<div><div dir="auto">Dear Audrey and Francisco of FRAUD- </div></div><div dir="auto">How great to have the chance to bring this intervention on lichen, the incalculable /-financialization abstractions, and forest culture into the heart of London at Somerset House. Please could you describe the physical attributes of your installation (?) - how you are carrying these ideas into the space ? </div><div dir="auto">Thanks</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Christina </div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div>On Sun, Jun 10, 2018 at 3:09 PM FRAUD <<a href="mailto:aud@fraud.la">aud@fraud.la</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<font face="Arial">Dear all,<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial">We are delighted to join the network
discussion (and with such great company!).</font><br>
<font face="Arial">Some little bits to begin.<br>
<br>
<b>Networks:</b> <br>
In our case, we are interested in the materiality and
necropolitics of the network and critical ecologies. Of late, we
have been thinking through the finantialisation of nature through
emission trading systems and green bonds. We are producing a
genealogy of the conception of </font><font face="Arial">the
forest as a space of carbon flows which has carbon circulation,
exchange and storage as a nominal abstractions. Emission trading
and green markets are popping up globally (China just started its
own), it is predicted to be the biggest trading market by 2020.
Carbon Futures is a speculative valuation system that captures and
extracts 'natural resources'. We are also inquiring into how these
markets are networked and we are investigating what is obfuscated
by this abstraction (cultural conflicts, subaltern knowledges and
environmental violence). Happy to expand, also we have a show
opening Tuesday in London on this topic :)
[<a class="m_-3242606643837842068moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/complex-values" target="_blank">https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/complex-values</a>]. <br>
<b><br>
</b></font><font face="Arial"><b>The incomputable:</b><br>
During related research (in the Finnish forests) we were
fascinated about the reindeer lichen in East Fennoscandia, a
disappearing species that problematises the management of
industrial forestry in Finland. Generally lichen species are
interesting because they constitute the majority of diversity in
the northern forests--there are only 5 tree species, whereas there
are thousands of lichens. Being a composite of a algae or
cyanobacteria and a fungi, their genetic make-up is more exposed
to mutation, hence diversity. They also have an interesting
cultural relevance as both a delicacy and a famine food. Lichen
presents itself as an non-computer readable element in the
forestry modelling calculations. While the efficiency of
industrial forests is heralded, validating the move to increase
production and cutting down of trees, 'inefficient' old growth
forests provide essential elements such as beard moss the source
of food for reindeer in winter. The post World War massive clear
cutting in the north and subsequent forestry is a scarification
leaving Finland with approximately 5% of its old growth forest.
Calculations have deemed industrial forests more efficient in
terms of carbon sequestration, and consequently enriches the
Finnish economy with carbon credits. In addition, forestry growth
provides jobs and fuels many by-product economies. We explore
these complex entanglements and scales of power. How are forests
calculated? Which forms of knowledge are privileged in this
discussion? What is deemed an acceptable compromise/sacrifice? How
does one begin to discuss the simultaneous cultural livelihood and
destruction of a nation? <br>
<br>
Also, something to throw out there, there is an interesting
tension between the incomputable, the uncapturable, as a method of
resistance and survival, as well as disappearance/extinction from
the network. <br>
</font>
<blockquote><font face="Arial">"[P]ower is in fact grounded in the
very ability to calculate, count, measure, balance and act on
these calculations. Inversely to make oneself ungovernable one
much make oneself incalculable, immeasurable uncountable" [Eyal
Weizman:
<a class="m_-3242606643837842068moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.e-flux.com/journal/38/61213/665-the-least-of-all-possible-evils/" target="_blank">https://www.e-flux.com/journal/38/61213/665-the-least-of-all-possible-evils/</a>]
</font><br>
</blockquote>
<font face="Arial"><br>
<b>A footnote on invasive / native</b> (mentioned last week):</font><br>
<font face="Arial">Those definitions in themselves are quite
problematic. Usually there is a point in time after which a
species' arrival is determined to be invasive. That point is
heavily imbued in politics of immigration, colonialism and other
ways of viewing the world that have little to do with the plant or
animal's 'threat'. Without expanding further here, we did a
project exploring this some time ago, Dreaming in
tongues/舌頭/langues/ بألسنة/tunger, and Cooking Sections do great
work on this subject.</font><br>
<br>
Look forward to continuing the discussion over the week.<br>
<br>
Audrey & Francisco of FRAUD</div><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="m_-3242606643837842068moz-cite-prefix">On 09/06/2018 10:41, Shu Lea Cheang
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<span>dear all<br>
<br>
It seems like our week1 focus on Mycelium network is just
heating up, i am sure we will be coming back to reflect on
mycelium's network nature...<br>
<br>
Now we enter rehearsal of a network - [week 2], with a focus on
networked activism and performance.<br>
<br>
We are interested in reviewing a glory past/present/future with
update on strategies of intervention including applications with
social networks and analogue tactics of 'body counts matter". <br>
<br>
I introduce the very very special guests for this week2.<br>
<br>
