nd

Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:10:25 -0800
From: Felipe Zúñiga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Dear all:

This saturday 2nd CUBO radio will be broadcasted for the first time. As 
part of the residency at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions CUBO 
project invited four sound artist to develop a collective radio project.


El lazo invisible and Mars from www.discosinvisible.org (Tijuana)
D.J. Lotu5 from www.radioactiveradio.org(San Diego).
Ichthis Ontiveros (Los Angeles)
and  Michael Trigilio (San Francisco and San Diego)

We will transmit live on Saturday, February 2nd on the following schedule:


From 1 to 3 p.m. A collective experiment with radio.
From 6 to 9 p.m. Live performances at LACE.


Please listen to us at:
http://www.live365.com/stations/laradiocubo

We will create a  sound library with all the CUBO sound projects from
Tijuana and Los Angeles!

Felipe Zuniga and Camilo Ontiveros

View the flyer at:
http://sdhacklab.org/flyerlaradiocubo.jpg


--

blog: http://technotrannyslut.com

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Becoming Dragon, Performance in the Fall

[lotu5]

I would like to announce this project I am beginning to work on. It is 
in a preliminary stage, as I am still seeking funding, but I do have 
early commitments from the Center for Research in Computing in the Arts 
(CRCA) and from two collaborators, Kael Greco and Christopher Head.



Becoming Dragon: Stage 1

http://www.sharingissexy.org/wiki/index.php?title=Becoming_Dragon:_Stage_1


//Overview//

I am interested in exploring the question of how technology can 
facilitate new somatic practices of gender and sexuality beyond male and 
female and even beyond the limitations of what we consider human. Using 
a conception of identity and a process of social interactions and 
feedback loops, I plan to use the online public space of Second Life as 
the site of my investigation.


While Marshall McLuhan said that “We shape our tools and afterwards our 
tools shape us,” I am interested in the time after that. What is the 
process by which we shape our avatars and then our avatars shape us and 
then we reshape our avatars and on and on? In the Lacanian Mirror Stage, 
an infant tries to achieve the image of themselves that they see in the 
mirror when they mistakenly think they are standing on their own. How 
does this process continue in a feedback loop and develop into new 
conceptions of self beyond our current conceptions of our own limits?


"The becoming-woman serves as a point of reference, and eventually as a 
screen for other types of becoming (example: becoming-child as in 
Schumann, becoming-animal as in Kafka, becoming-vegetable as in Novalis, 
becoming-mineral as in Beckett)... There is no such thing as woman per 
se! No maternal pole, no eternal feminine... The man/woman opposition 
serves to establish the social order before class and caste conflicts. 
Inversely, whatever shatters norms, whatever breaks from the established 
order, is related to homosexuality or a becoming-animal or a 
becoming-woman."


- Felix Guattari, Becoming-Woman

//The Performance//

I would like to experiment with long durational performances of 
non-human characters in Second Life. How much immersion is possible? 
Transsexual people are required to live for a year as their chosen 
gender before being allowed by their psychologist to get their Gender 
Confirmation Surgery. Could this be replaced by virtual living?


Many contemporary performance artists claim to be doing performances "in 
second life". I would like to try to get a little closer to this claim 
by waking up and falling asleep "in second life". My initial plan is to 
do up to 30 days "in second life", but I may have to scale back to 14 days.


There is a long history of durational performances in performance art, 
such as Teching Hsieh's One Year Performance 1980 - 1981 (Time Piece) 
[5], Marina Abramovic's "When Time Becomes Form" [6] and her series of 
durational works, Joseph Beuys "I Like America and America Likes Me", 
and Chris Burden's "White Light/White Heat" [7] where he lived in the 
gallery. How does the duration of the performance change its effect? Can 
the identification with an Avatar or a virtually constructed identity be 
pushed farther than it is with frequent users of these environments? Can 
one live "in second life"?



During the performance, I would be available to an audience both in 
Second Life and in the physical space of CRCA at Calit2. There are a 
number of interesting options for audience interaction such as the 
display wall, having multiple screens/computers in the performance space 
and even having an additional immersive environment where a viewer could 
participate. How can technology facilitate a powerful, interesting, 
compelling performance simultaneously in physical and virtual space?

[edit] Technical Approach - Augmented Reality

The goal here is to develop a working, immersive Augmented Reality 
system, to port a motion capture and head mounted display to control a 
character in Second Life, an Online Massively Multiplayer Online Role 
Playing Game (MMORPG).


[Some Second Lifers use the term "Metaverse" over MMORPG to emphasize 
SL's very different "Magic Circle". In SL, the game is a very different 
one, less an escapist fantasy world of play, or a more mature projection 
of identity in an economy with real currency and a capitalist business 
culture designed to soften the connotations of gameplay ... -BS] [8]


My initial conception of this project is to model my physical 
environment to enable me to live in the virtual environment for extended 
amounts of time. This is an approach of Augmented Reality, where the 
physical world is mapped into the virtual. Of course, Augmented Reality 
is a misnomer, because Reality itself is a mediated state, it seems a 
better term would be Augmented Bodies.


The plan would be to use the following components:

* An immersive head mounted display (HMD) The display would allow 
me to move around in my physical environment within calit2 and still 
remain

[spectre] Community Arts Program: Ricardo Dominguez and dj lotu5 at Calarts Monday

[lotu5]

Flyer here: http://bang.calit2.net/

Feb 25 2008 11 am-12:45 pm CalArts, Bijou Theater

CAP: Artists and activists Ricardo Dominguez and DJ lotu5 will give a
presentation about their recent work with the Electronic Disturbance
Theater, the Transborder Immigrant Tool, Hacklab and the Boredom Patrol
of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army. The presentation will be
followed by an open forum with the audience.

The CAP Forum Series brings leading artists, intellectuals, civic
leaders, community activists and policy makers in conversation with the
CalArts community. The series promotes learning and critical dialogue
about artistic practices and strategies committed to community
engagement, collaborative approaches and the arts as a catalyst for
social change.

CalArts is located at 24700 McBean Parkway, Valencia, CA 91355.


--

blog: http://technotrannyslut.com

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] StudioXX and .dpi magazine interview Sharing is Sexy

[lotu5]

On How Porn Can Teach Us All to Share :: Sophie Le-Phat Ho

“Thinking back a few months ago, even before the website was launched, I
was very much intrigued by seeing “open source” and “sex” in the same
sentence on the welcome page of Sharing is Sexy (SiS). Buzz wording or…
pure genius, you ask? This current issue of .dpi on the theme of images
gave me the excuse to find out…”

Read more at:

http://dpi.studioxx.org/demo/?q=en/no/11/how-porn-can-teach-us-all-share-sophie-le-phat-ho


--

blog: http://technotrannyslut.com

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] THINKING SMUT - A DIY Porn Panel Discussion & Screening Session

[lotu5]

Come check out this great talk in Montreal, Quebec, if you're in the 
area!  I'll be there talking about SiS...


*THINKING SMUT*

A DIY Porn Panel Discussion & Screening Session

Friday March 28, 2008

6:30-8:30pm

Thomson House

McGill University

3650 McTavish

Room 404

featuring:

Sharing is Sexy_San Diego, California

Pornopticon_Toronto, Ontario

Lickety Split_Montreal, Quebec

DIY Porn. Do you know enough to have an opinion?

It's the gender/sex/sexuality/desire matrix; it's the “it's complicated” 
drop-down label; it's the personal-is-political-is-so-called-lifestyle 
politics.


It's the space where the histories of our skin-its betrayals, its 
exotifications, its rejections, its presumed innocence, its so-called 
deficiencies and deformities-are called into question and laid bare.


For most DIY porn collectives, the act of making images is as important 
as the images they make. This 'sex' (erotica? art?) is produced and 
performed through collaborative, consensus-based work. At its best, it 
seeks to decolonize imaginations and build alternatives to the 
industry's exploitative economies, a space where sharing can be sexy.


DIY Porn. You might have an opinion. Maybe you also have an analysis, a 
collection, a habit, a fetish, a secret, a practice, an addiction, a 
worry, a desire, a vision.


Our invited panelists will share their projects and visions. These 
presentations will lead into an open discussion about 'thinking smut'.


This event will have a safe space policy. Please come with an open mind 
and open heart.


A GGFS-affiliated Event (Graduate Group for Feminist Scholarship)

Sponsored by Queer McGill & QPIRG Concordia

Further Information on Panelists:

Sharing is Sexy

SiS is a collaborative open source porn laboratory. We are a group of 
queer people, transgender people and people with othered bodies coming 
together to create a site for free porn that is licensed under Creative


Commons (BY-NC-SA 3.0). We are creating our own porn using photography, 
video, writing or any form that suits us. SiS is polyamorous so, we are 
open to new members and looking to collaborate. 


Pornopticon

Our Collective, evolved out of a desire to give visibility to multiple 
forms of sexuality. Our main interest lies in redefining the sensing and 
the sensed sexual bodies, and in developing a new aesthetic language 
that pushes the body past the limits of its signification through 
atypical forms of expression. For us, desire is never a single line but 
originates from bodies that are already multiple, and the collective 
itself is a way of engaging with this multiplicity. We understand our 
art as a coming together of bodies in new molecular formations. Along 
these lines, the question as to whether this will ever become a new 
(micro)politics of sexuality is not as important as the actual 
experience of sharing and coming together to keep exploring.


Lickety Split

Lickety Split is a pansexual smut zine dedicated to encouraging 
sex-positive expression and thought. The zine promotes collaborative art 
making and encourages diverse contributions to climb into bed with one 
another, because one sexual expression just does not satisfy. Lickety 
Split wants to help make the masses cum with smutty photography and art, 
essays and stories in order to fulfill the whole human being and address 
the complexity of sex.




--

blog: http://technotrannyslut.com

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Collective Art Practice - Public Lecture Series in San Diego, CA

[lotu5]

Collective Art Practice - Performative and Networked Approaches to
Challenging Power

Public Lecture Series, as part of VIS198 Directed Study Group

flyer: http://sdhacklab.org/vis198-lecture-series-flyer.pdf

A series of talks looking at the how groups are using collective
practice and online public space to confront social issues embodied in
the San Diego/Tijuana border region. All lectures will be held at
Calit2, Atkinson Hall, 2nd Floor, Wednesday nights from 6-7pm. This
lecture series is sponsored by UCIRA. If you have questions or are
interested in registering for this class, email Micha Cárdenas at
mcardenas (at) ucsd.edu.

Week 1 - April 2: A Class Without A Teacher? Critical Pedagogy and Intro
to Collective Practice
Presenters: Members of the Groundwork Books Collective,
http://groundwork.ucsd.edu

Week 2 - April 9: A Rich Legacy of Collective Practice
Presenters: Brett Stalbaum, Ricardo Dominguez speaking on Electronic
Disturbance Theater and particle group, http://pitmm.net

Week 3 - April 16: Social Sculpture, society is the sculpture,
collectively creating change - Presenters: The Boredom Patrol of the
Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, http://circasd.org

Week 4 - April 23: Transnational corporations, transnational resistance
Presenters: Colectivo Zapatista (tentative) and
Simon Sedillo of El Enemigo Comun, http://elenemigocomun.net

Week 5 - April 30: Gaming Theory, "In Game" Resistance
Presenters: Adriene Jenik, http://adrienejenik.net

Week 8 - May 21: Gender, Sexuality and Erotic Art Practice
Presenters: Sharing Is Sexy, http://sharingissexy.org

Week 9 - May 21: DIY, Self-Publishing, Craftivism
Presenters: Grrrl Zines A Go-Go, http://gzagg.org

Week 11 – Friday, June 6th, 6pm, Presentation of Group Projects from VIS198


More info at http://crca.ucsd.edu
directions at http://atkinsonhall.calit2.net


--

blog: http://technotrannyslut.com

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Nano-Virtual-Sit-In Extended! Please spread the word!

[lotu5]

//please forward and help grow the SWARM!///

Join the action and learn more at http://bang.calit2.net/5yearsofwar/

We are extending the action to coincide with calls to "On M20 Shut it
Down" from Unconventional Action Chicago and March on M21 from SDS.

More info at:

http://shiftshapers.gnn.tv/blogs/27340/Chicago_On_M20_Shut_It_Down
http://www.unconventionalaction.org/
http://march20sds.wordpress.com/

Here is the original call to nano-virtual-action:

This Nano-Virtual-Sit-In is being performed on the 5th anniversary of the
war on Iraq. We have chosen biotech and nanotech corporations and
organizations as our targets, because their science is driven by the war
and drives the war.

