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<p>ok</p>
<p>on how mycelium/mushroom as a figure ... the mycelium cult would
wants to dive in and argue forever , but quickly, we quote-</p>
<p>My mecelium network is nearly immortal, only the sudden
toxification of a planet or the explosion of its parent star can
wipe me out… all my mycelial networks in the galaxy are in hyper
light communication across space and time. - Terence McKenna, The
Mushnoon speaks<br>
<br>
I believe that mycelium is the neurological network of nature.
Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with
information-sharing membranes. …..The mycelium stays in constant
molecular communication with its environment, devising diverse
enzymatic and chemical responses to complex challenges. - Paul
Stamets, Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World<br>
<br>
We are stuck with the problem of living despite economic and
ecological ruination….. Neither tales of progress nor of ruin tell
us how to think about collaborative survival. It is time to pay
attention to mushroom picking. Not that this will save us— but it
might open our imaginations. - Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The mushroom
at the end of the world : on the possibility of life in capitalist
ruins</p>
<p>This answers back to [week 1] how we got started... interesting
we flash back to the 90s here.. <br>
</p>
<p>bring up all nodes and bolts... loosen and to be fastened... <br>
</p>
<p>damn, and dollyoko are finger tight!!</p>
<p>over</p>
<p>sl<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 25/06/18 20:06, warkk wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAK5B+H--Ft83FGQwTnR_Qj9t_Cp-Rs4Zz9nSA_BebXRH9aL3Hg@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------</pre>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<br>
<div dir="ltr">Thanks for the links, Alice. I started reading but
Nick Land came up so i stopped reading immediately. I never took
him to be state-of-the-art theory. Others might find the space
interesting but its just not for me. Reaons given here: <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3284-on-nick-land">https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3284-on-nick-land</a>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Patrick is i think pointing us both back to the nineties
but also forward, and i think that's a good note to hit before
anyone starts getting into a nostalgic vein. I think its more
about bracketing-off what networks came to be in the two
consolidations of the power of what i call the vectoralist
class. The first was around 2000, with the rise of corporate
forms built on nothing but IP. The second came a decade later,
with the commdification not just of information but also of
the social network itself. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Patrick also asks why the mushroom as a figure. I don't
really understand how this part works, but it is the bit i
find intriguing: that mushrooms have 36,000 genders, or
something like that. Maybe Shu Lea's introduction of the
mycelium into discussion will encourage me to get a layhumans'
grasp on how that works. It seems just at first sight to be be
an interesting thought-image of how protocols might work
otherwise. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>mw</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 1:10 PM,
patrick lichty <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:p@voyd.com" target="_blank">p@voyd.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>
As someone who would call himself postcybernetic rather
than postinternet,<br>
I agree with Dollyoko nd Ken. The spaces for intereaction
were highly<br>
heterogenous and diverse, and Honestly, I find the
postinternet discourse<br>
relatively bland by comparison, as a lot of what it talks
about is reference<br>
to postcybernetic/cyberdelic. MOOs, MUDs, Even back to nets
of online<br>
communities (Thing, Compuserve, Delphi, Fidonet, Usenet) was
amazing. In<br>
many ways it seems like the corporate stacks combined with
academic FOMO has<br>
created a tremendous amount of conservatism compared to the
crash theory<br>
days of the Krokers.<br>
<br>
In many ways, I think our era of risk aversion and its
pruning of the<br>
rhizome is indicative of the relationship between culture
and capital. As<br>
art fairs and consolidating gallery culture, as well as the
struggle (in my<br>
mind) to figure ourselves out more as Postmodernism
fractured into the<br>
Speculative Turn, the notion of the rhizome has turned into
reality bubble<br>
foam that generally swirls under megacorporate umbrellas.<br>
<br>
This is why I love things like Dina Karadzic's FUBAR bunch,
and Shu Lea's<br>
work the other year at the Leonore residency, but I also
wonder why the<br>
notion of the mycorhizome is so strong these days as opposed
to the<br>
strawberry patch (Deleuze), is it a subliminal signifier of
fruit and decay<br>
and rebirth?<br>
<br>
Also very interested in t-shroom discussion.<br>
<br>
Love from the desert<br>
(also apologies for the typos - my current computer has a
very flaky<br>
keyboard)<br>
<div>
<div class="h5"><br>
<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:empyre-bounces@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre-bounces@lists.<wbr>artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a><br>
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:empyre-bounces@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre-bounces@lists.<wbr>artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a>>
On Behalf Of warkk<br>
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2018 4:13 PM<br>
To: soft_skinned_space <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.<wbr>edu.au</a>><br>
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week
4]<br>
<br>
Alan is quite right to stress how extensive the options
were for online<br>
encounters in the 90s, beyond the handful i named. The
larger point might<br>
still be that knowledge of any of that world is fairly
thin these days.<br>
There are a few period accounts. dollyoko mentions
Marshall's Living on<br>
Cybermind. Julian Dibbell wrote a book about LambdaMoo.
