<div dir="ltr"><div>Dear all,</div><div><br></div><div>I hope it's okay I'm writing to a week 2 thread.... I'm compelled by much of this conversation and had a few thoughts to add, that have been very much on my mind and related to a current project of mine called Trees of Tomorrow. The project collapses hard boundaries between politics and ecology, communication and exchange, considering the political networks of trees in the neighborhood of Flushing, Queens. <a href="http://www.treesoftomorrow.life/">http://www.treesoftomorrow.life/</a> We've begun to track how NYC Parks frames these trees in terms of ecosystem services and quantifies their labor in monetary terms.<br></div><div><br></div><div>I also just want to point out that the idea of nature as homeostatic is a theory -- one which comes from cybernetics -- that has largely been debunked. While it might be useful to think of our engagements with nature in systems terms so that we can think creatively and sustainably about inputs and outputs, ways to turn waste into nutrient for example, the ways that nature is not a system is what might offer us the most answers to many of the questions in this thread. Again, FRAUD's work with the reindeer lichen is a concrete example of this. I recently interviewed a London Plane Sycamore, one of Flushing's hardest workers when it comes to ecosystem services: <a href="http://www.treesoftomorrow.life/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/ToT_TabloidResizedFORPRINT-PAGES.pdf">http://www.treesoftomorrow.life/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/ToT_TabloidResizedFORPRINT-PAGES.pdf</a> It seems to suggest that adding companion species and keeping the totalizing system on it's toes creates possibilities for sabotage and retreat.</div><div><br></div><div>I also wanted to add one more possibility to John's suggestions for what can be done, esp. extending the idea to "hack from the inside": eat. Can we enlist multispecies kin to collaboratively EAT the system from the inside and the outside?</div><div><br></div><div>PS I would love a reading list on the necropolitics of the network.<br></div></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"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br>--<br></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(204,204,204)"><a href="http://beforebefore.net" target="_blank">beforebefore.net</a><br><a href="http://guerrillagrafters.org" target="_blank">guerrillagrafters.org</a><br><a href="http://coastalreadinggroup.com" target="_blank">coastalreadinggroup.com</a></span><br><div>--</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jun 17, 2018 at 12:35 PM, FRAUD <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:aud@fraud.la" target="_blank">aud@fraud.la</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>
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>Hi all, <br>
</p>
<p>Bleeding into week 3. <br>
</p>
<p>@Christina: In brief, the installation is composed of a whaler
wreck (used to be used to harpoon the whale from), a scale showing
the 'value' of wood in carbon futures, and documentation of the
process of collecting wreck wood. This is accompanied by scrolling
text tracing a genealogy of carbon emission trading through whale
oil, the whale oil myth, pitch, boat building, colonialism,
slavery, witch burning and forestry. We hope to put it online soon
(txt/doco).</p>
<p>Also >>> Feral MBA <3 <br>
</p>
<p>Would happily contribute in explorations of feral bond trading
and trusts!</p>
<p>A&F<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="m_-6338291201624827577moz-cite-prefix">On 15/06/2018 17:28, Christina McPhee
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------</pre>
<br>
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<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" target="_blank">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_-6338291201624827577m_-3242606643837842068moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/complex-values" target="_blank">https://www.somersethouse.<wbr>org.uk/whats-on/complex-values</a><wbr>].
<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_-6338291201624827577m_-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/<wbr>journal/38/61213/665-the-<wbr>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_-6338291201624827577m_-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)</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.</span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana"><span>Ricardo
Dominguez</span><span> (USA)</span> </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_-6338291201624827577m_-3242606643837842068MsoHyperlink"><a class="m_-6338291201624827577m_-3242606643837842068moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/particle-group-intro" target="_blank">http://hemisphericinstitute.<wbr>org/hemi/en/particle-group-<wbr>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></span></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
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<pre>______________________________<wbr>_________________
empyre forum
<a class="m_-6338291201624827577moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au" target="_blank">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.<wbr>edu.au</a>
<a class="m_-6338291201624827577moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.<wbr>edu</a></pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
<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></blockquote></div><br></div>