While Monsanto's weapons drop on the people of Colombia, order 81 in Iraq
guarantees their market there. Dupont is developing soldier
nanotechnologies. The Biotech Industry Organization thought they could
meet in San Diego without the massive protests that follow them, but they
were wrong. For more info on your local Nanotech corporations, see this
map.

The Electronic Disturbance Theater and the borderlands Hacklab call for a
virtual strike against these war profiteers on March 19th, 2008, in
solidarity with the Bay Area Direct Action to Stop the War and actions in
the street around the world.


__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Sharing is Sexy Radio! and new video!

[lotu5]

Join us at Cream Coffee Shop in San Diego on Saturday, April 26th at 
1:30pm for our second show of Sharing is Sexy Radio!


The amazing folks over at Neighborhood Public Radio have invited us to 
do 4 radio shows as part of the American Life series. They'll be 
broadcast from their website, http://neighborhoodpublicradio.org/ , on 
103.9 FM and at the Whitney Biennial in New York City, so check us out 
in one of those places!


For our 4 shows, we'll be talking about the various parts of our 
project: queer, open source, porn, collective. Last week we talked about 
the question of queer and what queer means to us and how we can think of 
a queer politics.


Listen to the first show here, with music by J Bird, Nicky Click and 
Jenna Riot:


http://conceptualart.dreamhosters.com/npr/archives/229

Cream is at 4496 Park Blvd, (between Meade Ave & Mission Ave), San 
Diego, CA 92116


Also, check out our latest video from our DIY Queer Burlesque Show, it's 
a burlesque strip show by lotus called Standing in the Way of Control:


http://www.sharingissexy.org/node/807


--

blog: http://technotrannyslut.com

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] The Sense Lab presents / Le LaboSens présente : Slow Clothes

[lotu5]

Français ci-dessous

PRESS RELEASE

for immediate release

The Sense Lab presents:

Slow Clothes

a performance/installation event ~ Sunday May 25 2008, 2-5 pm

1197 St. Laurent, Société des arts technologiques, Art & D

Slow Clothes is a performance installation, a movement experiment, a
fabric collection and an experience of tactility. It is a participatory
event: people are invited to compose with fabric, to dress themselves, to
move through the space, to eat and drink, to create mobile environmental
platforms.

Slow Clothes is based on a fabric collection entitled Folds to Infinity.
Fold to Infinity is composed of cut and serged pieces of infinitely
connectable fabric (connectable through magnets, buttons, hooks,
buttonholes, snaps).

The design of Folds to Infinity challenges:

1. the idea that clothing fits a pre-defined shape;

2. that clothing design must be modular with pieces patterned for standard
assembly;

3. that clothing relates primarily to the individual body rather than
relating the individual body to those around it and to their shared
environment.

The complex connectivity and the relational environment of Slow Clothes
transforms fashion from a passive fitting to an active composition.

Concept and Collection: Erin Manning

Mobile Architecture: Erin Manning, Jon Yu

Lighting: Troy Rhoades

Thanks to: The Sense Lab, Art & D

Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; 514-313-9145

--

COMMUNIQUÉ DE PRESSE

pour diffusion immédiate

Le LaboSens présente

Slow Clothes

Une performance/installation ~ Dimanche 25 Mai 2008, 14h-17h

1197 St. Laurent, Société des arts technologiques, Art & D

Slow Clothes est une performance/installation, une expérimentation de
mouvement, une collection de tissus et une expérience du toucher. C’est un
évènement participatif : les gens sont invités à composer avec les tissus,
à s’habiller, à bouger dans l’espace, à boire et manger, à créer des
plateformes mobiles environnementales.

Slow Clothes est créé autour d’une collection intitulée Plis à l’infini.
Plis à l’infini se compose de coupes de tissus capables d’être infiniment
reliés (à l’aide d’aimants, de boutons, de boutonnières etc.).

Plis à l’infini remet en question:

1. l’idée que les vêtements dépendent d’un corps pré-défini (une forme,
une grandeur)

2. que le design de vêtements doit être modulaire

3. que les vêtements sont confiés seulement à un individu au lieu de créer
une relation entre l’individu et l’environnement.

La connectivité complexe et son environnement relationnel de Slow Clothes
transforme la mode d’un modèle passif à une composition active.

Concept and Collection: Erin Manning

Mobile Architecture: Erin Manning, Jon Yu

Lighting: Troy Rhoades

Thanks to: The Sense Lab, Art & D

Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; 514-313-9145


--

blog: http://technotrannyslut.com

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Collective Art Practice Research Group - Second Life Performance

[lotu5]

Come out and see one of the outcomes of our research group! After 10
weeks of talking to collectives from San Diego and Tijuana about
collective practice, online public space and social engagement, we would
like to share with you a performance at the intersection of the
borderlands of Tijuana and San Diego and the virtual environment of
Second Life.

This performance engages with the following questions:

- What are the borders of online public space? how do they relate to the
borders of our "first life"?
- What are the relationships between borders and prisons? How are these
separate but related modern features a part of the infrastructure that
separates the global north from the global south?
- How do borders produce gender and how are those dynamics affected by
the seeming gender freedom online public space inhabited by avatars? How
is gender deviance perceived and discussed in online spaces, in prisons,
in borders?
- Is synchronized dancing as fun in second life as it is in first life?

Where: Lui Velazequez
Calle José Maria Larroque #273.
2do Piso, Int. 6, Colonia Federal.
Tijuana, Baja California.
Mexico, C.P. 22 300

When: Wednesday, June 11th, 7pm

...or join us for the sneak preview live performance in the main
auditorium at Atkinson Hall at UCSD, Wednesday, June 4th, at 7pm.
Directions at http://atkinsonhall.calit2.net and also in Second Life,
the SLURL will be posted at
http://sharingissexy.org/wiki/CollectivePracticeClass

Supported by UCIRA, CRCA, UCSD Visual Arts Department

The Collective Art Practice Research Group is Jade Lantana, Matthew
Riederer, Adelina Tancioco and Angelica Tolentino, facilitated by Micha
Cárdenas.




--

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Tonight! Collective Art Practice Research Group - Second Life Performance]

[lotu5]

Come out and see one of the outcomes of our research group! After 10
weeks of talking to collectives from San Diego and Tijuana about
collective practice, online public space and social engagement, we would
like to share with you a performance at the intersection of the
borderlands of Tijuana and San Diego and the virtual environment of
Second Life.

This performance engages with the following questions:

- What are the borders of online public space? how do they relate to the
borders of our "first life"?
- What are the relationships between borders and prisons? How are these
separate but related modern features a part of the infrastructure that
separates the global north from the global south?
- How do borders produce gender and how are those dynamics affected by
the seeming gender freedom online public space inhabited by avatars? How
is gender deviance perceived and discussed in online spaces, in prisons,
in borders?
- Is synchronized dancing as fun in second life as it is in first life?

Where: Lui Velazequez
Calle José Maria Larroque #273.
2do Piso, Int. 6, Colonia Federal.
Tijuana, Baja California.
Mexico, C.P. 22 300

When: Wednesday, June 11th, 7pm

...or join us for the sneak preview live performance in the main
auditorium at Atkinson Hall at UCSD, Wednesday, June 4th, at 7pm.
Directions at http://atkinsonhall.calit2.net and also in Second Life,
the SLURL will be posted at
http://sharingissexy.org/wiki/CollectivePracticeClass

Supported by UCIRA, CRCA, CalIT^2, UCSD Visual Arts Department

The Collective Art Practice Research Group is Jade Lantana, Matthew
Riederer, Adelina Tancioco and Angelica Tolentino, facilitated by Micha
Cárdenas.


--

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Thriller at the Canada/US Border in Second Life

[lotu5]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiEpS_H4aMs

More info and photos here:

http://sharingissexy.org/wiki/PublicPerformances

This performance engages with the following questions:

- What are the borders of online public space? how do they relate to the 
borders of our "first life"?


- What are the relationships between borders and prisons? How are these 
separate but related modern features a part of the infrastructure that 
separates the global north from the global south?


- How do borders produce gender and how are those dynamics affected by 
the seeming gender freedom online public space inhabited by avatars? How 
is gender nonconformity perceived and discussed in online spaces, in 
prisons, in borders?


- Is synchronized dancing as fun in second life as it is in first life?

--

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Beginning Hormones, a prelude to Becoming Dragon

[lotu5]

From:
http://technotrannyslut.com/2008/06/30/beginning-hormones-a-prelude-to-becoming-dragon/

Homage to orlan, biochemical poetry, a beginning


Avital ronell says that drugs “split[] existence into incommensurable 
articulations”.

What drug could this be more true for than administered hormones?
Foucault speaks of epistemological splits which are true splits after
which the original mode of thinking is inaccessible.
And Jane Gallop writes of woman as the knowing subject,
reconfiguring knowledge.
I commit this transversal act
blurring art and life, for the audience and for myself.
If Guattari was serious about becoming woman, why did he not use his 
body as an experimental plateau?

In thanks to kate bornstein, in honor of experimentation and becoming a
more frightening monster than they even expected…
Writing the body, not of woman, but of the gender insurgent…
I’m so happy to join the dinner party with Cameron the T888, the sixes
and countless other of Donna’s cyborgs.
(of course we’re all cyborg, i’m just beginning to embrace it)
I thank j for loving me and showing me the possibility…
and tarig and angelbeast and all of my friends…
and take this pill,
and become something else.

june 27, 2008

We had breakfast this morning.
The pharmacist said to take it with a meal to start,
because it can cause nausea.
J Bird looked beautiful in jeans and a grey lace and black cotton camisole
We both laughed about her highly technical coffee order,
and dreamed about moving to Berkeley for grad school.
I ate a sweet corn tamale with beans and an egg,
and a double soy mocha.
Breakfast ended
and everything began
with 1mg of estradiol.

june 28, 2008



Photo documentation here:

http://flickr.com/photos/lotu5/sets/72157605886508555/

More info about the project here:

http://sharingissexy.org/wiki/Becoming_Dragon


--

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Laboratorio de Arte y Espacio Social in Quito, Ecuador

[lotu5]

-- Forwarded Message
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:22:14 -0400
To: "Bill Kelley Jr." 
Subject: Laboratorio de Arte y Espacio Social

Laboratorio de Arte y Espacio Social


Laboratorio de Arte y Espacio Social
(Art and Social Space Laboratory)

August 2008

Quito, Ecuador

The Laboratorio de Arte y Espacio Social (LAES) is a collaborative 
research workshop directed by María Fernanda Cartagena and Bill Kelley, 
Jr. for the Education Department of the Museo del Banco Central del 
Ecuador (Central Bank Museum of Ecuador).


LAES will offer a free and open space for participants of any discipline 
to investigate and engage in issues involving the relationship between 
art and public space. Methodological research that involves working with 
and understanding public cultural practices are of primary concern 
within a field that has seen enormous growth of activity both locally 
and internationally, institutionally and informally, and individually 
and collectively.


Practices born in or outside the art world system hold numerous 
promising possibilities depending on the public one chooses to work 
with. LAES, under the institutional umbrella of the largest museum in 
Ecuador, will seek to investigate the ties between institutional 
possibilities and the numerous independent artist/activist led projects 
in the region. Relationships between art and political movements, 
collaborative strategies and community work, as well as contemporary and 
historic forms of public space cultural practices will be investigated.


During the entire month of August, LAES will be lead by a group 
specializing in various disciplinary practices. The workshop 
interlocutors include: X. Andrade (Guayaquil, urban anthropology and art 
practice), María Fernanda Cartagena (Quito-Buenos Aires, visual 
cultures), Deborah Morillo (Quito, pedagogy and art practice), Bill 
Kelley, Jr. (Los Angeles, art theory), and invited artists Alejandro 
Meitin representing the collective Ala Plástica (La Plata, Argentina) 
and Graciela Carnevale (Rosario, Argentina) presenting with Tucumán Arde 
Archive.


LAES workshop will also feature the exhibition "Por qué no te callas?"
Activismo, desobediencia y medios de comunicación (Why don't you shut 
up? Activism, disobedience and mediums of communication), a title taken 
from the headlines after King Juan Carlos of Spain yelled the infamous 
phrase at Hugo Chavez of Venezuela in 2007, will be hosted by Espacio 
Arte Actual in Quito and will feature the Tucumán Arde Archive 
(Argentina 1968) as well as contemporary video artists: BijaRi (Brazil), 
Boredom Patrol (USA), Bulbo (Mexico), Etcétera, now Internacional 
Errorista (Argentina), Ana Fernández and Miguel Alvear (Ecuador), Frente 
3 de Fevereiro (Brazil), María Teresa Ponce and Fabiano Kueva (Ecuador), 
and The Yes Men (USA). "Por qué no te callas?" is organized by María 
Fernanda Cartagena and Bill Kelley, Jr.  Much like the LAES workshop, 
this exhibition attempts to investigate art's relationship to the 
changing nature of public space, as well as bridge the gap between h 
istoric and contemporary cultural practices forty years after the events 
of '68.