There's a new book<br>
by Claire Evans called Broad Band that has good brief
accounnts of Echo and<br>
The Word and is focused on innovations in computation by
women.<br>
<br>
Of course one could ask whether the linear prose form of
the book is the<br>
best or even a necessary way of documenting such things.
I think of the book<br>
as an instance of what dollyoko calls "successionist
servers." Its hard to<br>
keep them out of Amazon, one of the biggest vectoral
class enterprises of<br>
our time, but they will at least 'run' independently of
that proprietary<br>
environment.<br>
<br>
A book is a concentrated swarm whereas online
communication tend to default<br>
to dispersed ones....<br>
<br>
dollyoko has some great language for an ongoing project:
secessionist<br>
servers, intentional family, open family platforms,
vernacular approaches to<br>
infrastructure. (To just pick a few that i think go
together with the themes<br>
Shu Lea suggested).<br>
<br>
Maybe its a good thing that 90s cyberculture experiments
ended up largely<br>
invisible and excluded from history, as now it might be
time to be rather<br>
discreet about the possibilities uncovered then. Maybe
it was a good thing<br>
for mycelium that it was largely invisible for so long,
as nobody figured<br>
out how to monetize it.<br>
<br>
mw<br>
<br>
On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 2:16 AM, <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:dollyoko@thing.net">dollyoko@thing.net</a>>
wrote:<br>
<br>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned
space----------------------<br>
><br>
> dear shu lea and empyreans<br>
><br>
> yes, finger fucking across platforms and waters,
deep code luscious <br>
> moon brown stem the shadow of a venetian blind on
summer body in <br>
> borrowed loft wiping sweat, not swiping left (write
left alt write) <br>
> Floodnet!<br>
><br>
> i'm immersing eyes into this generous mycelial
conversation today <br>
> feeling the tendrils of one hundred minds<br>
><br>
> 'powerful poetic gestures'<br>
> 'alternate sentiences'<br>
> 'the incomputable'<br>
> 'nature is not a system'<br>
> 'break all separations'<br>
> 'imps fuelling the real'<br>
> 'vernacular approach to infrastructure'<br>
> 't-shroom as family heritage and long-living family
member'<br>
> 'i have a vast genetic network in me'<br>
> 'we begin to think like a forest'<br>
><br>
> how to extend the intentional families we (of a
certain age) created <br>
> in the 90s [while perhaps reading Bruce Stirling's
Dead Media list, or <br>
> skiving off to PMCMoo or RiverMOO when LambdaMOO
was down] before <br>
> other 'we(s)' were born<br>
><br>
> Jonathan Marshall's book 'Living on Cybermind'
might be one answer to <br>
> Ken's Q about how to capture the non-linear
threaded lives<br>
><br>
> i've been returning to build at LambdaMoo since
around 2013, prompted <br>
> by projects such as Networked Art Forms and
Tactical Magick Faerie <br>
> Circuits - instigated by the wonderful Nancy
Mauro-Flude, and (equally <br>
> wonderful) Furtherfield's Beyond the Interface...
I'm not sure what <br>
> the mycelial potential of such old platforms might
be, I suspect <br>
> there's something though...... for example, a
nascent project I'm <br>
> doing with Virginia Barratt and Alice Farmer takes
as it starting point:<br>
><br>
> ------------------------------<wbr>-----<br>
><br>
> "A multi-platform artwork comprising a LambdaMOO
environment <br>
> (multi-user domain object-oriented), performing
avatars, improvised <br>
> performance, experimental hypertext fiction,
cryptokitties on the <br>
> (ethereum) blockchain, and a hand-bound XenZine.
