<html><head><style>body{font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px}</style></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div id="bloop_customfont" style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px; color: rgba(0,0,0,1.0); margin: 0px; line-height: auto;">This is an excellent discussion — that has jogged my memory and overlaps with many on this list (who created those memories). All of the Ctheory … didn’t know those had anything to do with something called “digital media” — same with Rhizome, — Realizing it in hindsight decades later makes me virtually jump out of my chair and exclaim, "Wait, there is a boundary between the digital and IRL? When did that happen?” </div><div id="bloop_customfont" style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px; color: rgba(0,0,0,1.0); margin: 0px; line-height: auto;"><br></div><div id="bloop_customfont" style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px; color: rgba(0,0,0,1.0); margin: 0px; line-height: auto;">In 1989, I got on the Well — and was loving it as a follower — and the free-floating feeling (like surfing) of not having to be “presenting” — lurking, commenting, — I heard that Timothy Leary was on there (so that was cool — maybe Ram Das too), but I cannot remember any of the text actually appearing there … More importantly, in 1989, I was mostly excited that I could for the first time find and check-out library books online from a room in our shared house and that someone would deliver the library book to my mailbox!! I dreamed that one day they could send me the entire book through the ETHER! </div><div id="bloop_customfont" style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px; color: rgba(0,0,0,1.0); margin: 0px; line-height: auto;"><br></div><div id="bloop_customfont" style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px; color: rgba(0,0,0,1.0); margin: 0px; line-height: auto;">Then around the same time, I remember nettime and the eToys DoS attacks and counter-attacks. Around that time, I read ‘bolo ‘bolo by the pseudonymous P.M. — about an autonomous social networked system. All this to say that we backed into this history and the most important aspects are so mundane that we can hardly remember them — accessing libraries, for example. Online requests for delivery … and the sense of a miniature -empyre in the interstitial spaces of a smoldering crumbling ashen empire. . . . all delivered everywhere all at once. </div><div id="bloop_customfont" style="font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px; color: rgba(0,0,0,1.0); margin: 0px; line-height: auto;"><br></div> <br><p class="airmail_on">On February 13, 2018 at 12:20:03 PM, Ana Valdés (<a href="mailto:agora158@gmail.com">agora158@gmail.com</a>) wrote:</p> <blockquote type="cite" class="clean_bq"><span><div><div></div><div>----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
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<div dir="auto">Thank you Tim for your generous post and for
sharing with me the love and the passion for conversation and
sharing.</div>
<div dir="auto">I remember Ctheory well and Rhizome and Netthing
and the Well and many others. </div>
<div dir="auto">It was a kind of legendary time, when Hakim Bey
wrote about TAZ (Temporary Autonome Zones), when Brenda Laurel
started with the support of Paul Allen Purple Moon, computer games
for girls. It was the time of computer wars with the doctress
Neutopia and hackers as Saint Just and early net artists as Allan
Sondheim one of the real old timers and Cornelia Frankl and Melinda
and Christina and yourself and Renate and so many others seeing the
digital space as a new canvas to experiment with...</div>
<div dir="auto">As living in Sweden and teaching digital narrative
and writing about the web am very happy to have seen the beginning
of Spotify Skype and Minecraft, three of the most successful tools
everyone uses today.</div>
<div dir="auto">Love</div>
<div dir="auto">Ana</div>
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<div>tis 13 feb. 2018 kl. 13:19 skrev Timothy Conway Murray
<<a href="mailto:tcm1@cornell.edu">tcm1@cornell.edu</a>>:<br></div>
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----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br>
Hi, Ana,<br>
<br>
I’m sorry that your post got cycled into my “clutter” box and I’ve
just located it. It’s so interesting and important that you
flag the significance of early listservs for their activism.
Thanks ever so much for calling attention to the history of Stumble
Upon. Your own posts have so motivated and informed me over
the years.<br>
<br>
Another parallel project from the early days of listservs and what
I think of as “digital discourse” is CTHEORY (<a href="http://ctheory.net" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">ctheory.net</a>) overseen by Arthur and Marilouise
Kroker. Although an electronic journal, the Kroker’s project
served very much as a forum for digital activism at the moment that
listservs where assembling themselves. A couple of years
before Melinda founded –empyre-, I collaborated with Arthur and
Marilouise to co-curate CTHEORY MULTIMEDIA (<a href="http://ctheorymultimedia.cornell.edu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">ctheorymultimedia.cornell.edu</a>) as a means to providing
a conceptual home for activist pieces of internet art, addressing
focused subjects such as “Tech Flesh: The Promise and Perils of the
Human Genome Project,” “Wired Ruins: Digital Terror and Ethnic
Paranoia,” and “Netnoise.”<br>
<br>
I remember first talking with Melinda about –empyre- when she
presented it at ISEA Nagoya in 2002 and feeling empowered by how
this interactive discursive network could activate and extend the
kind of uni-directional projects of CTHEORY. Some of the most
satisfying months I’ve moderated on –empyre- over the years have
brought together various international artists and digital
activists whose posts have enlivened the community. Your
positive and affirmative posts always have worked to bring together
–empyreans- to think collectively about the challenges and
opportunities presented to us by digital culture.<br>
<br>
Ricardo and Patrick already have signaled nettime and other early
listservs, and it would be cool if others on the list could also
post about their activist work on listservs and social media.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
<br>
Tim<br>
<br>
Timothy Murray<br>
Director, Cornell Council for the Arts and Curator, CCA
Biennial<br>
<a href="http://cca.cornell.edu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://cca.cornell.edu</a><br>
Curator, Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art<br>
<a href="http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu</a> <<a href="http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu/</a>><br>
Professor of Comparative Literature and English<br>
<br>
B-1 West Sibley Hall<br>
Cornell University<br>
Ithaca, New York 14853<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 2/11/18, 12:10 AM, "<a href="mailto:empyre-bounces@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au" target="_blank">empyre-bounces@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a> on behalf
of Ana Valdés" <<a href="mailto:empyre-bounces@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au" target="_blank">empyre-bounces@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a> on behalf
of <a href="mailto:agora158@gmail.com" target="_blank">agora158@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
----------empyre- soft-skinned
space----------------------<br>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
empyre forum<br>
<a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au" target="_blank">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a><br>
<a href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a></blockquote>
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