More information can be found at the LAES blogsite:
http://laes08.blogspot.com and at the  Museo del Banco Central website:
http://www.museobibliotecabce.com

Contact and Inquiries: [EMAIL PROTECTED] or through the education program
Cultura Para Todos at the Central Bank of Ecuador: Ana María Armijos/ 
Daniel León, (+593) 2220904 ext. 48



41 Essex street
New York, NY 10002, USA

-- End of Forwarded Message



--

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Call for participation/Appel à participation: Artivistic 2009 // TURN*ON

[lotu5]

+-+-+ please distribute widely +-+-+


Call for participation

TURN*ON
Artivistic 2009 (Fall)
Montreal, Canada
http://artivistic.org

The world to come is so sexy. We are unstoppable for we are fueled
with an incredible urge to embrace the pleasure provided by
difference, exchange and freedom. Our actions today are charged with
an energy that is animated by the rise of change and a movement that
is simply irresistible.

New movements are arising at the intersections of sex, politics and
technology. These movements are inspired by, as well as critical of,
the long traditions of struggle they stem from, remixing gender
bending, sex work (and play), and media activism. From body hacking to
the implosion of the service economy, where are we today and what new
possibilities can we envision and nurture?

For its upcoming fourth edition, Artivistic is going sexy. Discussing,
questioning, and imagining the past, present, future, and infinite
possibilities of sex. While keeping issues of power and control in
question, we want to turn to the potency of pleasure, curiosity,
humor, and desire in order to TURN*ON that which has yet to be thought
and experienced differently.

Building on previous generations of gatherings, Artivistic 2009 asks
the following questions:

* What kind of world is worth fantasizing about? How can imagination
act as a productive tool to think sex with and beyond the body?
Fantasy always plays a role in political projects when we imagine the
"world we want", but how does that fantasy become reality? Where does
the line blur? What feedback loops are created between what we desire
and the lives we live everyday?

* What actually makes resistance irresistible? The different notions
of sex, gender and sexuality draw our attention to the task of naming.
That task can be appropriated in liberating ways. How do we move away
from tired and troublesome terminology in order to create different
relationships that unleash new ways of thinking (and relating) and new
strategies for political action? How can reimagining sex contribute to
a process of decolonization in every sense of the word?

* What are the alternative infrastructures of sex? Sex is everywhere.
Everyone talks about sex and this can tend to be polarizing and
unproductive. How we address sex might get us somewhere more, say...
stimulating, by welcoming the critical analysis of the production and
consumption of sex, and an exploration of self-organized, even
intimate, initiatives. What new libidinal economies of service and
information are emerging with respect to sex work and how can we
struggle for the rights of communities forging these new paths?

In line with the self-organized aspect of the upcoming gathering, the
Artivistic collective seeks proposals that intervene in the very
(infra)structure of the event, welcoming proposals that involve food,
space, venue, communications, hardware, software, skill sharing,
documentation, dissemination and so on. The gathering further
encourages submissions that take on the challenge of collective
participation and collaboration, opening onto unconventional praxes
and theses of knowledge production.

Artivistic is an international transdisciplinary three-day gathering
on the interPlay between art, information and activism. Artivistic
emerges out of the proposition that not only artists talk about art,
academics about theory, and activists about activism. Founded in 2004,
the event aims to promote transdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue
on activist art beyond critique, to create and facilitate a human
network of diverse peoples, and to inspire, proliferate, activate.

To submit a proposal, please use the online form via: http://artivistic.org

Alternatively, you can send your proposal to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Deadline: 1st November 2008

Questions: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


+-+-+ faire circuler svp +-+-+


Appel à participation

TURN*ON
Artivistic 2009 (automne)
Montréal, Canada
http://artivistic.org

Affirmons-le! Provoquons-le! Faisons-le advenir : L'avenir sera
terriblement sexy. Les gestes que nous posons aujourd'hui sont chargés
d'une énergie puissante, pulsante, une énergie capable de galvaniser
un mouvement de changement qui sera irrésistible ET irrépressible.

Ça bouillonne déjà au confluent de la sexualité, du politique et de la
technologie. Des mouvements se forment, inspirés tout autant que
critiques d'une tradition de lutte qui n'est plus jouvencelle. S'y
remixent encore les déjà moins catégoriques définitions des genres,
s'y repense le travail du sexe et l'activisme médiatique.
Joignons-nous y, rendons les mégatsunamiques. Des dé(re)tournements
des corps à la subversion de l'économie des services, qu'avons-nous à
injecter pour nourrir la vague?

Pour sa quatrième édition, Artivistic vous propose trois jours de
concentra(c)tion. Elle devient lubrique, lascive. En vue de cette
prochaine rencontre internationale, nous vous invitons dès maintenant
à nous proposer ateliers de discussion ou de cré

[spectre] Live Radio from Emergency - Emergent/Agency @ Lui Velazquez

[lotu5]

This weekend, october 11th and 12th, Lui Velazquez will be hosting media 
production workshops for youth and students as part of the Emergency - 
Emergent Agency project which explores people’s relationship to mass 
media and the transmission of messages between groups who don’t usually 
have access to the media. The workshop is being organized in 
collaboration with Michael Trigilio of Neighborhood Public Radio and 
Ricardo Dominguez of the Electronic Disturbance Theater.


Tune in to the live radio broadcast here:
http://www.neighborhoodpublicradio.org/sandiego/

More about the project on the project blog:
http://luiproyectocivico.wordpress.com

//

Lui Velazquez es un espacio que es ha caracterizado por generar diálogos 
entre diferentes disciplinas, prácticas, artistas, productores, 
curadores, y públicos sobre temas contemporáneos desde una perspectiva 
critica.


Esta platforma facilita conexiones e intercambios, entre artistas 
locales e internacionales para crear redes de colaboración en la región 
trans-fronteriza de las ciudades de Tijuana (MX) y San Diego (E.U.A.).


/

Lui Velazquez is an art space for generating dialogs among different 
disciplines, practices, artists, producers, curators, and the general 
public about contemporary issues from a critical perspective.


This platform facilitates the connections and exchanges between local 
and international artists to create a collaborative network within the 
San Diego (U.S.A.) and the Tijuana (MX) trans-border region.


//

El Proyecto Cívico: Diálogos e interrogantes (PCDI), comparte los 
intereses de la exhibición que le da nombre. Esbozado para repensar la 
programación pública del museo involucra a tanto a la audiencia 
especializada como a la general dentro de nuevas y más significativas 
formas de intercambio y comunicación.


La exhibición, Proyecto cívico, es una investigación sobre el estado de 
excepciones políticas, cívicas y sociales que gobiernan escandalosamente 
la vida diaria de Tijuana, pero cuyos síntomas son observables 
constantemente en todas las naciones contemporáneas. Estas excepciones 
-como lo sostiene el teórico Giorgio Agambem- han puesto en crisis a la 
noción misma de ciudadanía. Proyecto cívico es una exhibición de 
artistas internacionales y regionales organizada para la inauguración 
del CUBO, el nuevo espacio de exhibición del Centro Cultural Tijuana.


/

The Proyecto Cívico: Diálogos e Interrogantes (PCDI) project is a 
collective effort to bring artists, various collaborators, and the 
museum together in actively sharing and investigating the nature of 
their cultural practices and its relationship to the city.


PCDI also shares the interests of the exhibition after which it is 
named. Proyecto cívico, is an exhibition of international and regional 
artists organized for the inauguration of El Cubo, the Centro Cultural 
de Tijuana's (CECUT) new exhibition venue. The exhibition is an 
investigation into the state of political, civic, and social exceptions 
that govern daily life in Tijuana, but whose symptoms are increasingly 
observable in all contemporary nations. These exceptions have, as 
theorist Giorgio Agamben argues, brought the very concept of citizenship 
into question.



--

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] PRESS RELEASE: >panroc - Acamonchi @ Lui Velazquez, Oct 18-30, 2008

[lotu5]

panroc
October 18-30, 2008
Lui Velazquez
Calle José Maria Larroque #273.
2do Piso, Int. 6, Colonia Federal.
Tijuana, Baja California.
Mexico, C.P. 22 300

Opening reception, October 18, 2008, 7-9pm.

Contact: Micha Cárdenas, Curator, [EMAIL PROTECTED], 619-750-8851
 Katherine Sweetman, Director, [EMAIL PROTECTED],   
619-838-7666


panroc is a new show at Lui Velazquez in Tijuana displaying a number of
works never before shown in Mexico from the artist Acamonchi. The work
overflows with the prodigious creativity that Acamonchi's work always
demonstrates, bursting forth with layer upon layer of ideas playfully
expressed in combinations of silkscreening, hand painting and spray
paint. Committed to community involvement, Acamonchi is heavily involved
in the bike scene and offers his skills to other community groups as
well, having long been a part of the fanzine, independent media and
street art movements. I am happy to curate this show of Acamonchi's
work, which engages concepts of reuse and subversion of pop images from
punk rock to advertising and seventies porn, combining elements of
graffiti and diy media making into complex, colorful pieces of art where
cartoon cats and porn stars gaze back at you from their swirl of media,
with brushstrokes hardly distinguishable from screened images. Talking
to Acamonchi it is clear that he has collaborated with so many people,
from locals like Bulbo, Lui Velazquez and Voz Alta to much larger
entities like MTV, yet it is also clear that these engagements come out
of a sense of generosity and a productive social drive to build
community in the San Diego/Tijuana border region. The drive to build
community and create links between separate networks of people, blurring 
the lines of borders and disciplines, is a goal of Lui Velazquez and 
this show continues that trajectory.



About Acamonchi:

Gerardo Yepiz launched the first Mexican Mail Art website in 1995, his
downloadable stencils revolutionized how a generation of young
artists, from Mexico City to Tijuana, used street installation and
graffiti as a critical forum. Known as Acamonchi, a slang term for
piggyback riding in northern Mexico, Yepiz adopted the strategies of
street art as the starting point for his fine art while also
distinguishing himself as a graphic designer working with clients on
both sides of the border including the Nortec Collective, MTV, Reebok,
Vans, Adidas, Pepsi, Warner records, Osiris shoes, Tribal Gear and
Obey Giant. Like his moniker, which, he explains "doesn't really mean
anything, it's just a dumb, silly sounding word," he uses humor to
create graphic works of art that probe serious political and cultural
issues. As hedescribes it, "poster illustrations or stickers are
common resources of visual communication; in the hands of Acamonchi,
and in combination with graffiti tactics, they become veritable
terrorist instruments, and the activity becomes a kind of cultural
sabotage."

Acamonchi began his career in the mid-1980s as part of a
cross-cultural underground scene in southern California and northern
Mexico that was heavily influenced by fanzines and the skateboard-punk
countercultures. Music developed his political awareness, and the
history of Fluxus inspired his passion for Mail Art. His early work
focused on images of the Mexican television host Raul Velasco and
assassinated presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio. According to
Acamonchi, Velasco represents the mindless entertainment provided by
the Mexican media. He describes Colosio-shot on live television in
1994, during a campaign rally in Tijuana -as the Mexican equivalent to
John F. Kennedy. Colosio's face is a poignant reminder of political
corruption and Tijuana's notorious outlaw reputation. Acamonchi makes
his point, however, with ridiculous images of Colosio in a cosmonaut
helmet, Colosio crossed with Colonel Sanders, and a "Blaxploitation"
Colosio just to name a few.

Recently, Acamonchi has focused his attention on painting. His densely
layered panels and murals integrate his signature street graphics
-posters, stencils, and graffiti -into abstract fileds of color. In
this new work, Acamonchi experiments with painterly techniques using
aerosol paint, ink pens, and more traditional pigments, Although his
explorations are clearly inspired by street art, his distinctive
visual statements are something new. "Post-graffiti Art," as this kind
of art was called when graffiti artists first began to show in
galleries in the 1980s, does not encompass Acamonchi's strong
affiliation with street art radicalism, and articulate his serious
painterly intent. Once again, Acamonchi is inspiring his colleagues as
he explores new forms of expression."

From Rachel Teagle, Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

+++

ACAMONCHI art studio
New website:
acamonchi-art.com
acamonchi.etsy.com
myspace.com/gerardoyepiz
flickr.com/photos/acamonchi
archivobc.org/?

