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--></style></head><body bgcolor=white lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'>Thanks Mark for your comments. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'>First, I believe it is critically urgent to teach ALL of our students how to create fake news. Why? Because this first-hand engagement with the manipulation of the truth is the best way, in my opinion, to understand the manipulative power of language to distort meaning. It is also a powerful way to demonstrate how fake news can infiltrate the real world of information. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'>The reason why fake news is so dangerous is because so many people lack the critical skills to differentiate between manufactured news and the real thing. When this criticality is introduced to our students, they become the front line to defend humanity against the tyranny of the fake. The reason why TRUMP was elected is because there were enough people in this country who lacked the skills to see propaganda and fakery being wielded by domestic and foreign sources. This is how tyrants rise to power: preying upon the emotions of a constituency that is unable to interpret the source of their manipulation. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'>So, I say, WE who are educators are actually on the front lines of a battle to protect the integrity of truth and meaning. Unless we instill the ability to discern the tactics of fakery in the next generation, perhaps by training them to render its machinations, we are truly sunk. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'>Randall <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:Calibri;color:black'>From: </span></b><span style='font-family:Calibri;color:black'>Mark Marino <markcmarino@gmail.com><br><b>Date: </b>Friday, June 16, 2017 at 4:18 AM<br><b>To: </b>Randall Packer <rpacker@zakros.com><br><b>Cc: </b>soft_skinned_space <empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au><br><b>Subject: </b>Re: [-empyre-] Speaking of Fake...<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Randall,<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>That sounds like a perfect teaching moment, if a bit harrowing for you. Sounds like both you and the student survived unscathed! It's interesting how fake stories flourish when they touch upon either likely content ("there they go again") or cultural panics.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>What other assignments in fakery have folks on the list done?<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>I must admit that I have from time-to-time found myself in a little warmer water with some of my teaching antics.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>One was the seemingly innocuous LA Flood Project, which imagines Los Angeles submerged under an epic deluge. That project has a Twitter flood simulation side to it that occasionally crosses paths with folks who monitor either university news or weather news. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Some people get angry when they think we are in the Fony Fake territory, when we thought we were in the Fantasy Fake or Funny Fake land. I suppose that just shows how subjective these realms are -- or to speak more to your experience -- how the partial attention we pay to and partial context we encounter on social media creates the perfect soup for misunderstanding.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Ah, misunderstanding soup.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Anyone else have similar stories to tell?<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>- Mark<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Mon, Jun 12, 2017 at 5:43 PM, Randall Packer <<a href="mailto:rpacker@zakros.com" target="_blank">rpacker@zakros.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'>Greetings Mark and greetings list, I wanted to jump in here at the suggestion of how to teach fake news. Well, I’m not sure I have any real answers to Fake News Pedagogy, but I wanted to share a little story about my Internet Art & Culture class at the School of Art, Design & Media / Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'>Now Singapore may seem like an odd place to be infiltrating the academy with Fake News skills, but in fact my students embarked on a project to use Facebook Live to incorporate artistic fakery into their online practice. One of the students decided to stage a live broadcast from the student union as a fake reporter announcing that the university had gone 100% vegan. This seemingly harmless fake prank managed to get the attention of the university press office, and well in Singapore, you DO NOT WANT student parody to enter into the mainstream media (MSM) because people simply don’t do things like this and the press will think it’s the actual truth. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'>This little incident made it all the way up the administrative ladder until our Chair asked the faculty whose student this was and that they needed to attach a disclaimer. I eagerly said me, because I recognized a real teaching moment here for my terrified student. The fact is, my student had a first-hand experience understanding how fakery can make its way into the MSM, and just how corrosive and disturbing it is to manipulate or distort the truth. In our everyday social media life on the Net, we forget just how volatile and viral our fake utterances can be. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'>Of course, I have always believed that art should be dangerous and this assignment turned out to be the perfect way to educate the next generation of digital artists. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'>Yours “truly,”</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'>Randall</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-family:Calibri;color:black'>From: </span></b><span style='font-family:Calibri;color:black'><<a href="mailto:empyre-bounces@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au" target="_blank">empyre-bounces@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a>> on behalf of Mark Marino <<a href="mailto:markcmarino@gmail.com" target="_blank">markcmarino@gmail.com</a>><br><b>Reply-To: </b>soft_skinned_space <<a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au" target="_blank">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a>><br><b>Date: </b>Sunday, June 11, 2017 at 12:21 AM<br><b>To: </b>soft_skinned_space <<a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au" target="_blank">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a>><br><b>Subject: </b>[-empyre-] Speaking of Fake...</span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<o:p></o:p></p><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>We continue our discussion of the art of Fake News and art and Fake News (etc.) with a somewhat unusual course.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>At the start of 2017, launching on Inauguration Day, Talan Memmott and I offered a course through UnderAcademy College entitled, How to Write and Read Fake News: Journullism in the Age of Trump. UnderAcademy College is a non-degree granting un-institution founded on the model of Black Mountain College.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>The course offered to teach how to write Fake News (is my capitalization of that bugging anyone else but me?), although we may not have entirely been in bed with the devil. Or if we were in bed with the devil, we were doing an awful lot of faking it. And, consequently, were quite unsatisfied with his performance but had forfeited our right to blame other people for the bed we had made. So you know, basically feeling like most of America. You can see the sillybus here:<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><a href="https://medium.com/the-fake-news-reader/the-fake-news-course-sillybus-d68953d6abf5" target="_blank">https://medium.com/the-fake-news-reader/the-fake-news-course-sillybus-d68953d6abf5</a><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>All of the materials for this class are freely available online for your own adaptation and perversion. And I should mention that this course, like all UnderAcademy College courses, is free and that I (still) have not been paid for teaching said course.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>Our first lesson was: How to Fake News, which you can see here.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex8Zi15UTJo" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex8Zi15UTJo</a><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>In that lesson, we introduced our (patent-pending) 80-20-10 method for writing Fake News. Now, none of our 100-or-so students, real and fake, have reported back on whether or not this lesson led to them making mad money from their Fake News writing, but most accounts suggest that in spite of (or actually because of) a growing awareness of the scourge of Fake News, there's big money to be had.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>And in the age of Trump, what more evidence of a successful educational operation could their be than loads of money -- or at least lawsuits?<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>How do you feel about teaching people to write Fake News as a response to Fake News? Does that sound sophomoric or are you just being uptight? We realize those aren't the only two options, so we have an open essay response we're also accepting but probably won't count towards your grade. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>Love,<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>Mark<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>_______________________________________________ empyre forum <a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au" target="_blank">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a> <a href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></blockquote></div><p class=MsoNormal><br><br clear=all><o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal>-- <o:p></o:p></p><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Teacher/Writer/Thinker/Spy<br><a href="http://markcmarino.com" target="_blank">http://markcmarino.com</a><br><a href="http://haccslab.com" target="_blank">http://haccslab.com</a><o:p></o:p></p></div></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial'>Pebbles already has a boyfriend.”</span><o:p></o:p></p></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>sentence #5 from<i> E-Sig</i><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Micro-novel (limited edition) (being published one sentence at a time via my email signature). Collect them all by writing to me frequently or by trading with my friends. Sentences will be updated periodically.<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>