The subject is the <br>
> construction of intentional family beyond blood and
kind.<br>
><br>
> We revisit LambdaMOO as a site for gender
non-conforming <br>
> subjectivities to explore the production of xenofam
and xenobodies, <br>
> outside of social re-production, and bring those
practices to bear <br>
> upon the "real". Only a few years after the
emergence of the WWW, <br>
> social networking habits were harnessed and
stratified into machines <br>
> for the production of social capital and new
affective forms of <br>
> extractivism within the paradigm of
info-capitalism. Yet the outlier <br>
> LambdaMOO is still maintained by a small phreak
family as a working <br>
> experiment, an enclave among other secessionist
servers (caves, <br>
> sinkholes, hackpads, labyrinthine clouds) carving
out space to platform<br>
lives of creative resistance, blasphemy and joy.<br>
><br>
> The performing avatars, the unholy trinity of
Witchmum, Mum 2.0 and <br>
> Precocious Meme Savant, have cooked, co-habited and
coded as <br>
> becoming-kin to instantiate xenofam, building
affective bonds through <br>
> which datablood flows. This queered approach to
extensible and open <br>
> family platforms generates intentional spaces for
the reconfiguration <br>
> of blood ties beyond blood types, and another mode
of hexing Capital."<br>
><br>
> --------------------<br>
><br>
> I want to write more, but I need to buy bread as I
can't wait the 12 <br>
> hours for the wild yeasts to do their thing.<br>
> I will try to attract some xenofeminist and other
spores this way <br>
> while thinking about how Ken's 'we no longer have
roots, we have aerials'<br>
> might take a mycelial turn<br>
><br>
><br>
> Warmly, to all<br>
> doll fingers + witch thoughts, perhaps a spell cast
from and to this <br>
> conversation, tomorrow<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned<br>
> > space----------------------___<wbr>______________________________<br>
> ______________<br>
> > empyre forum<br>
> > <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.<wbr>edu.au</a><br>
> > <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.<wbr>edu</a><br>
><br>
><br>
> ______________________________<wbr>_________________<br>
> empyre forum<br>
> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.<wbr>edu.au</a><br>
> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.<wbr>edu</a><br>
><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
-- <br>
<br>
McKenzie Wark<br>
</div>
</div>
*Professor of Media and Culture*<br>
<span class="">EUGENE LANG COLLEGE<br>
65 w11th st, NEW YORK, NY 10011<br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:warkk@newschool.edu">warkk@newschool.edu</a><br>
</span><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.newschool.edu/marketing-communication/email-signature.html#"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.newschool.edu/<wbr>marketing-communication/email-<wbr>signature.html#</a>><br>
<span class="im HOEnZb">T 212 229 5100 2241 / M 646 3697266
/ @mckenziewark / room #456<br>
<br>
</span>
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5">______________________________<wbr>_________________<br>
empyre forum<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.<wbr>edu.au</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.<wbr>edu</a><br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<br clear="all">
<div><br>
</div>
-- <br>
<div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<p
style="font-family:arial;font-size:10px;color:#000;padding:5px
0 0 5px;margin:0px"><span style="color:#e82e21">McKenzie
Wark</span><br>
<strong>Professor of Media and Culture</strong><br>
<span style="color:#e82e21">EUGENE LANG COLLEGE</span><br>
<span>65 w11th st, NEW YORK, NY 10011</span></p>
<p
style="font-family:arial;font-size:10px;color:#666;padding:10px
0 0 5px;margin:0px"> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.newschool.edu/marketing-communication/email-signature.html#"
style="color:#666" target="_blank">warkk@newschool.edu</a><br>
<span style="color:#000;font-weight:bold">T</span>
212 229 5100 2241 / <span
style="color:#000;font-weight:bold">M</span> 646
3697266 / @mckenziewark / room #456<br>
</p>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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<br>
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<pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
empyre forum
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a></pre>
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