[spectre] UCIRA State of the Arts Conference

[lotu5]

http://www.ucira.ucsb.edu/conference.html


State of the Arts 2008: Demonstration
Schedule of Events, November 6 – 8, 2008

The UC Institute for Research in the Arts will once again host State of 
the Arts 2008, an annual arts showcase/conference, bringing together 
artists, scholars, and arts administrators from across the UC system and 
beyond. This year's program engages the theme of "demonstration" and 
will include performances, installations, presentations, interventions, 
workshops, and nightly events.  Located at a different UC campus each 
year, this year's program will be hosted by UC Riverside and situated in 
the historic downtown district.


demonstrate v. 1. show (feelings etc) by experiment 2. describe and 
explain (a proposition, machine etc) by experiment, use etc. 3. 
logically prove or be proof of 4. take part in or organize a public 
demonstration; demonstrator n. 1,3 make evident, establish, exhibit (see 
also PROVE) 1,2 display, illustrate see also EXPLAIN 1,4 march, rally, 
protest L. demonstrare de+monstrare; see MONSTER-ATE



Thursday, November 6th
6:00-9:00 PM
In conjunction with the City of Riverside’s Artwalk, UCIRA is proud to 
present Buckworld I on the downtown pedestrian mall. Buckworld is a 
theatrical production created by Rickerby Hinds, Assistant Professor of 
Theatre at UC Riverside. The production combines krump dancing and 
spoken word poetry, and has been featured at the New Los Angeles Theater 
Center and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.


The Free Improvisation Ensemble will also present a freestyle theater 
project. Since its founding in 2001, the ensemble has brought together 
musicians, dancers, visual, media and theater artists working in both 
traditional and experimental performance genres.  The ensemble has 
presented frequent performances on the UCR campus, and has appeared in a 
variety of performance venues throughout Southern California, including 
the Roy O’ Disney Hall at The California Institute for the Arts, The 
Technika Radika Festival at the University of California, San Diego, and 
the Open Fist Theatre in Hollywood.


Friday November 7th
8:00-9:00 – Registration and Coffee – Life Arts Center, 3485 University 
Avenue


9:00-9:15 – Campus Welcome by Dean Stephen Cullenberg and Professor 
Renee Coulombe, UC Riverside


9:15-10:00 – UCIRA Team Opening Remarks: “UCIRA: former/future” Kim 
Yasuda (UCSB) / Dick Hebdige (UCR) / Holly Unruh (UCSB) / Marko Peljhan 
(UCSB)


10:00-10:30 – Featured Speaker: Clementine Deliss (Future Academy, 
Edinburgh College of Art) Future Academy: Roaming, Prelusive, Permeable


10:30-12:00 – Demonstration I: Spacing Out
Julie Wyman (UC Davis) – On the Platform: locating the 
possibilities of athletic performance

Daniel Carrera (Los Angeles) – Primera Comunión
Sierra Brown (CSULB) – Port-to-Class Supercommute 2007

  Richard Ross (UC Santa Barbara) – Politics to Beauty and Back 
again, or, you do what you gotta do.

Kim Yasuda (UC Santa Barbara / UCIRA), moderator

12:00-1:00 – Lunch (provided to registered participants)

1:00-1:30 – Featured Speaker: Toby Miller (UC Riverside): Talking Rubbish

1:30-3:00 – Demonstration II: In the Classroom
Micha Cardenas (UC San Diego) – Collective Art Practice in 
the mediated public space of Second Life
EG Crichton + Dee Hibbert-Jones (UC Santa Cruz) – Politics 
of Public Space/Gestures of Subversion

ShiPu Wang (UC Merced) – The Effecting Eye

3:00-3:30 – Featured Speaker: Bruce Ferguson (Future Arts Research, 
Arizona State University) – How I went 2 F.A.R.


3:30-5:00 – Roundtable ( Future Art + the Academy) with UC Arts Deans
Stephen Cullenberg (Dean, UC Riverside)
David Marshall (Dean, UC Santa Barbara)
Christopher Waterman (Dean, UC Los Angeles)
Kim Yasuda (UC Santa Barbara / UCIRA)
Dick Hebdige (UC Riverside)
Bruce Ferguson (F.A.R @ ASU)

5:00-6:00 – Opening Reception, Life Arts Studios
*please see UCIRA staff if you will need transportation to 
the UC Riverside campus for the 8:00pm Media Event*


8:00 –Media Event, Arts Building Performance Lab, Room 166 (UC Riverside)
The Kaiborg Duo (Jeff Kaiser, David Borgo)
Gamelan Plesetan (Rene Lysloff, no.e Parker, Renee 
Coulombe, Sapto Raharjo)

Compositions by Pablo Ortiz (UC Davis) with Ira Glansbeek
Chia-Yi Seetoo (UC Berkeley) + Paula K. (UC Berkeley) 
(In)visible C ties

Synthia Payne (UC Santa Cruz) Telematic Performance

Saturday, November 8th
8:30-9:30 – Registration and Coffee – Life Arts Center, 3485 University 
Avenue


9:30-11:00 – Demonstration III: Push Play
Pablo Ortiz (UC Davis) – Recent Compositions
Marsia Alexander-Clarke (Riverside, CA) – Tapestries
Sara Wookey (UC Los Angeles) – Walking LA/(Sur)f

[spectre] Sharing is Sexy, UC San Diego, 7pm Fri, This is what democracy looks like Naked

[lotu5]

Hi, join me and the rest of the Sharing is Sexy collective Friday,
November 7th at Groundwork books @ UCSD for a sexy movie screening and a
discussion of DIY porn and collective art practice. Details below...

please pass it on!


 Original Message 
Subject: Fwd: Groundwork is showing a movie tomorrow (Friday 11/7) !
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 16:48:34 -0800
From: Adriana Goni <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: dj lotu5 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


Hello Groundwork friends!


We would like to invite you all to come on Friday, November 7 (tomorrow) to
Groundwork Books. Sharing is Sexy collective and Groundwork will be
screening the film "Made in Secret: the Story of the East Van Porn
Collective". A documentary about the East Vancouver video collective
that challenged the porn industry's standard exploitation of women by
creating their own anarcho-feminist porn. Discussion and workshop
presented by Sharing is Sexy following the film. Movie starts at 7PM in
Groundwork Books, get there early! We'll have snacks and coffee.

**Free! (donations welcomed)

Groundwork Books
9500 Gilman Dr. in the Old Student Center on the UCSD campus, La Jolla.

(858) 452-9625 Call us if you have any questions.

Those off campus can catch the free shuttle from the UCSD Medical Center
shuttle in Hillcrest (pickup at the parking garage) to a couple blocks away
from Groundwork Books on campus in La Jolla (drop off at Gilman Dr/Myers
Dr).

Shuttle schedule:
http://blink.ucsd.edu/Blink/External/Topics/Policy/0,1162,12941,00.html

Map: (just copy and paste it !)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=gilman+dr+and+eucalyptus+grove+ln,+la+jolla,+ca&sll=32.865062,-117.235816&sspn=0.008093,0.019312&ie=UTF8&ll=32.886218,-117.235022&spn=0.002023,0.004828&z=14&output=embed&s=AARTsJortKXrlnWhvA15eersAcXxoQoLWw

Thanks, hope to see you all here tomorrow or in two fridays for our next
screening !

Groundwork Books Collective


--

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

blog: http://bang.calit2.net/tts

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Becoming Dragon, Dec 1-17th, calendar of events and poster

[lotu5]

Becoming Dragon - a 365 hour immersive performance in Second Life
December 1-16th
Opening December 1st, 7-9pm
Daily Hours, 11am-7pm

Where: The Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA),
Atkinson Hall, Visiting Artist Lab #1613, UCSD, and in Second Life at
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Seventh%20Eye/186/12/35

Contact: Micha Cárdenas, 619-750-8851, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 or IM Azdel Slade in Second Life

Poster here: http://sdhacklab.org/becomingdragon/bd-poster2.jpg
http://sdhacklab.org/becomingdragon/bd-poster2-1024.jpg
http://sdhacklab.org/becomingdragon/bd-poster2-700.jpg


Calendar of Events throughout the performance, all times are SLT, Second 
Life Time, which corresponds to Pacific Standard Time.



Dec 3rd, 3pm,
Voice Chat with Sandy Stone
"Gender and Desire in Virtual Worlds"
http://sandystone.com

Dec 5th, 5pm
"Something is Happening"
UCSD Symposium on Performance and Affect
http://visarts.ucsd.edu

Dec 8th, 6pm
Voice Chat with Stelarc
"The Body in Transmission/Transition: Learning to Live in Mixed Realities"
also streamed in Tijuana live at Lui Velazquez
http://www.stelarc.va.com.au
http://luivelazquez.com

Dec 10th, 2pm
Voice Chat with Brian Holmes and Rubaiyat Shatner
"Imagining New Worlds, Biopolitics and Self-Governance in SL"
http://arsvirtua.com
http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/


Becoming Dragon is a mixed reality, durational performance in Second
Life, in CRCA's Visiting Artist Lab #1613 of the Atkinson Hall building,
on the UC San Diego campus. The opening begins at 7pm on December 1st,
2008 and the performance will run for 365 hours. The performance is
Micha Cárdenas' final MFA project.

Becoming Dragon questions the one year requirement of Real Life
Experience that transgender people must fulfill in order to receive
Gender Confirmation Surgery (Sexual Reassignment Surgery), and asks if
this could be replaced by one year of Second Life Experience to lead to
Species Reassignment Surgery. For the performance, Micha Cárdenas will
live for 365 hours immersed in Second Life with a head mounted display,
so that all she will see is Second Life, and a motion capture system to
map her movements into Second Life. The performance space will be open
to the public for the duration, during the hours that the building is
open, 9am to 7pm. During the entire duration of the performance Micha
will stay in the performance space at CRCA and in Second Life.

Becoming Dragon is receiving support from the Center for Research in
Computing and the Arts, CalIT2, University of California Institute for
Research in the Arts, Ars Virtua, the [EMAIL PROTECTED], the b.a.n.g. lab
and the Embodied Cognition Lab of the cognitive Science Department.

See the performance in Second Life here:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Seventh%20Eye/186/12/35

Read Micha's live blogging from Second Life during the performance at:
http://secondloop.wordpress.com

Hours and Location:
CRCA, Atkinson Hall, Room 1613
Hours: 11am-7pm, Opening Dec. 1, 2008, 7pm,
Continuing for 365 hours, roughly 3 weeks

First Floor, Atkinson Hall
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093
Map & Directions: http://atkinsonhall.calit2.net/directions/

Read more at:
http://secondloop.wordpress.com
http://sharingissexy.org/wiki/Becoming_Dragon
http://bang.calit2.net/tts/category/becomingdragon/
http://flickr.com/photos/azdelslade
http://flickr.com/photos/lotu5/sets/72157606067246259/
http://delicious.com/lotu5/becomingdragon


--

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

blog: http://bang.calit2.net/tts

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Stelarc discussion with Micha Cardenas / Azdel Slade Dec 8 and Brian Holmes Dec 10

[lotu5]

Hi, I'm staying off email for the performance, except to check for emails
from support people, so I thought I'd share this one announcement...

//


 Original Message 
Subject: Monday , Dec 8th, 6pm: Second Life Voice Chat with Stelarc & 
Micha Cárdenas projected live at Lui Velazquez
From:"Katherine Sweetman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date:Fri, December 5, 2008 10:25 am
To:  "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
--

Monday December 8th at 6pm
The Body in Transmission/Transition: Learning to Live in Mixed Realities
Streamed live from Second Life at Lui Velazquez

Live Second Life chat with infamous performance artist Stelarc as part of
Micha Cárdenas' Becoming Dragon project. At Lui Velazquez we will stream
this live beginning at 6pm. You will be able to ask questions of both
Micha Cárdenas and Stelarc.

Drinks and snacks will be served.

Dec 8th, 6pm
Voice Chat with Stelarc
"The Body in Transmission/Transition: Learning to Live in Mixed Realities"
also broadcast in Tijuana live at Lui Velazquez
http://www.stelarc.va.com.au
http://luivelazquez.com

Lui Velazquez is located right next to the US/Mex border on the Tijuana side.
directions: http://luivelazquez.com/directions.html


Dec 10th, 2pm
Voice Chat with Brian Holmes and Rubaiyat Shatner
“Imagining New Worlds, Biopolitics and Self-Governance in SL”
http://arsvirtua.com
http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/


What: Performance in Second Life and at Calit2 on the UCSD Campus
When: Beginning December 1st, running for 365 hours
Where: The Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA),
Atkinson Hall, Visiting Artist Lab #1613, UCSD, and in Second Life at
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Seventh%20Eye/186/12/35
Contact: Micha Cárdenas, 619-750-8851, [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Becoming Dragon is a mixed reality, durational performance in Second
Life, in CRCA's Visiting Artist Lab #1613 of the Atkinson Hall building,
on the UC San Diego campus. The opening begins at 7pm on December 1st,
2008 and the performance will run for 365 hours. The performance is
Micha Cárdenas' final MFA project.

