December 5, 2009 at 7:21 pm · Filed under Artworks, Events, Thoughts
Marc Davis, Chief Scientist and Co-Founder of Invention Arts looks at how digital networks make the invisible visible and the impermanent permanent as we know when peoples whereabouts overlap with devices like an iPhone, for example.
How does this relate to artists such as William Kentridge who look to make the invisible visible in art projects such as Parcours D’atelier: Artist in the Studio? Kentridge uses art products to make the invisible visible. How, then, does his product relate to those social networking processes that we’ve been exploring all day?
Also, as Davis uses game theory to understand the scale of social interaction with his projects that work with geo-tagged photographs etc, I wonder how we can use performance theory as it relates to game theory to understand connections between social media and art pieces that engage similar concepts.
November 22, 2009 at 12:34 pm · Filed under Events, Thoughts
PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN FROM MY PHONE
After spending a good deal of Friday participation in protests at UC Berkeley I wrote the following letter to contribute to the conversation on viral networks happening on the -empyre- list this month. I wrote this letter soon after Friday’s events without much time for reflection. It has since become clear in comparing stories with friends and reviewing video footage of the event that we can always continue to strengthen networks. Where the networks felt strong on Friday there were other places where those networks were weakened by police brutality and a lack of communication between University Administration, law enforcement officials, faculty, and students. I hope to hold onto my words below and my immediate feelings of strength in community as we continue to think about potential weakness in and between certain networks and how to strengthen forces.
Letter written at 10:30am on Saturday, November 21, 2009:
Good morning from Berkeley,
I wasn’t participating in yesterday’s discussion about viral networks/UC protests because I was standing in the rain with close to 2,000 Berkeley protesters while we waited outside of Wheeler Hall as friends and colleagues occupied the building. So, please forgive me if I am returning to an already closed conversation, but allow me to indulge in a reflection on yesterday’s successful and widespread strike activities.
At Berkeley there are four groups representing different populations of the campus. As far as I know, there are two faculty groups, one graduate student group and one undergraduate group. With representatives from each group serving on all other committees, these four groups are in close communication and have used what is being referred to here as “grassroots” activism to successfully hold a 5,000 person walk-out in September, several events in October and a three day strike this week. Starting from the four groups email is used to communicate with departmental representatives who then communicate with departments. Whether organization is departmental, building wide, or committee based, the word hasn’t stopped there.
The fact that the students involved in yesterday’s building occupation were communicating with fellow organizers and activists via email, twitter and facebook seems significant. Of course there are debates regarding whether or not viral networks and online activism have replaced the need for physical protest. It is, after all, easier to sign an online petition (of which there have been many connected to the UC Strikes) than it is steer clear of office resources for three days, or stand in the rain for hours on end. I am sure that we are all well aware of examples supporting both sides of that argument. Still, twitter and facebook updates kept a good deal of protesters mobilized yesterday. Consistent updates from the inside of Wheeler assured a wet crowd that their support was indeed necessary, building occupiers’ view from the top floors of Wheeler Hall were shared through twitter accounts to help students spread evenly around the building to block police movement, and facebook updates alerted crowds immediately when arrests were taking place and how to best continue supporting the occupation efforts.
Just like anything else it seems that they way a viral network is organized and implemented corresponds directly to its efficacy. I think here of artist
Zach Blas’ proposed GRID project. The movement from one GRID to the next produces new GRIDs. It is the movement between networks that produces the change. It seems that in the case of the UC protests the efficacy of the system depends on successful movements between different networks. It is the movements between online networks such as email lists to online petitions, between different physical networks such as departmental meetings to banners hanging outside of buildings, and between online and physical networks such as buildings occupiers to their twitter followers. This is what has felt like the viral aspect of the system.
In solidarity,
Ashley
April 10, 2009 at 1:01 pm · Filed under Link, Theory, Thoughts
Well, there is a lot going through my mind lately. As finals are approaching I am considering potential paper topics and allowing for all of the musings that I have had over the past several months come flooding back into my thought process. I am currently working on my paper for the Dance Under Construction conference at UCLA, which will be on micro-movements associated with iPhone and how Apple markets a certain kind of choreography with their patented device. The one US iPhone patent uses language like “embodied,” “gesture” and “performance” to describe how their multi-touch user interface is a unique way through which a user can interact with the world around her with “just the touch of a finger.” How is this digital (anatomically digital) choreography changing our associations with transcribing the space that we live in? Perhaps, though, these technologies are no different than using a computer and a mouse when it comes to transcribing Internet spaces as opposed to real spaces. Are the iPhone and other similar digital devices furthering our Internet experiences even more because of the portability? How often do we see someone navigating themselves through a city not by looking at street signs and the sights around them, but by looking at the GPS bubble on their iPhone? What might deCerteau have to say about this?
Well, since I am having so many thoughts about many different things, perhaps I should add them all in different posts. Yes, more to come on my musings after this post….
