<div dir="ltr">Hi All! So glad to be here.<div><br></div><div>Such great questions! I wasn't verbose at ALL in answering them....</div><div><br></div><div>ONWARD!</div><div><br></div><div><span id="gmail-docs-internal-guid-20e2a38d-5623-e12b-1cad-dde4bdc53fa6"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:italic;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">To begin, Lynne, I wonder if you can speak to the importance of dialogue in your editorial process? I was struck by the interview you had with Alex and other authors you work with, why did you decide to include dialogues, and how do you approach the publishing process differently? I, and many others, are all very moved by The OS and this description:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:italic;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">"THIS is not a fixed entity. It is an ongoing experiment in resilient creative practice which necessarily morphs as its conditions and collaborators change."</span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">HA! No surprise that Margaret should cut right to the heart of the thing! I’ll do my best to not go on for pages and pages just answering these intro questions!</span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">A critical thing to know about what I’ve tried to build with <a href="http://theoperatingsystem.org">The Operating System</a> is that it is always meta-aware of its role as a cultural mediator, not only at present but in the future. Which perhaps sounds utterly pompous, but it isn’t meant as that: what I mean is that I’m very concerned about the archive, and ontological practice as it concerns creative practice and practitioners. So a lot of the decisions that I make are informed by a desire to simultaneously disrupt / inform / intentionally participate in this storytelling.</span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">When I think about the hagiography of creative practitioners (and this also applies to “geniuses” -- i.e/, hero-storylines across disciplines, not only in the arts) I do so through the lens of someone who grew up idolizing what I now realize are largely fictitious personas -- and who was hurt by that as much as I was inspired by it, because I didn’t feel it was accessible to me as a person of meagre financial means...who was told by a post-depression immigrant family that creative practice was some combination of irresponsible and selfish as a life-choice. And, while I was rigorous and talented in my artistic studies, and had some good “ideas” I felt I lacked the type of “vision” or “inspiration” that would make such a risky, irresponsible decision a good idea...something I’ve now spent two decades re-wiring my brain around.</span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">The hindsighted mythology with which we talk about creative practice both culturally and (even more problematically) in learning environments is one which puts inspiration/the muse / as well as finished product/output on a pedestal -- and is also one of reductive, dangerous erasure for subject and audience alike.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">While I do think that this is getting better as educators become more sensitive to intersectional concerns, and while contextual, historical information as well as personal history might now be </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:italic;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">di rigeur</span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> inclusions for any curator worth their salt, this doesn’t carry over yet to how we as a society talk or think about creative work. We “value” it, but in a way that puts it in a box to be marvelled over. The notion that </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:italic;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><a href="http://cappuccinosoul.blogspot.com/2009/04/como-tu-like-you.html">poetry like bread is for everyone</a> </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">(a favorite quote from Salvadoran Roque Dalton) is a critical one -- and I do mean for everyone, not only in its appreciation but also its making. </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">So many in the arts world tread this fine line where on the surface there is vocal social justice warriorhood but just below is the fear that if everyone is encouraged, legitimized as valid, has open access and the tools to make work, publish work, teach, etc., that somehow their own legitimacy or value will be lost. And so I think there’s a certain amount of smoke and mirrors that a lot of people participate in in terms of maintaining a certain allure or mystery around creativity, genius, and practice. So there’s still a lot of gatekeeping that goes on in arts organizations, and publishing, even amongst those who would seem to be ardently against these things (and may “be,” intellectually.)</span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">And, well -- I just think that’s totally bunk. The important thing for me is that there be open conversation about the fear that folks have around that (fear of losing legitimacy) -- and to recognize its root causes. Here, in the United States, I would say that it’s rooted in a bioprecarious state. But I’m geting away from myself.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">The point is: especially as I look at our production as existing within a spectrum of ontological storytelling, holding space for how the work we present is received and contextualized, I feel that I play the role of curator, and akin to presentation in visual art spaces and cultural institutions, so too within pages I feel I would be remiss to not somewhat frame the cultural output we have chosen to enter the archive with some anchoring information about time, place, social tenor, and personal practice on the part of the author.