Becoming Dragon questions the one year requirement of Real Life
Experience that transgender people must fulfill in order to receive
Gender Confirmation Surgery (Sexual Reassignment Surgery), and asks if
this could be replaced by one year of Second Life Experience to lead to
Species Reassignment Surgery. For the performance, Micha Cárdenas will
live for 365 hours immersed in Second Life with a head mounted display,
so that all she will see is Second Life, and a motion capture system to
map her movements into Second Life. The performance space will be open
to the public for the duration, during the hours that the building is
open, 9am to 7pm. During the entire duration of the performance Micha
will stay in the performance space at CRCA and in Second Life.

Read Micha's live blogging from Second Life during the performance at:
http://secondloop.wordpress.com

Hours and Location:
CRCA, Atkinson Hall, Room 1613
Hours: 11am-7pm, Opening Dec. 1, 2008, 7pm,
Continuing for 365 hours, roughly 3 weeks

First Floor, Atkinson Hall
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093
Map & Directions: http://atkinsonhall.calit2.net/directions/

Read more at:
http://secondloop.wordpress.com
http://sharingissexy.org/wiki/Becoming_Dragon
http://bang.calit2.net/tts/category/becomingdragon/
http://flickr.com/photos/azdelslade
http://flickr.com/photos/lotu5/sets/72157606067246259/
http://delicious.com/lotu5/becomingdragon

Katherine Sweetman
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
619-838-7666



__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Online-world immersion probes 'possibilities of transformation'

[lotu5]

Original post, with images at:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2008/dec/21/1a21virtual162313-online-world-immersion-probes-po/?uniontrib

Read the blogging of Becoming Dragon, which concluded its current phase 
on December 17th, at http://secondloop.wordpress.com


I'm happy to say that this story was on the front page of the San Diego 
Union-Tribune today, the largest San Diego newspaper. I would make a few 
corrections, one being that my name in world is Azdel Slade, another 
being that I didn't say "gender, identity and trends" but "gender, 
identity and transition". Also, another important correction is that the 
author says "stereoscopic goggles", but I did nt use the goggles in 
stereoscopic mode. We were unable to get our stereo code working in the 
hmd. Still, a good article nevertheless, I think. Also, most offensive 
is that he starts the story off saying I'm a man taking hormones to 
become a woman, so apparently he missed the main point of thinking about 
subjects in permanent transition, being something else, not on a 
trajectory towards woman, but perhaps it is a concession to his audience.


Also, CalIT^2 posted a decent video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHEDym1aOZs

//

Online-world immersion probes 'possibilities of transformation'
Immersion conversion
By Scott LaFee, staff writer

2:00 a.m. December 21, 2008


Micha Cardenas is a 31-year-old man taking hormones to become a woman. 
So, it's not surprising perhaps that Cardenas views the boundaries of 
gender as being somewhat fluid and has questions about what it means to 
be male and/or female.


But what if the question isn't merely gender identity, but an issue of 
species? What if one felt wrongly trapped inside their human body, 
preferring instead to be a cat? Or a lizard? Or some sort of unknown 
alien life form?


“People are now undergoing all sorts of extreme body modifications,” 
said Cardenas, a visual arts student at UC San Diego. “They're getting 
scales tattooed all over their bodies, horns implanted on their heads, 
tongues forked. It seems crazy right now, but I wonder how far we are 
from actually being able to change species. And if we could, what would 
that be like?”


To find out, Cardenas recently spent 365 consecutive hours in Second 
Life, an Internet-based, three-dimensional virtual world where human 
users assume digitized alter egos called avatars of any gender or 
species, real and unreal.


The experience would be part academic requirement (it's her final 
project for a master's degree in visual arts), part social experiment 
and part performance art. It would be an artful investigation of “the 
possibilities of transformation offered by contemporary technology,” 
Cardenas explained. The principal investigator would be her avatar: a 
dragon named Azdel Slate.


Immersion conversion Cardenas sits in a chair in a darkened room: 
Visiting Artist Lab 1613 in Atkinson Hall at UCSD's Center for Research 
and Computing in the Arts, part of the California Institute for 
Telecommunications and Information Technology or Calit2. It took more 
than a year of hard work and planning to get here.


“I had very early contact with Micha, even before she was accepted in 
the visual arts department at UCSD,” said Ricardo Dominguez, an 
assistant professor and Cardenas' lead adviser. “We had a great many 
discussions about how her history in computer science, activism and 
sexual re-orientation could become core themes in the development of 
(her) artwork.”


Surrounding Cardenas, dressed comfortably in a black tank top, black 
shorts and black slippers, are mounds of expensive computers, processors 
and other high-tech equipment, including eight motion-capture cameras 
that will transfer her movements within the lab onto two giant screens, 
one depicting Second Life, the other a virtual re-creation of the lab 
itself.


Cardenas' plan is to physically remain within the lab (with restroom 
breaks down the hall) for slightly more than 15 days. Friends and 
supporters will bring in food. Cardenas will sleep on a hauled-in 
mattress. Every waking moment will be spent hooked into Second Life, via 
stereoscopic goggles that obscure almost all of Cardenas' view of the 
real world.


“Most Second Life users just sit at a computer for a few hours at a 
time,” says Cardenas. “This is near-total immersion.”


But there are risks. The goggles can cause nausea or dizziness if worn 
for too long. (She has been building up a tolerance for them.) 
Confinement might induce a kind of temporary claustrophobic psychosis. 
Cardenas is being advised by a UCSD-affiliated psychiatrist.


But the art is worth the risk, Cardenas says. As Azdel Slate (the name 
and the dragon-avatar, which is a deep magenta color with blue chest 
scales, spiky wings and glowing horns, were chosen because they're 
gender-neutral), Cardenas will be able to investigate what it means to 
be free of virtually all biological, technical and social constrai

[spectre] Becoming Dragon in LA and San Jose

[lotu5]

with lnks and images here:
http://bang.calit2.net/tts/2009/01/19/come-see-becoming-dragon-in-la-and-san-jose/

If you’re in LA or San Jose or the bay area, come see Becoming Dragon 
[http://secondloop.wordpress.com]! Today I’m finishing installing a 
large installation with prints and video at Supersonic 2009 
[http://supersonic2009.com], the show of southern california graduating 
MFA’s from a number of different schools. That show is at the LA 
convention center and is open to the public on Thursday the 22nd and 
stays up until Sunday the 25th.There are so many amazing artists in this 
show, you have to come see it!


Also, I’m giving a talk about my experience of Becoming Dragon in San 
Jose, on Thursday the 22nd at 11:30am at the Engineering Reality of 
Virtual Reality 
[http://spie.org/app/program/index.cfm?fuseaction=conferencedetail&export_id=x16280&ID=x16223&redir=x16223.xml&conference_id=863831&event_id=862795&programtrack_id=862796] 
conference put on by the Society of Photonic Imaging Engineers. It’s at 
the San Jose convention center.


thanks!


--

gpg:  0x5B77079C // encrypted email preferred
gaim/skype: djlotu5 // off the record messaging preferred

blog: http://bang.calit2.net/tts

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] becoming dragon, opening fri in la, video of talk in victoria...

[lotu5]

... from my blog, http://transreal.org ...

Video of Critical Digital Studies Workshop

I recently gave a talk entitled “Epistemology of Transition” about
Becoming Dragon at Ctheory’s Critical Digital Studies Workshop in
Victoria, Canada. The video is now online! You can also see the rest of
the amazing talks from the workshop here.

Becoming Dragon: An Epistemology of Transition

How are technologies of transformation facilitating new becomings, new
modes of learning and new sites of knowledge? The performance Becoming
Dragon sought to explore two lines of technology, Multi-User Virtual
Environments and biotechnology. Following Anna Munster’s call for
Transversal Technology Studies, this paper is an attempt to map two
transversal lines between these two directions of technology: transition
or becoming as a mode of being and mixing of realities, genders and
sexualities as a strategy of subversion. The intersections of these lines
of technology and transversal strategies of action will be examined as
operating within and against two fields of knowledge production,
phenomenology and what Ricardo Dominguez has called “science of the
oppressed”.

http://www.pactac.net/pactacweb/web-content/videoarchives/cdsw/D1-03-Cardenas.mp4

//

Also, come see the 25 minute documentation video of Becoming Dragon in Los
Angeles this fri night at the I-5 gallery in the Brewery Artist Colony!

MFA Conversations Part II at the I-5 Gallery

At I-5 Gallery in the Brewery Artist Colony
July 17th, 2009 7PM to 10PM
July 17 to September 11, 2009
Artist Talks: July 25 and August 22
2PM to 4PM

Conversation: (NOUN) 1. An informal spoken exchange of thoughts and
feelings; a familiar talk.
2. Social intercourse; close association. 3. Rare. Close acquaintance, as
with an
object of study.

I-5 Gallery is pleased to announce the second in the “MFA Conversations”
series of shows being offered this summer through the fall of 2009. MFA
Conversations Part II continues to explore the abundance of MFA programs
in the Southern California area from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Despite
their shared geography, these programs represent a range of diverse
offerings, foci, students, and work. While such diversity yields richness,
it can also have an isolating effect on students from these institutions,
who do not have many opportunities to interact in the greater southern
California arts community.

Curator Marla Koosed explains: “MFA Conversations Part II builds on the
foundation established by Part Iʼs show and artist conversations and
will offer another opportunity for dialogue among the artists and their
works. It will also offer visitors to the gallery an exceptional
opportunity to see an edited sample of some of the finest work being
produced by Southern California MFA Graduates. While most MFA shows are up
for a limited period of time; Part II will be up for 2 months. This allows
time for the scheduled artist talks, for the participants to discuss their
work, each othersʼ work, and to share those conversations with a
wider audience, the public.” Artist talks are scheduled from 2PM to 4PM on
Saturday, July 25th and Saturday, August 22nd. On the heels of Part I, MFA
Conversations Part II will show work from 7 schools; Art Center College of
Design, UC Los Angeles, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, UC Riverside, Otis
and Calarts. This show is not a survey or comprehensive of all the
graduates: Instead, studio visits for all eligible candidates for this
show were conducted, and participants were chosen from that pool. The
intimate space of the I-5 Gallery allows for an exhibit like this to
function and for the works to interact by the space they cohabit.

The MFA Conversations series will conclude with a third show, Professor
Dialogues that will feature select works from faculty of the 15 schools
and will take place Winter 2010. Stay tuned….

I-5 Gallery
2100 North Main Street, Suite A-9
Los Angeles, CA 90031
1-323-342-0717
Press Information
For Immediate Release
Contact: Nancy Ramirez, Gallery Director
Curator: Marla Koosed
breweryartw...@yahoo.com




__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Sat, Lui Velazquez Opens New Space with New Show

[dj lotu5]

Come out Saturday night and celebrate the opening of our new space, with 
much more space! Please pass this on to anyone interested...


Intimate Simulations

Grand opening of Lui Velazquez 2.0
Saturday March 14th / Sabado 14 Marzo
7-9pm

Featuring the work of:

Susy Bielak
Dream Addictive Lab
Elle Mehrmand
Zac Montanaro
Priscilla Lázaro Rabago

Co-curated by Katherine Sweetman, Micha Cárdenas and Felipe Zuñiga

Lui Velazquez
Calle José Maria Larroque #273.
2do Piso, Int. 6, Colonia Federal.
Tijuana, Baja California.
Mexico, C.P. 22 300*
*

flyer at: http://luivelazquez.com/lui_card1
directions at: http://luivelazquez.com/directions

//  Intimate Simulations  //

In contemporary western society, we have developed an intimate 
relationship with our simulations. Both simulation and reenactment have 
become part of our daily lives, and we are familiar with their logics. 
Simulation is so deeply embedded in our thinking, that many of our most 
important decisions are made based on simulation, such as the dropping 
of bombs. Yet simple, personal decisions in our daily lives are also 
made on simulations, such as weather simulations. In our homes at night, 
we watch the news and see reenactments of crimes. Our political 
struggles are influenced by the reenactments of the lives of historical 
figures and moments, such as the recent film 'Milk'. Scientists rely on 
the logic of simulation to inform their decisions and conclusions, 
making the most sacrosanct act of 'proof' in our society, based on a 
simulation of, for example, biological behaviors. Legal decisions depend 
on reenactments such as in the assassination of JFK. In Simulacra and 
Simulation Baudrillard quotes Ecclesiastes saying "the simulacrum is 
never what hides the truth-- It is truth that hides the fact that there 
is none. the simulacrum is true." Today this idea still holds great 
significance as new forms of simulation and reenactment work themselves 
into our most private moments.


