<div dir="ltr">Thanks, Renate, for the comments around the aesthetics of early days -empyre- and the quote in which I compare -empyre- to an Ant Farm inflatable! <div><br></div><div>When I started moderating in 2002, I sometimes posted as Christina McPhee and sometimes as naxsmash-- a made-up portmanteau of 'birthing' and 'smashing' . Neither name indexed a definite identity. That seemed to be the disorder of the day: you could scatter your texts to many eyes and ears out of reach of one's own sense of place --- I felt unbound by my gender or age or other markers. When the Documenta curator Georg Schollhamer contacted me to invite -empyre- to Documenta 12 Magazine project in 2006, he asked to meet up with me at the Sydney Biennial. On the phone, I madly searched and stumbled for an answer, wondering, OMG, how am i going to afford to go to Sydney to meet Georg and discuss this wonderful invite? Quickly I recovered and confessed that I was not Australian... this is the kind of delightful mistake possible in those days. Melinda Rackham had been so kind to invite me into the 'soft-skinned space' to moderate in 2002 when her doctoral writing was very pressing. I stayed on and learned from everyone for the next six years. It was the best education one could </div><div>possibly imagine, boot-strapped by the constant demand of coming up with new topics and generating new convos with such diverse artists, scientists, poets, writers of all kinds. They inadvertently generated my crash-course education in Franz Fanon, Julia Kristeva, Anthropophagia and Tropicalia, Edouard Glissante, Australian/NZ Cyberfeminism. I read like mad. I encouraged posts in languages other than English whenever the writer found that her ideas might need to flow from a non-English space-- then translated as best i could or found translators of the human variety to help out. We had a freewheeling time of it. "New Media" was in its heyday. I always hoped that the archive would help historians with bits and sparks to illuminate a fascinating transitional period... an Arcades project... </div><div><br></div><div>Christina </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 9:01 PM, Theresa Ramseyer <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:tlr280mp@gmail.com" target="_blank">tlr280mp@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br>
Evening,<br>
<br>
My computer-internet connection is still dial-up. It is unusable for<br>
the moment, for various reasons. My phone is now my main connection,<br>
but I can't get everything. Instagram, for example, is always a blank<br>
page. Many times I'll click on a link and get nowhere.<br>
<br>
<br>
I prefer Empyre as a listserve. I have gone back through previous<br>
discussions and looked up artists, followed threads and ideas when I<br>
had time. I've gone deeper; the list moves fast for me.<br>
<br>
<br>
It's much easier to find a post on gmail or yahoo than to dig through Facebook.<br>
<br>
<br>
I know Empyre has a Facebook presence, and Facebook is easy to reach<br>
on my phone. But besides the searching difficulties, Facebook changes<br>
their algorithims so often that I keep lists of my "must read" pages<br>
and communities. It's annoying, to say the least.<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
Theresa Ramseyer<br>
______________________________<wbr>_________________<br>
empyre forum<br>
<a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.<wbr>edu.au</a><br>
<a href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.<wbr>edu</a><br>
</font></span></blockquote></div><br></div>