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">>From day 1, dialogue has been CRITICAL in our editorial process, as is self-awareness -- both as organization and as artist. In every book we produce, we encourage the inclusion / production of substantive back-matter… as much as the author is willing to engage in. At the very least, this takes the form of the Q&A you see here with Alex, but it can be quite extensive -- especially in cases like Amanda Ngoho Reavey’s poetic anti-memoir, </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:italic;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><a href="https://squareup.com/store/the-operating-system/item/marilyn">Marilyn</a></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">, or JP Howard’s </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:italic;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><a href="http://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9780986050527/saymirror.aspx">SAY/MIRROR</a></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">, a collection of poems focused on her relationship with her mother, Ruth King, a prominent early African-American fashion model.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">So we encourage it in and around the books themselves, we encourage our collaborators and contributors to engage in it, and we extend that engagement and visibility onto our online platform. In fact, the online platform has long been a site of this encouragement, with series like “<a href="http://www.theoperatingsystem.org/category/community_content/fieldnotes/">FIELD NOTES</a>” and “<a href="http://www.theoperatingsystem.org/category/community_content/re_conversations/">RE:CONVERSATIONS</a>” seeking to open up process from a wide range of practitioners and facilitate archiving of ephemeral presentations.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">That facilitation also guides our editorial process on the catalog level -- manifesting in a desire to seek out, encourage, and document hybrid work that often falls between the cracks of easily publishable or marketable work (but that represents some of the most brilliant, avant garde practice of our time), seeking out and making possible the translation and publication of silenced and/ or out of print voices via our </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:italic;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><a href="http://www.theoperatingsystem.org/unsilenced-texts/">Glossarium</a></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> series, and facilitating full performance volumes to like </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:italic;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><a href="https://squareup.com/store/the-operating-system/item/there-might-be-others-rebecca-lazier-and-dan-truman?square_lead=item_embed">There Might Be Others</a></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> or </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:italic;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><a href="https://squareup.com/store/the-operating-system/item/a-gun-show-so-percussion">A Gun Show</a></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">And as far as not being a fixed entity is concerned: woof! I, we, are SO imperfect (and yet so biologically / chemically / magnetically fascinating / intelligent). It’s not doing us any good to put up fronts the way we do. We exhaust ourselves, we set up false expectations, we encourage others to feel less capable. I’d prefer to start at humble, from the outset make it crystal clear we intend to evolve and know we must, and encourage others to feel akin in our shared struggle, to come aboard and work together. </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Somehow, I missed the lesson on how free market competition is going to help us, probably somewhere around the time it clearly began fucking the environment and everyone on it over. So I’m legit here to share everything I learn along the way. Better you learn from my mistakes than make them again, save your money and your time, and so on. We’ll all be better resourced -- in physical ways and in trust, so sorely needed.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:italic;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">I love how alive The OS feels, and how you begin with THIS. It reminds me that The OS is alive. And this has resonance to a recent conversation I had with really amazing artist Margaretha Haughwout and my class on art/activism last week. I first "met" Margaretha on empyre as participants in Kyle McKinley's social practice forum too, and Margaretha's work has also been a constant inspiration, and she described collaboration with humans and (non) humans as well in her work: </span><a href="http://www.guerrillagrafters.org/" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-style:italic;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">http://www.guerrillagrafters.org</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:italic;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">I'm feeling some resonance here, and I am moved to think about the (non) human, but also human and living elements of The OS, and both of your collaborative practice. Could you share more about The OS, and the intersections of organic, technological, and poetic in your work as an artist and editor?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Oh man do I have ALL THE FEELS for what Margaretha does with <i>guerrilla grafters</i>! And, absolutely, is there resonance here. You are absolutely right to intuit that there is intention around human / nonhuman / living systems work with the OS, and I don’t often speak to it that directly, but I’m happy to.</span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">I sometimes mention in interviews that my roundabout academic path took me through anthropology and fine art (manifesting in social practice art / installations, this in about 1999-2002), then to a masters in urban design (manifesting in intermediary books / installations as well), then back to a PhD in cultural anthropology with a focus on space and place (which I sort of went rogue on after finishing 5 years of coursework) -- the reason I mention this though is because I’m doing </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:italic;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">all of these things</span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> via The OS. And because it’s all art and activism -- a personal practice manifest as an organization. Social practice art as public social experiment. And, absolutely, always, as performance. And: this performance / art / activist experiment is very specifically <i>now -- </i> in so far that the way it engages with public culture as both virtual and print media is tailored to this time, and will continue to evolve as those platforms do. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">The way the books are designed and operate, the work I choose is always in conversation with the fact that we're making, producing, and documenting work NOW. Which means also that even though I seek to carry on the tradition of print, I also seek to learn from systems of organization, from nonlinear formatting and information architecture, in creating print documents for <i>this</i> time which correspond to and or informed by the new ways we see and learn and read and experience, acknowledging and even welcoming those challenges, and understanding that many people are coming out of school not reading or reading differently, or doing so while texting or taking in other media. Working across media is necessary. Evolving the page is necessary, exciting. And -- we are in the first time in history where far more of our documentation is <i>born digital</i> -- something that greatly impacts my concern and thinking around the archive and the impact of creating manifold documents to potentially carry story into the future. </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">The OS is absolutely grounded in methodology from my anthropological training -- research methods in participant observation, the value of field notes, and rigorous documentation and facilitation are all things years of engagement in these texts gave me highly valuable takeaways from.</span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">However, I found social science as a professional discipline deeply troubling, especially given the current state of the academy, and I’m glad I’m not held to its strictures. I had chosen the field because much of what I read mirrored the kinds of questions I thought </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:italic;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">everyone</span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> desperately needed to engage in, and as such I found the reflexive work of Pierre Bourdieu viscerally necessary, the work of Mick Taussig deeply inspiring, the work of Bateson and other systems thinkers heuristically life changing, and it’s where I found Chris Marker, and so many other people asking vital, difficult questions about the world and the self and how to talk about / represent it responsibly. Also: there are also so many courageous anthropologists helping to facilitate indigenous people’s movements all over the world -- how to use these tools for social and cultural good has taught me so much. </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">I may not be physically grafting ecologies, and I may no longer be presenting 70,000 person satellite city plans to the planning office in Hanoi (hello, life circa 2005) but I will never stop caring about our lived places, thinking and writing about how what we build and create manifests in our bodies and how the relationship of space and place shifts us individually, as a culture, and as a planet in infinitely meaningful ways -- both good and bad. And I will never stop planning and theorizing systems change, and how that can play out in physical environments. But I found the field exhausting and too often wildly misogynist -- and not necessarily where I would make the most change. I’ve taught in architecture schools in myriad settings, which I find extremely gratifying, and hope to continue to affect architecture education on a curricular level -- something that would have greater impact than I could have ever had independently as a designer.</span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">With The Operating System, I’ve continued my life-experiement of auto-evolution, which I’ve been sideways writing a book on for about a decade. I believe deeply that we can rewire ourselves, that we can hack into our programming -- including the diminishing, crippling impact of epigenetic and lifetime trauma on the body (which I’m currently battling) -- and that we will do this strategically through system design. On a daily basis, the hacks that will enable the larger scale rewriting and rewiring include intentional, attentional work with language / communication, physical actions and reactions, meditation / mindfulness / brain training, gender and body modification, and a continued awareness of / engagement in ecosystem concerns. </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break"></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">My ability to do what I do with The OS should frankly not be possible, defies logic, and I know it reads as impossible to a lot of people -- or, they perceive me as hiding resources (no such luck) or having some sort of super-human power (I don’t, in fact I’m deeply chronically ill) -- and I know that a lot of what I’m proposing requires leaps of faith and a sort of evolutionary availability that is hard to access right now. So: modelling. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">I’d like to move what we’re doing with The OS into more direct action but I also have learned along the way, (back to the hagiography of art / archive) that freedom for creative practice is one of the most revolutionary tools at our disposal as humans. And I see as my role a facilitation of creative freedom and possibility, a radical opening, that intersects with social justice, ecology, and our continued race toward cyborg-intelligence. I am the system and the system is me, you know? Sort of like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Night_Kitchen">in the night kitchen</a>, but with lithium ion milk.</span></p><div><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></div></span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><font face="garamond, serif"><br></font></div><div dir="ltr"><font face="garamond, serif">Lynne DeSilva-Johnson</font><div><font face="garamond, serif">Managing Editor</font></div><div><font face="garamond, serif">The Operating System</font></div><div><font face="garamond, serif"><a href="http://www.theoperatingsystem.org" target="_blank">www.theoperatingsystem.org</a></font></div><div><font face="garamond, serif">Brooklyn, NY</font></div><div><font face="garamond, serif"><br></font></div><div><img src="http://www.theoperatingsystem.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/OS_logo_square1.jpg" width="200" height="200"><font face="garamond, serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="garamond, serif"><br></font></div><div><h1 style="margin:0px 0px 15px;color:rgb(24,24,24);font-weight:normal;padding:0px;font-size:14px;line-height:18px"><font face="garamond, serif">“In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete.”</font></h1><font face="garamond, serif">- R. Buckminster Fuller</font><br></div><div><font face="garamond, serif"><br></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, May 29, 2017 at 1:51 PM, Margaret J Rhee <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mrhee@uoregon.edu" target="_blank">mrhee@uoregon.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Many thanks again to Keith, Sun Yung, Jenny, and Saba for the rich threads generated by the conversation this week!<br>
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To add to the Machine Dreams, I'm very happy to e-introduce Lynne DeSilva-Johnson, who is a dynamic and inspiring artist, activist, professor, and publisher. Lynne is also the founder and editor of The Operating System, which will be releasing my full length poetry collection of robot love poems this Fall. We are thrilled she can join us for the last few days of the dialogue, and look forward to hearing more about The OS, and her alchemist work as an artist and editor.<br>
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I actually first met Lynne through a digital into to The OS by dear mutual friend poet and activist Ching-In Chen, and Machine Dreams contributor Alex Crowley, who is also my editor at Publisher's Weekly, and has a wondrous poetry chapbook published by The Operating System titled Improper Maps.<br>
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Alex's drone poems are in the Machine Dreams Zine (pg 20) <a href="https://issuu.com/repcollective/docs/machine_dreams_issuu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://issuu.com/repcollectiv<wbr>e/docs/machine_dreams_issuu</a><br>
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You can read more about Alex's collection with The OS in a fantastic dialogue with Lynne here: <a href="http://www.theoperatingsystem.org/reconversations-of-sound-mind-process-and-practice-with-improper-maps-alex-crowley/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.theoperatingsystem.<wbr>org/reconversations-of-sound-m<wbr>ind-process-and-practice-with-<wbr>improper-maps-alex-crowley/</a><br>
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Lynne is also the co-editor of this recent anthology of resistance poetry: <a href="http://www.spuytenduyvil.net/resist-much-obey-little.html" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.spuytenduyvil.net/r<wbr>esist-much-obey-little.html</a><br>
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and you can read a Wave Composition interview with Lynne here: <a href="http://www.wavecomposition.com/article/issue-11/an-interview-with-lynne-desilva-johnson/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.wavecomposition.com<wbr>/article/issue-11/an-interview<wbr>-with-lynne-desilva-johnson/</a><br>
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To begin, Lynne, I wonder if you can speak to the importance of dialogue in your editorial process? I was struck by the interview you had with Alex and other authors you work with, why did you decide to include dialogues, and how do you approach the publishing process differently? I, and many others, are all very moved by The OS and this description:<br>
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"THIS is not a fixed entity. It is an ongoing experiment in resilient creative practice which necessarily morphs as its conditions and collaborators change."<br>
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I love how alive The OS feels, and how you begin with THIS. It reminds me that The OS is alive. And this has resonance to a recent conversation I had with really amazing artist Margaretha Haughwout and my class on art/activism last week. I first "met" Margaretha on empyre as participants in Kyle McKinley's social practice forum too, and Margaretha's work has also been a constant inspiration, and she described collaboration with humans and (non) humans as well in her work: <a href="http://www.guerrillagrafters.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.guerrillagrafters.o<wbr>rg</a><br>
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I'm feeling some resonance here, and I am moved to think about the (non) human, but also human and living elements of The OS, and both of your collaborative practice. Could you share more about The OS, and the intersections of organic, technological, and poetic in your work as an artist and editor?<br>
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Lynne's bio is below:<br>
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Lynne DeSilva-Johnson is a queer interdisciplinary creator, curator, educator, and facilitator working in performance, exhibition, and publication in conversation with new media. Now a visiting assistant professor at Pratt, Lynne was previously an adjunct at CUNY, and teaching artist for over a decade. She is the founder and Managing Editor of The Operating System, as well as Libraries Editor at Boog City. Lynne is the author of GROUND, blood atlas, and Overview Effect, co-author of A GUN SHOW with Adam Sliwinsk/Sō Percussion, and co-editor of the anthologies RESIST MUCH, OBEY LITTLE: Inaugural Poems for the Resistance, and In Corpore Sano: Creative Practice and the Challenged Body. Recent or forthcoming publication credits include Drunken Boat/Anomaly, The Brooklyn Poets Anthology, Gorgon Poetics, Supplement, Live Mag!, and a Panthalassa Pamphlet from Tea & Tattered Pages Press. She performs often, resists always, and lives in Brooklyn NY.<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
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-- <br>
Margaret Rhee, Ph.D.<br>
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Visiting Assistant Professor<br>
Women's and Gender Studies<br>
University of Oregon<br>
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