Artists are directly engaging with the logics of simulation and 
reenactment, using their vernaculars and exploring their dimensions and 
implications. In this show, we are presenting a number of pieces which 
deeply engage with simulation and reenactment. In Suzy Bielak's  
"Quake/Temblor", a reenactment of the Mexico City earthquake of 1985, we 
witness a reenactment of a moment from her personal history, using the 
technologies of scientific simulation. Elle Mehrmand's "w3eks.." 
simulates her memory of 3 weeks of her life, providing an intimate 
reliving of her experience. Priscilla Lázaro Rabago's performance and 
video both contains and recreates a puppet show, creating a nested 
topology of copies and simulations of humanness. Zac Montanaro's 
"Missing Priest Puts Focus on Cluster Ballooning" reenacts a political 
act of communication through low tech border disturbance gestures. While 
Dream Addictive's Untitled_Mood is a simulator of a virtual mirror with 
a memory, in which the viewers intimtate experience of their own image 
in the mirror is fractured and doubled through the memory of the mirror 
itself. These pieces explore multiple trajectories of simulation and 
evoke its place, embedded in our lives, between us and ourselves.


More information about Lui Velazquez and past shows at
http://luivelazquez.com

--

micha cárdenas
performance /social media / public culture

C(a)lit2 Researcher, http://bang.calit2.net
CRCA Researcher, http://crca.ucsd.edu
MFA Candidate, UCSD, http://visarts.ucsd.edu
MA, EGS, http://egs.edu

blog: http://bang.calit2.net/tts


__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Lui Velazquez Gallery Announces New Larger Space and new Advisory Board

[dj lotu5]

ective practice and a platform. As a project, Lui
Velazquez started as an extension of research dealing with relational
aesthetics, which included projects from Shannon Spanakhe, Camilo
Ontiveros, Felipe Zuniga and Sergio de la Torre dealing with
performative, social, media and conceptual gesutres. As a collective
practice, Lui Velazquez has established a strategy of interdisciplinary
promiscuity, collaborating with dj’s, poets, graphic designers, net
labels, musicians, television producers, curators and media activists.
As a platform, Lui Velazquez functions as a facilitator of producers
outside of the “mainstream art world”. Lui Velazquez functions as a
flexible organization that hosts residencies, collaborations and
productions which aims to trouble the flows of distribution and
production of cultural expressions in the transborder region of
Tijuana/San Diego.

Katherine Sweetman is an artist, educator, curator, and internationally
exhibited artist in the fields of new media art and documentary video. 
Her current work deals with online social networking sites and the 
issues surrounding personal disclosure in the public realm of the World 
Wide Web. Katherine has a B.A. from Cal-State San Marcos, and an MFA 
form the University of California, San Diego. She is also currently a 
part-time instructor at Cal-State San Marcos and has recently completed 
a summer teaching fellowship the University of California, San Diego.


Micha Cárdenas / dj lotu5 / Azdel Slade is a transgender artist, 
theorist and trouble maker. She is an MFA candidate at the University of 
California San Diego and holds a Master's degree in Media and 
Communications with distinction from the European Graduate School and a 
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Florida International 
University. She is a researcher at CalIT2 and the Center for Research in 
Computnig and the Arts. Her interests include the interplay of 
technology, gender, sex, desire and resistance. She is a founding member 
of a number of art/activism collectives including Sharing Is Sexy, the 
borderlands Hacklab and the City Heights Free Skool. Her work has been 
exhibited internationally at museums, galleries, conferences, community 
spaces and public spaces. She blogs at http://bang.calit2.net/tts and 
http://secondloop.wordpress.com .


Felipe Zúñiga's (Mexico City, b. 1978) installations and videos have 
been shown in Mexico as well as internationally in venues such as the 
Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Poland; El Centro Cultural 
Español (CCE) in Miami, Florida; the Consulate General of Mexico in Los 
Angeles, California; and Casa del Lago, Mexico City, among others. His 
recent artistic practice has been focus in the interconnection between 
body, communication and space. This broad equation has been contracted 
and expanded regarding he is working in an private-intimate space such 
as my studio or public spaces such as the border between Tijuana an San 
Diego. His working field is developed in the intersection between 
performance, language, and video. There is also an important component 
about the individual-personal and the collective-social that fluctuates 
from project to project, i.e. the use of speech quotation of a selected 
group of people regarding identity politics in one case, to the 
insertion of intimate statements in the public realm.




For more information, see

http://luivelazquez.com
http://trac.superluser.net/altbit
http://theupgrade.net/
http://louishock.info
http://specflic.net
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/
http://bang.calit2.net
http://bang.calit2.net/tts
http://secondloop.wordpress.com
http://katherinesweetman.com/

#


__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] San Diego @ Agitprop Panel Discussion Tomorrow Night, March 21st in

[dj lotu5]

pass it on... see you there!

 Original Message 
Subject: 	San Diego @ Agitprop Panel Discussion Tomorrow Night, March 
21st in

Date:   Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:09:38 -0700
From:   Lui Velazquez 
To: Lui Velazquez 
CC: calacapr...@cox.net, cen...@centroculturaldelaraza.org



*Mexican/Chicano
Art in Context
*

*A Panel Discussion & Exhibit
March 21, 2009 | 9PM
Panel: Luis Ituarte, Mario Torero, Omar Pimienta, Roberto Rosique*

*Moderator: Micha Cardenas*

*Agitprop Gallery North Park
2837 University Ave.
(University and Utah)
San Diego, CA 92104*

*+ This is the first ever "North Park Nights" -- north park near Ray 
Street, gallery openings, projections, panel discussions etc. Every 3rd 
Saturday of the month.

*

*
*flyer here:
http://bang.calit2.net/tts/3-19-discussion.jpg


__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] New Media Lounge this wednesday!

[dj lotu5]

 Original Message 

Subject:this wednesday!
Date:   Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:17:00 -0700
From:   New Media Lounge 
To: newmedialoung...@mailman.ucsd.edu 


Hello all digital art junkies and what have you,

New Media Lounge is excited to bring MFA Candidate, Micha Cardenas for 
an exclusive motion capture demonstration in the Performative Computing 
Lab at the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA). Micha 
will be discussing her recent project /*Becoming* *Dragon*/, a 365 hour, 
(2 week long) performance in Second Life. The performance is believed to 
be the first of its kind in Second Life, and Micha will talk about her 
experience and research, in addition to a techie demonstration of the 
motion capture setup involved.


Join us on Wednesday, April 15th, at 6pm for some food, drinks, good 
music, and mocap fun. The Performative Computing Space in CRCA is 
located in Cal(IT)2, (Atkinson Hall) in Warren college, on the first 
floor.  Make a right past the elevators, follow the hallway to the right 
once again, and you can't miss it. There will be signs posted as well.


Flyer here:
http://bang.calit2.net/tts/michaNmlFlyer.png


See you then!!!
-nml



More on Becoming Dragon, 
from http://www.calit2.net/newsroom/release.php?id=1431 

"In an age when biotechnology has made it possible to alter the 
fundamentals of our food supply, our energy sources and even our genetic 
makeup, one graduate student at the University of California, San Diego, 
is pushing the limits of what it means to be human by exploring the 
intersections of biotechnology, art and virtual-reality in an immersive, 
durational performance titled */Becoming Dragon/*."


"The project is a means of questioning the one-year requirement for 
"real-life experience" that transgender people must fulfill in order to 
receive gender confirmation surgery (also known as sexual reassignment 
surgery)." 

" 'The general theme for my project is to explore the possibilities for 
transformation, to ask the question, Is change really possible, or do 
you get what you're given, and that's it?' Cardenas explains. 'I'm 
asking if it's possible to replace this real-life experience requirement 
with Second Life experience, but I'm also asking a question that is 
somewhat rhetorical or fantastical: Could you really become your 
second-life avatar?' " 




--

micha cárdenas
performance / social media / public culture

C(a)lit2 Researcher, http://bang.calit2.net
CRCA Researcher, http://crca.ucsd.edu
MFA Candidate, UCSD, http://visarts.ucsd.edu
MA, EGS, http://egs.edu

blog: http://bang.calit2.net/tts

.


__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Violence, Technology and Public Intervention, UCDArNet Panel

[dj lotu5]

*Violence, Technology and Public Intervention

Date: *April 24th, 2009
*Time: *Noon - 5:00pm
*Location: *Calit2 Theater, Atkinson Hall, UC San Diego
[webcast <http://calit2.net/webcast>: http://calit2.net/webcast]
*Host: *gall...@calit2 and UCDARnet


*Guest Speaker:* Carlos Trilnick (Keynote) et al.
Full speaker list and agenda below

*DESCRIPTION/ABSTRACT:*

This symposium is in conjunction withi Carlos Trilnick's Anti-Personnel 
Mines Project, an interactive installation in the gallery @ calit2. Free 
and open to the public, and a reception will follow the panels. 
Sponsored by UCDARnet and gallery @ calit2.


Abstract: Presentations will address the current and historical 
relationship between technology and violence, state and 
corporate-sanctioned as well as forms embodied in practices of 
resistance. The symposium will consider how the scale and far-reaching 
impact of violence and multiplication of modalities that it takes 
relates to global, regional and local contexts. Artists and
theorists will navigate the tactics, strategies and disturbances that 
technology amplifies and distributes under the signs of the 
post-contemporary.


Since our first encounters with analytic machines, technologically 
enabled violence has flickered between utopia and apocalypse, between 
labor saving and loss of jobs, between the ordinary and all too new, 
between bad machines and good machines. States of command and control 
violence and new forms of public interventions continually emerge from 
the machine smashing
Luddites of 1811 to Augusta Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace’s code 
for the “difference engine” in the mid-800's, to the exponential growth 
of military driven R & D throughout the 20th and 21st century.


*AGENDA*

Noon –Introduction - Brian Goldfarb

12:10 - Carlos Trilnick - Keynote

12:30 – *Panel One: Public Intervention as Art*

   *
 Sharon Daniel - Public Secrets Project
   *
 Warren Sack - Conversation Map v.2.0 Project
   *
 Micha Cárdenas – Transborder Immigrant Tool
   *
 Respondent - Brian Goldfarb

2:30 Coffee Break

3:00 – *Panel Two: The Art of Public Intervention*

   *
 Rita Raley – Tactical Optics
   *
 Amy Sara Carroll - Forensic Prescience, Domestic Violence,
 "Death and the Idea of Mexico": Teresa Margolles' Operativo
   *
 Jordan Crandall - Art as Destabilization, Elemental and Ineludible
   *
 Respondent - Patrick Anderson

Reception: 5:00pm

Sponsored by UCDARnet and gallery @ calit2.


*SPEAKER BIO:*

Speakers include:

*Micha Cárdenas* / dj lotu5 / Azdel Slade is a transgender artist, 
theorist and troublemaker. Micha is an MFA candidate at the University 
of California San Diego who will be graduating in the summer of 2009. 
Micha holds a Master's degree in Media and Communications with 
distinction from the European Graduate School <http://egs.edu/> and a 
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Florida International 
University. She is a researcher at the Experimental Game Lab 
<http://www.experimentalgamelab.net/> at CRCA <http://crca.ucsd.edu/> 
and at CalIT2 <http://calit2.net/>. Her interests include the interplay 
of technology, gender, sex and biopolitics. She blogs at 
TechnoTrannySlut.com <http://technotrannyslut.com/>. Micha is a founding 
member of a number of art/activism collectives including Sharing Is Sexy 
<http://sharingissexy.org/>, the borderlands Hacklab 
<http://sdhacklab.org/> and the City Heights Free Skool 
<http://cityheightsfreeskool.org/>. Micha recently joined the Lui 
Velazquez <http://luivelazquez.com/> space in Tijuana as a curator and 
collective member. In addition, Micha was the recipient of a 2008 Open 
Classroom Challenge Grant from UCIRA 
<http://www.ucira.ucsb.edu/projects_artists.html> and taught a class 
entitled "Collective Art Practice, Performative and Networked Approaches 
to Challenging Power". She has been a guest lecturer at Calarts in Los 
Angeles and at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec and presented a 
paper on the project Becoming Dragon <http://secondloop.wordpress.com/> 
at the Society of Photonic Imaging Engineers "Electronic Imaging" 
<http://spie.org/app/program/index.cfm?fuseaction=conferencedetail&export_id=x16280&ID=x16223&redir=x16223.xml&conference_id=863831&event_id=862795&programtrack_id=862796> 
Conference in 2009. Micha has collaborated with faculty members Ricardo 
Dominguez and Brett Stalbaum on the Transborder Immigrant Tool 
<http://bang.calit2.net/dr.-cardenas-s-blog/artivists-and-mobile-phones-the-transborder-immigrant-project-2.html> 
and the B.A.N.G. lab <http://bang.calit2.net/>, and Adriene Jenik on 
specFlic 1.0 <http://specflic.net/>.