with great respect.<br>
<br>
sl<br>
<br>
<br>
</span>
<span lang="EN-GB">John
Jordan (UK/France)<u></u><u></u></span>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Labelled
a "Domestic Extremist" by the police, and “a magician of
rebellion” by the press, John Jordan has spent the last 25
years merging art and activism. Working in various settings
from Museums to squatted social centres, International Theatre
Festivals to climate camps, he Co-founded <i>Reclaim the
Streets</i> and the <i>Clown Army</i>, Co-edited <i>We Are
Everywhere: the irresistible rise of global anti-capitalism</i>"
(Verso), and co-wrote the film/book <i>Les Sentiers de
l’Utopie</i> (Editions Zones,2012). He now co-facilitates
the <i>Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (Labofii)</i>,
with Isabelle Fremeaux. Infamous for fermenting mass
disobedience on bicycles, throwing snowballs at bankers,
launching a rebel raft regatta to shut down a power station,
running workshops in postcapitalism and refusing to be
censored by the Tate Modern,<i> t</i>he Labofii now lives on
the autonomous zone of la zad of Notre-dame-des-Landes, 'a
territory lost to the republic,' according to the French
government. For more info about the zad see </span><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana"><a href="http://www.zadforever.blog" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-GB">www.zadforever.blog</span></a></span><span lang="EN-GB"> <br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Nitasha
Dhillon (India/USA)</span><br>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
<span>Nitasha
Dhillon is one of two artists who make up the MTL Collective,
a collaboration joining research and aesthetic, theory and
practice, action and organizing. With Amin Husain as MTL, they
are co-founders of Tidal: Occupy Theory, Occupy Strategy
magazine, Global Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.), the direct
action arm of Gulf Labor Artist Coalition, Strike Debt and
Rolling Jubilee, Direct Action Front for Palestine (DAFP), and
most recently, as MTL+, Decolonize This Place, a movement
space and decolonial formation in New York City that combine
organizing, art, and action around five strands of struggle:
Indigenous Struggle, Black Liberation, Free Palestine, Global
Wage Worker, and De-Gentrification. Nitasha is currently a PhD
candidate at Department of Media Study, University at Buffalo.<u></u><u></u></span>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana"><u></u><span>Ricardo Dominguez</span><span> (USA)</span> <u></u></span>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
<span>Ricardo Dominguez</span><span> is a co-founder of The
Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT), a group who developed
virtual sit-in technologies in solidarity with the Zapatistas
communities in Chiapas, Mexico, in 1998. His recent Electronic
Disturbance Theater 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab project (</span><span><a href="http://tbt.tome.press/" target="_blank"><span>http://tbt.tome.press/</span></a></span><span>) with Brett Stalbaum, Micha
Cardenas, Amy Sara Carroll, and Elle Mehrmand, the <em><span style="font-family:Verdana">Transborder Immigrant Tool</span></em>
(a GPS cell phone safety net tool for crossing the Mexico/US
border) was the winner of “Transnational Communities Award”
(2008), an award funded by Cultural Contact, Endowment for
Culture Mexico–US and handed out by the US Embassy in Mexico.
It also was funded by CALIT2 and the UCSD Center for the
Humanities. The <em><span style="font-family:Verdana">Transborder
Immigrant Tool</span></em> has been exhibited at the 2010
California Biennial (OCMA), Toronto Free Gallery, Canada
(2011), The Van Abbemuseum, Netherlands (2013), ZKM, Germany
(2013), as well as a number of other national and
international venues. The project was also under investigation
by the US Congress in 2009-2010 and was reviewed by Glenn Beck
in 2010 as a gesture that potentially “dissolved” the U.S.
border with its poetry. Dominguez is Associate Professor of
Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego, a
Hellman Fellow, a Society for the Humanities Fellow at Cornell
University (2018), and a Rockefeller Arts & Humanities
Fellow (2019) and Principal Investigator at CALIT2/QI, UCSD.
He also is co-founder of *particle group*, with artists Diane
Ludin, Nina Waisman, Amy Sara Carroll, whose art project about
nano-toxicology entitled *Particles of Interest: Tales of the
Matter Market* has been presented at the House of World
Cultures, Berlin (2007), the San Diego Museum of Art (2008),
Oi Futuro, Brazil (2008), CAL NanoSystems Institute, UCLA
(2009), Medialab-Prado, Madrid (2009), E-Poetry Festival,
Barcelona, Spain (2009), Nanosférica, NYU (2010), and SOMA,
Mexico City, Mexico (2014): <span><span class="m_-3242606643837842068MsoHyperlink"><a class="m_-3242606643837842068moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/particle-group-intro" target="_blank">http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/particle-group-intro</a></span></span>.
<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black">FRAUD</span><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black"> (UK)<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black">FRAUD</span><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:black"> is a <i>métis</i> duo of critical art
practitioners. Their backgrounds include computational
culture, post-colonial and critical feminism, performance,
disruptive design, and space system engineering. They develop
art-led inquiries into the multiple scales of power and
governmentality that flow through physical and
cultural landscapes. The duo focuses on critical ecologies,
exploring forms of slow violence and necropolitics that are
embedded in the entanglement of archiving practices and
technical objects, and erasure as a disruptive technology in
knowledge production. </span><span><u></u><u></u></span></p></blockquote></div></blockquote></div></div>