*Amy Sara Carroll*, assistant professor of Latina/o Studies (jointly 
appointed in English and American Culture, affiliate of the Center for 

[spectre] mixed relations by Elle Mehrmand and Micha Cardenas

[dj lotu5]

I’m so happy to share the news that mixed relations, a project proposed 
by myself and Elle Mehrmand, is the recipient of a grant from the 
University of California Institute for Research in the Arts! This is the 
next big project I’ll be working on for the next year. You can read a 
brief description of the project here…



 mixed relations by Elle Mehrmand and Micha Cárdenas

*
*/“The partners do not precede their relating: all that is, is the fruit 
of becoming with.”/

-Donna Haraway, When Species Meet

mixed relations is a collaboration between Elle Mehrmand and Micha 
Cárdenas consisting of a series of performances that explore the 
relations between bodies and technology within mixed realities. The 
performances will focus on using the body as an instrument and as a site 
of exploration for performance in mixed realities. The goal is to look 
at bodies in relation to each other in these realities, as well as in 
relation to their instruments and to the technologies which extend and 
multiply them, sonically, visually and physically.


The project will involve two people performing in actual and virtual 
space. It will include explorations of a number of technologies which 
bring the body into mixed realities, outside of its daily boundaries, 
beyond the skin. Live audio synthesis will be achieved using Max/MSP to 
respond to body movements. These movements will be detected through 
various technologies including marker based motion capture, flex 
sensors, pressure sensors, light sensors, accelerometers and the 
Nintendo Wii. The performers’ body movements will be mirrored and 
extended into online 3D networked environments such as Second Life and 
Opensim, which will be projected into the physical performance space. 
Simultaneously, live realtime video will be streamed into the virtual 
performance space, from cameras that are attached to the performers’ 
bodies. Scaled projections, scale models in virtual space and the 
projection of virtual instruments onto actual objects will be used to 
create a mixing of the actual and virtual, blurring the lines between 
the two.


The performances will explore themes of affective tension and 
anticipation, techno-fetishism, and D.I.Y. cyborg bodies. Our main 
inspirations come from the history and traditions of performance art, 
such as Marina Abramovic and Ulay, Stelarc and Orlan, so we see art 
concerned primarily with bodies in relation, and the body and technology 
as the main works we are in conversation with.


While much performance art has looked at relations between people, or 
has engaged with motion capture technologies, mixed relations seeks to 
combine the rapidly spreading cultural phenomenon of embodied 
interfaces, exemplified in the Nintendo Wii, with live collaborative 
improvisational performance. Through the usage of networked online 
environments, the bodies of the performers are multiplied and folded, 
immersed in multiple locations and realities at once, creating another 
layer of relation. The mixing of realities in this project can be seen 
as paralleling or exploring of our own personal experiences of queer 
mixing of genders and sexualities, queering new media.


Virtual worlds such as Second Life are facilitating the development of 
new identities and genders, which - as of yet - allow for unimagined 
relations and relationships. Through the use of mixed reality 
technologies in performance, mixed relations seeks to look closely at 
these new relationships and how they affect our everyday lives and our 
horizons of possibility.


Comment at:


 
http://bang.calit2.net/tts/2009/05/01/mixed-relations-won-the-ucira-emerging-fields-award/

*
*

//

More about UCIRA here: http://www.ucira.ucsb.edu/


__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] PRESS RELEASE: Freephone Art Project Provides Deported People with a Phone Call

[dj lotu5]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WHAT: Freephone Art Project Provides Deported People with a Phone Call

WHO: Chris Head, Micha Cárdenas, Elle Mehrmand, Katherine Sweetman, Felipe
Zuñiga and Camilo Ontiveros

WHERE: Lui Velazquez Gallery, Calle José Maria Larroque #273, 2do Piso,
Int. 6, Colonia Federal, Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, C.P. 22 300

WHEN: Saturday May 30th, 2009, 1-6pm

CONTACT: Micha Cárdenas, mcardenas A+ ucsd d()t edu

The Freephone is an art project that aims to provide people just deported
from the US with a free phone call. To achieve this, a group of UCSD
Master of Fine Arts (MFA) students and graduates are coming together to
present the phone at the Lui Velazquez gallery in Tijuana, just a few feet
from the turnstiles where people who are deported are dropped off by the
border patrol. The project is by the artists Chris Head, Micha Cárdenas,
Elle Mehrmand, Katherine Sweetman, Felipe Zuñiga and Camilo Ontiveros

The Freephone is an effort to use new media performance art or performance
with technology to make the experience that people who are deported from
the US a little bit less difficult. To make the phone, the artists bought
a non working payphone casing from Ebay.com, wired it to a new $10 phone
from a store and hooked that up to an adapter which would allow the phone
to make calls over the internet. Then, the phone was installed outside of
the Lui Velazquez gallery. On May 29th, the artists will do a public
performance including posting signs, talking to people coming through of
the turnstiles into Tijuana and sign spinning to direct people who may
have just been dropped off by the border patrol towards the free phone.
"Every day at this gallery we see people being deported by the Border
Patrol. We wanted to engage the public space outside of the gallery as
well as inside," said Katherine Sweetman, director of Lui Velazquez.

"Art has the power to concretely improve people's lives. Artists can go
beyond just representing or commenting on political issues and actually
engage in political action as art," said Micha Cárdenas, recent graduate
from UCSD's MFA program. "The Freephone is part of the tradition of Border
Disturbance Art along with projects such as the Transborder Immigrant Tool
from the Electronic Disturbance Theater", said Cárdenas.

The Freephone will be shown on Saturday, May 30th as part of the Satellite
Ensemble II, a show by UCSD MFA students aimed at taking UCSD's artistic
impact beyond the boundaries of the campus. The show will begin at
Agitprop gallery in North Park and will take place along the path from
that gallery to Lui Velazuez in Tijuana via public transit. In addition to
the Freephone, the show will include work by artists including Crystal
Campbell, Zac Monday, Clare Zitzow, Priscilla Lazaro, David White, and
Anna Chiaretta Lavatellii.

"We want to not just make art with technology, but also show people how it
was made, how they can use it and how they can make their own open source
art projects," said Chris Head, about the Freephone. To accomplish this,
the Freephone will be included in the ALTBIT open source art show later
this year at Lui Velazquez. ALTBIT is a project to combine a number of
open source and open hardware art projects together in one repository and
present them in workshops in various locations in the US and Mexico.

Initiated as part of the Society of Molecules, the Freephone performance
will be part of a distributed aesthetico-political event coordinated by
the Sense Lab at Concordia University in Montreal including artist groups
from around the world including Madrid, Naples, Boston, New York, Montreal
and other cities.

For more information on the Freephone, contact Micha Cárdenas at 
mcardenas A+ ucsd D[]t edu.



Images here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lotu5/tags/freephone/

http://luivelazquez.com
http://alt-bit.org
http://visarts.ucsd.edu
http://ucsdse2.blogspot.com/
http://senselab.ca

#



__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Becoming Dragon opens in LA, San Diego, questions limits of gender and the virtual

[dj lotu5]

WHAT: Becoming Dragon opens in LA, San Diego, questions limits of gender

and the virtual

WHERE: Compactspace gallery, 105 East 6th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90014
and University Art Gallery, UCSD

WHEN: Thursday May 28th from 6-8:30pm and Friday May 29th, 6-10pm at 
Compactspace


CONTACT: Micha Cardenas, mcardenas a+ ucsd D[]t edu

Becoming Dragon, the controversial art project by Micha Cardenas which 
questions the possibilities of Species Change Surgery and the limits of 
merging the virtual and physical body, will be part of two exhibitions 
opening in Los Angeles and San Diego on May 28th and 29th. The project 
consisted of a 365 hour performance in Second Life, using a Head Mounted 
Display, motion capture and a stereoscopic projection and coincided with 
Cardenas' real life hormone replacement therapy. The project has been 
the subject of more than one controversy since it took place.


On Friday, May 29th, Compactspace in Los Angeles will be holding an 
artists' reception for the show The Dark Tower, which includes photo 
documentation of Becoming Dragon. The show also features the work of a 
other UCSD MFA artists and was curated by Cauleen Smith. More details 
about the show are at http://www.compactspace.com/


On Thursday, May 28th, the University Art Gallery on the campus of UC 
San Diego will be opening the show MFA 2009, highlighting the work of 
MFA graduating MFA candidates including Cardenas and many others. The 
show will include a 25 minute video of Becoming Dragon as well as a 
number of digital prints from the virtual point of view of the 
performance.More information about the show is at  
http://va-grad.ucsd.edu/~drupal/node/903


Becoming Dragon has been presented at the Southern California Institute 
of Architecture (SCIArc) in Los Angeles, Supersonic 2009 in the Los 
Angeles convention center, the Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum in 
Alexandria, Egypt, the "Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality" 
conference in in the San Jose convention center, the Lui Velazquez 
gallery in Tijuana, Mexico, the Ars Virtua gallery in Second Life and 
the Pendergrast gallery at UCSD.  The project will also be presented in 
Victoria, Canada at Ctheory's Critical Digital Studies Workshop in June. 
The project was featured on the cover of the San Diego Union Tribune and 
the San Diego Reader, as well as having articles published about it in 
San Diego City Beat, Dr Dobbs Journal Online, Secondlife.com, New World 
Notes, Brooklyn is Watching and numerous other art blogs.


Becoming Dragon questions the one-year requirement of 'Real Life 
Experience' that transgender people must fulfill in order to receive 
Gender Confirmation Surgery, and asks if this could be replaced by one 
year of 'Second Life Experience' to lead to Species Reassignment 
Surgery. For the performance, Micha Cárdenas lived for 365 hours 
immersed in the online 3D environment of Second Life with a head mounted 
display, only seeing the physical world through a video feed, and used a 
motion capture system to map her movements into Second Life. The 
installation included a stereoscopic projection for the audience. A 
Puredata patch was used to process her voice to create a virtual 
dragon's voice. The performance included public discussions with 
theorists Sandy Stone and Brian Holmes and the performance artist Stelarc.


During the year of research and development of this project, Micha began 
her real life hormone replacement therapy and wrote poetry about the 
experience which was included in the performance. The project was 
realized through a collaboration between Micha Cárdenas,  Christopher 
Head, Elle Mehrmand, Kael Greco, Ben Lotan and Anna Storelli. Becoming 
Dragon was supported by the Center for Research in Computing and the 
Arts, Calit2, University of California Institute for Research in the 
Arts, Ars Virtua, the gall...@calit2, the b.a.n.g. lab and the Embodied 
Cognition Lab of the Cognitive Science Department at UCSD.



More information about Becoming Dragon can be found at:
http://secondloop.wordpress.com
http://secondloop.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/press-release-becoming-dragon-a-mixed-reality-durational-performance-in-second-life-opens-december-1st/


3 minute video at: http://vimeo.com/3874238

Photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/azdelslade/sets/72157610992544600/

For more information, contact Micha Cárdenas at mcardenas A+ ucsd d()+ edu

#



__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Slapshock by Elle Mehrmand and Micha Cardenas in LA Thurs Night

[dj lotu5]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

What: Slapshock Performance by Elle Mehrmand and Micha Cardenas at 
Compactspace


Where:  Compactspace
   105 E 6th St
   Los Angeles, CA 90014

When: Thursday, June 11th, 8pm

Contact: Elle Mehrmand, ellemehrmand A+ gmail [d0t) com
Micha Cardenas, mcardenas a+ ucsd d()+ edu
Compactspace, 626-676-0627

Slapshock is a performance using a Freeduino and an Arduino to create a 
pain sharing device. The performance by Elle Mehrmand and Micha Cardenas 
is an exploration of symbiotic relationality through pain, in which each 
performer slaps themself in turn causing the other performer to receive 
a painful electric shock.


The devices were created by Mehrmand and Cardenas using a Freeduino, an 
Aruino, piezo sensors and Transdermal Electro Nerve Stimulation (TENS) 
units. Mehrmand and Cardenas soldered the components together and 
programmed the microcontrollers to detect a slap through the piezo 
sensor and activate the TENS units when the slap occurs.


The performance is one of a series studies for "mixed relations", a 
larger set of performances using technology to explore relations between 
people as well as between people and technology. "mixed relations" will 
involve two performers in mixed reality environments using their bodies 
as instruments to produce live audio, and will take place in the Fall of 
2009.


Slapshock will be performed as part of The Dark Tower, a group show of 
UCSD MFA candidates and recent graduates curated by Cauleen Smith. The 
performance will be at the Compactspace gallery during the LA Artwalk on 
June 11th, 2009.


More information about "mixed relations" can be found at:
http://bang.calit2.net/tts/2009/05/01/mixed-relations-won-the-ucira-emerging-fields-award/

More information about The Dark Tower show at Compactspace:
http://www.compactspace.com/the-dark-tower/

#

--

micha cárdenas

Artist/Researcher, Experimental Game Lab, http://experimentalgamelab.net
Calit2 Researcher, http://bang.calit2.net

blog: http://bang.calit2.net/tts

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Autonet - an autonomous internet

[dj lotu5]

Autonet is a project to create a wireless, global internet that can 
provide more reliability than corporate phone companies by being 
community based and freely licensed.


The cutting off access to The Pirate Bay by BT in the UK [1] is just 
another sign of the beginning of the end. The fact that the Great 
Firewall of China exists signals that the internet is already obsolete 
and that the Great Firewall of the US is just around the corner. While 
moves against net neutrality began years ago and have been fought, nasty 
laws such as HR4437 and the Total Information Awareness program have a 
way of coming into existence later in the future, slightly modified, 
under different names. The internet as we know it, as a place for free 
exchange of information, as the center of what has been called a second 
17th century with new ideas, creativity and innovation emerging daily, 
is rapidly coming to an end. We must use these last gasps of freedom to 
route around the disaster and create a truly free network.


How? Advances in wireless technology such as ubiquitous wireless 
routers, community mesh networks which are easily expandable and 
self-healing as well as long range wireless efforts such as HPWREN 
indicate a possible future for a community based internet free of the 
centralized control of telephone corporations and governments. While 
this is definitely a fork, more forks are to come and we can only hope 
that a few networks will emerge which can be broad enough to span most 
of the globe.


Major questions remain to be solved, such as speed issues, routing 
issues, DNS control, splits and neutrality. The Autonet, or Autonomous 
Internet project seems to begin to address this rapidly changing 
situation, where today Germany [2] has installed internet filtering as 
well and more countries are to come. While today those cut off are 
defying copyright laws, tomorrow any other political issue may be the 
cause for being denied access to global networks. While today the FBI is 
content to steal servers from information providers like Indymedia, 
perhaps tomorrow they will not be happy until indymedia is completely 
cut off of the network, or other open sources of information such as 
blogs, twitter accounts and social networks of dissident groups.


The popular revolt in Iran and subsequent disruption of network access 
by the Iranian government is only a glimpse of what is to come in the US 
and around the world, where the first line of attack against political 
resistance is to cut off network access. By establishing a community 
based, wireless, global network we can allow groups of individuals, not 
corporations, to maintain freedom of communication; We can create out 
right to communicate instead of asking for it, and continue to route 
around obsolete intellectual property laws which restrict our dreams and 
our creativity. Join this effort by going to http://alt-bit.org and 
contributing to this research, lets start outlining the problems, 
finding the technical solutions and work out the issues, collectively, 
as a Free Software / Open Hardware project, using open licensing.


Another urgent reason for Autonet is one that has motivated Free 
Software hackers for so long: Technological progress without a reliance 
on corporate support. Given the current financial and economic crises, 
how long can we expect dinosaurs like phone companies to survive? If one 
of these crises turns into disaster, the consequence is likely to be the 
disrution of collapse of the global networks on which we rely. I am not 
ready to give up what has been gained from these networks, including a 
worldwide communication between political actors empowered through fast 
information flows. We must start this long, difficult project today so 
that we may be ready for unexpected dangers which threaten our 
capability to communicate as a multitude, globally.


To add to the project, go to http://trac.alt-bit.org/wiki/projects/autonet

To sign up to participate, go to http://trac.alt-bit.org/register

-djlotu5 
-chead 

[1] http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/251609/bt-blocks-off-pirate-bay.html
[2] http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0906/msg00023.html

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] Video: The Transborder Immigrant Tool: Violence, Solidarity and Hope in Post-NAFTA Circuits of Bodies Electr(on)/ic

[dj lotu5]

Click link here to see my talk, which was co-written with Ricardo
Dominguez, Amy Sara Carroll and Brett Stalbaum, and click the link below
for the rest of the talks, all of which were amazing! And don't believe
the warning on the page I'm linking to about Windows, it works fine in
Ubuntu. I'll also be prsenting a version of this paper in Bonn, Germany
in September at the Mobile HCI conference workshop on Community
Practices and Locative Media

[http://www.mobilehci09.org/call-for-submissions/workshops-2 ]

*Transborder Immigrant Tool
*Micha Cardenas, MFA, UC San Diego
/Length: 29:54/ [video
 

http://video-jsoe.ucsd.edu/asx/ViolenceTechnologyPublicIntervention/Micha.asx 


]


 Violence, Technology and Public Intervention

/San Diego, May 14, 2009/ -- Calit2 at UC San Diego and the UC Digital
Arts Research Network (UCDARnet) sponsored a recent symposium on art's
role in addressing the current and historical relationship between
technology and violence. It was in connection with a new gall...@calit2
exhibit about anti-personnel land mines.

The exhibit, "The Anti-Personnel Mines Project" by Argentine new-media
artist Carlos Trilnick, runs through June 10, 2009 at the intimate
gallery space on the first floor of Atkinson Hall. The interactive
installation focuses on the long-term devastation that land mines
produce, even decades after an armed conflict has ended. Trilnick was
the keynote speaker at the "Violence, Technology and Public
Intervention" symposium on April 24 at Calit2, which features panel
discussion on public intervention as art -- and the art of public
intervention. Artists from UC San Diego and other institutions talked
about projects ranging from the "Public Secrets Project" to the
"Transborder Immigrant Tool."

The symposium presentations are now available for on-demand viewing
here: http://http//www.calit2.net/newsroom/article.php?id=1524


--

blog: http://transreal.org

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] b.a.n.g. lab: New Hacktivism: From Electronic Civil Disobedience to Mixed Reality Performance

[dj lotu5]

... from http://bang.calit2.net ...

b.a.n.g. lab researcher Micha Cardenas [ http://transreal.org ] will be
presenting a workshop at this year's  Hemispheric Institute of
Performance and Politics (HEMI) Summer Encuentro in Bogota, Colombia.
The title of her workshop is "New Hacktivism: From Electronic Civil
Disobedience to Mixed Reality Performance”. The outline for the workshop
is below. The Encuentro's [
http://www.hemisphericinstitute.org/eng/encuentro/colombia_overview.html
] theme is "Staging Citizenship". From the description of the Encuentro:
"Our 7th Encuentro invites interested participants to investigate
"cultural rights" and their complex relationship to citizenship in both
historical and contemporary contexts. We understand cultural rights as a
juridical figure, a technology of power and an articulation that brings
together multiple political demands, social subjects and modalities of
citizenship. They allow us to explore the relationship between
performance and politics through diverse expressive forms, analytic
categories, disciplines, traditions and movements."

Workshop brief outline:

Hacktivism: From Electronic Civil Disobedience to Mixed Reality Performance
Workshop for the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics
Encuentro 2009: Staging Citizenship
by Micha Cárdenas

“we are the virus of the new world disorder
rupturing the symbolic from within
saboteurs of big daddy mainframe
the clitoris is a direct line to the matrix”
- Cyberfeminist Manifesto, VNS Matrix

“Those who are against, while escaping from the local and particular
constraints of their human condition, must also continually attempt to
construct a new body and a new life... These barbaric deployments work
on human relations in general, but we can recognize them today first and
foremost in corporeal relations and configurations of gender and
sexuality. Conventional norms of corporeal and sexual relations between
and within genders are increasingly open to challenge and
transformation. Bodies themselves transform and mutate to create new
posthuman bodies.”
Hardt and Negri, Empire

The workshop will trace the trajectory from Hacktivism to Mixed Reality
Performance, considering the possibilities opened up by networked
gestures. Beginning with a discussion of Electronic Civil Disobedience,
its motivations and mechanisms, the workshop will introduce participants
to a number of strategies which are being used in post-contemporary
political struggles including Free/Libre/Open Source, DIY, Hacklabs,
Social Media and interventions in online public spaces such as Second Life.

Day 1 – Introduction to Hacktivism and Electronic Civil Disobedience

Intro to topics: Hacktivism, Networked Performance, Online Public Space
Digital Resistance as a response to the changing forms of Capital
Society as Assemblage
Electronic Civil Disobedience: Electronic Disturbance Theater
Virtual Sit-Ins

Day 2 – Free/Libre/Open Source, Hacklabs and Science of the Oppressed

Autonomy and World Building
Free/Libre/Open Source
Code as resistance in the Alter-Globalization Movement: Indymedia, the
Zapatistas
Hacklabs from Western Europe to the borderlands
Science of the Oppressed: From ACT-UP to Cyberfeminism to Fadiat to
Hackmeets
Social Media: Myspace, Youtube, Twitter, Orkut
Boredom Patrol, a silly netwar in the borderlands
>From Twitter to Identica

Day 3 – Interventions in Online Public Space

The Changing Nature of Public Space
Physical, Online, Mediated Public Spaces
Virtual Worlds, World of Warcraft, Second Life, Second Front
Becoming Dragon, gender and sexuality
Mixed Reality Performance
Motion capture, physical computing, new forms of display


-- 
blog: http://transreal.org

gpg key: 1024D/7E8B7A2B

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre

[spectre] _I Am Transreal_ : [part 1] [_Augmentology.com_]

[dj lotu5]

_I am Transreal_: A Reflection On/Of Becoming Dragon [Part 1]

[complete version with video and links here:]
http://arsvirtuafoundation.org/research/2009/07/29/_i-am-transreal_-a-reflection-onof-becoming-dragon-part-1/

I am transreal. Look at me. When you do, a million iridescent scales
across my dragon hide flick, move and align to create a multiplicity of
perceptions, transversal illusions and realities cutting through each
other, intersecting, dancing. Look at me. You see a shimmering of my
fantasies and yours, a convergence of your minute sensory events, your
imaginary constructs and my desires. Look at me. The mythopoetic
elements of your reality and mine come into contact, unwind and become a
recombinant event of male and female and something else, something more,
for just an instant. Perhaps after that initial instant, one of your
myths takes over your perception and you decide that you understand, but
before that, I instill confusion and doubt. I can see it on your face.

I am becoming mythopoetic, a shapeshifting creature of legend, a dragon.
Standing here, on the border, the sunlight through the clouds defeating
the fence, I am transreal, between realities, moving through layers of
the symbolic, the imaginary and the real, simultaneously quivering,
swapping out and swapping back in, too fast to find the border between
them. I am existing between my fantasies and desires, which are driving
the changing form of my body, and the moment of perception in which you
see me and call me maam, sir, dude, miss, or avoid choosing a category.
Speaking, being with different people throughout the day, my body and
name changes, my realness or unrealness oscillates. You see me standing
here, but really, you see my avatar, my body, which is under
construction. We bring our illusions together. You see soft skin. I see
the pills and the bloody razor that made it soft, making me feel
happier, more feminine. You see scales, I see textured prims and their
glow values.

A dark moment in the street at night, your illusions of masculinity
swirl up against the confusion I install in you, and you attack. My
reality becomes a blur, a flurry of motion, and a sharp chemical
emotional reaction, as I strike back with pressurized chemical weapons.
Yet even in that moment, I am transreal, between my reality and yours,
only finding a hard fissure between the two.

In bed with my lover, we are transreal, deep in our illusions of each
other, feeling our very real emotions for each other, between bodies,
looking into her eyes, slipping out of myself and my concerns and out
into the bright nebula of pleasure.



-- 
blog: http://transreal.org

gpg key: 1024D/7E8B7A2B

__
SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
Info, archive and help:
http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre