<div dir="ltr">Hello empyre, I am honored to be contributing this week, to be in conversation with Ezra Benus and Yidan Zeng, and I would like to thank Lola Martinez and Sarah Watson for inviting me. I was a panelist during the Refiguring the Future conference in a session titled Visible networks: Community Building in the Digital Arena. I am an artist who uses 3D simulation and artificial intelligence to speculate that the creation of algorithmic selves expands the concept of personhood.<br><br>The Internet is a network of networks. It connects us in ways that are impossible in corporeal life. My research revolves around the ways in which web community has been built over time. Right now, most of our Internet time is spent on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter where our community building is under surveillance by white supremacist, cisgender, heteronormative, ableist corporations. If we look back to past examples of web community building as a media archaeologist would, we can see how there used to be more possibilities for customization, or at least spaces that were less moderated.<br><br>In Second Life®, which is still being used but by a remarkably lower amount of users than at its peak in the early 2000s, a woman who’s avatar goes by the name of <a href="https://virtualability.org/board-of-directors/">Gentle Heron</a> founded a community named <a href="https://virtualability.org/about-us/">Virtual Ability</a>. Members across disability communities in this group are able to create avatars in order to go beyond the ableist world. They are still active today and yearly they host the <a href="https://virtualability.org/idrac-2018/">International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference</a> within Second Life® on Virtual Ability Island.<br><br>I have experienced this phenomenon first hand as someone who has PTSD from sexual assault. Rather than inside the framework of a network like Second Life®, or social media, I have experienced a sense of freedom though the use of 3D software itself. In an ongoing project I have been able to transport my consciousness into a virtual avatar named <a href="https://www.instagram.com/digitalqueer/">@DigitalQueer</a>. The mesh is created through 3D scanning the physical properties of my body, and the artificial intelligence is created through machine learning software where I am able to feed my avatar my trauma narrative as a mode of dissociation.<br><br>Spending the majority of our time using apps that are owned by Facebook, inhibits accessibility. With no way to customize the format of our Internet experiences, there are less ways to change sites for our needs. As a 12 year old using MySpace, I was able to learn HTML and CSS in order to customize and have complete control over my web experience and the form of myself that I shared with others. That type of customization just doesn’t exist in the same way. How can we expect to build new futures if our Internet is literally being created and programmed by white cis men? Where black trans women, indigenous trans women and trans women of color are being removed from platforms such as Instagram completely with no warning or explanation? Where posts that challenge, or even point out, white supremacy and cisgender heteronormativity are removed over and over again, always citing the “community guidelines”. This is why alternative platforms are so important. We need alternative futures before it is too late.<br><br>The future is user generated platforms. Platforms where “community guidelines” are not just consensus censorship. Platforms made by and for trans people, queer people, black people, indigenous people, people of color and people with disabilities in order to develop connections and a sense of community based on their/our own needs.<br><br>-- <br>Anneli Goeller (they/them)<br>MFA Candidate in Film, Video, New Media, Animation<br>School of the Art Institute of Chicago <br><a href="mailto:agoeller@saic.edu">agoeller@saic.edu<br></a><a href="http://anneligoeller.net">anneligoeller.net<br></a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/digitalqueer/">@digitalqueer</a></div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 7:41 AM Yidan Zeng <<a href="mailto:yidan.zeng@eyebeam.org">yidan.zeng@eyebeam.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div>Many thanks to Lola and Sarah for inviting me to contribute as a guest this week, alongside Ezra and Anneli, who both are doing such amazing work!</div><div><br></div><div>As mentioned in my bio, my entry into the world of digital accessibility happened during the Lincoln Center Accessibility Fellowship, where I was heavily involved in website auditing, captioning, and audio description. However, I wish I was aware of this world earlier, and as a Computer Science major, I am astounded looking back at how absent these conversations and skills were in my own education.</div><div><br></div><div>But in recalling conversations around access I’ve been a part of the past two years, especially in spaces where disabled bodies are absent, they often fall into the mentality of conformance, of meeting the “standard criteria.” Obviously, budget, time, and labor are limited resources, in addition to a lack of knowledge and awareness of specific manifestations of disability. But on the other hand, even when accessibility standards have been met, is the experience itself comparable? Within the context of <i>Refiguring the Future</i>, how can we operate beyond objective, rigid accessibility standards to instead a collective reimagining of the experience of accessibility?</div><div><br></div><div>Last year, I had the pleasure of catching <a href="https://alicesheppard.com/" target="_blank">Alice Sheppard</a>’s piece, <a href="https://alicesheppard.com/disabilitydanceworks/kinetic-light/" target="_blank">DESCENT</a>, a powerful duet presented on an architectural ramp by dancers in wheelchairs. The amazement of seeing disabled dancers fly on stage aside, I was absolutely blown away by the interactive and poetic nature of the audio description for what was happening visually. Traditionally, audio description is narrated in a neutral (often monotone) voice, providing “objective” descriptions of visual elements in film for those who are low-vision or blind. However, Alice Sheppard, along with <a href="https://english.berkeley.edu/profiles/45" target="_blank">Georgina Kleege</a>, an English and Disability Studies professor at UC Berkeley, recognize audio description as another type of text, as a space of creative potentiality. During check in, audiences were all encouraged to download an app to be used during the performance, to which various channels of sounds, poetic text, and descriptions of the dancers’ movements were blended into an individualized soundtrack depending on where one’s finger is placed on the app’s screen.</div><div><br></div><div>I’ll leave you with a few words by Alice Sheppard herself:<br>”Disability is more than the deficit of diagnosis. It is an aesthetic, a series of intersecting cultures, and a creative force." </div><div><br></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 11:31 AM Lola Martinez <<a href="mailto:lola.martinez@eyebeam.org" target="_blank">lola.martinez@eyebeam.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<div dir="ltr">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br><br>Following last week’s reflections on the exhibition as an ecosystem, we continue onto week 2 with conversation on Refiguring the Future’s engagement with accessibility.<br><br>Sciences and technologies have continually reinforced existing conceptions of access. As dictated by mega-corporations, whose platforms render accessibility features invisible, the scope between accessibility and experience is limited. In light of this, blind, chronically ill, D/deaf, and disability communities have expanded notions of accessibility by utilizing emerging technologies and digital medias to provide resources and representations. Yet what does it mean to build community within these platforms? How can we collectively examine the impulses within new media that impact accessibility, and in turn experience? Our intentions is to create a space for speculative dialogues where artists, educators, and technologists can provide new insights into discourses which are reinforcing apparent and unapparent disability.<br><br>I’m honored to be joined by Ezra Benus, Anneli Goeller, and Yidan Zeng. Each one of them played an active role within the exhibition and conference, be it through advising, organizing, or participating, and have generously provided their expertise and knowledge as we continue to learn and work through notions of access and disability.<br><br>Ezra Benus studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem, the University of Amsterdam, and graduated with a degree in Studio Art (honors) and Jewish Studies at CUNY Hunter College. Benus was an Erich Fromm Fellow at Paideia Institute in Stockholm, and is currently the Access and Adult Learning Fellow at the Brooklyn Museum. He has spoken publicly about his art practice and disability arts activism at venues such as CUE Art Foundation, York College, and Princeton University. He has exhibited and performed nationally and internationally at a number of venues, including Jerusalem, Stockholm, New York, Dayton, and Calgary.<br><br>Anneli Goeller is an artist who uses 3D simulation and artificial intelligence to speculate that the creation of algorithmic selves expands the concept of personhood. They have been exhibited internationally at institutions such as the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center in New York, Peripheral Forms in Portland, Lithium Gallery in Chicago as well as the Palazzo dei Cartelloni in Florence. In virtual space their work has been featured in The Wrong - New Digital Art Biennale and The Universal Sea. They are currently a MFA candidate in Film, Video, New Media, Animation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago<br><br>Yidan Zeng (曽一丹) is an intimacy investigator currently wandering/wondering through New York. She uses fabric, movement, and touch to explore multi-sensual forms for connection. She's been a Digital Accessibility Fellow with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (2017), a Create Change Fellow with The Laundromat Project (2018), a visiting glass artist at The University of Hawai'i in Mānoa (2018), and a recipient of the Queens Arts Intervention Grant (2019). She’s also half of a performance duo, Os&En, and has performed in Miami, Providence, and on and off the streets of NYC. Yidan received her BA and BFA from the Brown-RISD Dual Degree Program in Computer Science and Glass.<br><br>--<br>Lola Martinez | they/them<br>Eyebeam/REFRESH Curatorial and Engagement Fellow<br><br>EYEBEAM<br><br>Visit Refiguring the Future: Exhibition Feb 8 - Mar 31<br><br>199 Cook Street<br>Suite 104<br>Brooklyn, NY, 11206<br><br>M. +1 305 586 4728<br><a href="http://www.eyebeam.org" target="_blank">www.eyebeam.org</a><br></div>
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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></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail-m_-873418022850389179gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Yidan Zeng | she/her</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Production and Administrative Assistant</span></p><p style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">for <i>Refiguring the Future</i></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:700;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">EYEBEAM</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><i style="font-family:Arial"><u><a href="http://eyebeam.org/rtf" target="_blank"><font color="#6aa84f">Visit the Refiguring the Future exhibition Feb 8 - Mar 31</font></a></u></i><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><a href="https://www.google.com/maps?q=199+Cook+Street,+Suite+104,+Brooklyn,+NY,+11206" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><font color="#6aa84f">199 Cook Street</font></span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><a href="https://www.google.com/maps?q=199+Cook+Street,+Suite+104,+Brooklyn,+NY,+11206" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><font color="#6aa84f">Suite 104</font></span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><a href="https://www.google.com/maps?q=199+Cook+Street,+Suite+104,+Brooklyn,+NY,+11206" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><font color="#6aa84f">Brooklyn, NY, 11206</font></span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">T.</span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(224,102,102);background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><font color="#6aa84f">+1 347 378 9163</font></span></span><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><a href="http://www.eyebeam.org/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><font color="#6aa84f">www.eyebeam.org</font></span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.44;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><a href="http://www.eyebeam.org/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(224,102,102);background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/kd3PSELCtFC8ahYJs8yyqfFJ3cHLWz57yYNSjY68HNEnco4rK1fjOzVWSVwS49_1VAMvCiwnmKoOQePxLcReZRjMiWR1ihwibgl3jBn59IN3MJqyrUP_jqMaudXAWJPCmaARE9b6" width="16" height="16" style="border: none;"></span></a><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><a href="https://twitter.com/eyebeamnyc" target="_blank"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/1BtJCITeXXcVQjXmCBP8ME68EDVKxmqoWFhTtJzUz58UF5b_WCy6XVbstxw55FFe_hR7TzTh9SEQk3QsDYRV-VFg_Zso3XR9Md9BkvdBtN7wscJgpjVcKHEDlcEbE4zXRHuNTjs4" width="16" height="16" style="border: none;"></a></span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/eyebeamnyc/" target="_blank"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/mflpkxE_Lh9-4FWvz0KV3MIgfFMv0OEukaUQhE5BEm5bfo-RkT7mXz48iv0BC_zSIoEp1of-g0-yM6HYez258zRV6K6wZOjz2u58K7SArM1fvv6Wx4dhNwlWjJ5QrhLuiAe4I6Rd" width="16" height="16" style="border: none;"></a></span></span><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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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></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="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"><font size="2"><font color="#000000">Anneli Goeller (they/them)</font><br></font></div><div dir="ltr"><font color="#000000" size="2">MFA Candidate in Film, Video, New Media, Animation</font><div><font color="#000000" size="2">School of the Art Institute of Chicago </font></div><div><a href="mailto:agoeller@saic.edu" target="_blank"><font color="#0000ff" size="2">agoeller@saic.edu</font></a></div><div><a href="http://anneligoeller.net" target="_blank"><font color="#0000ff" size="2">anneligoeller.net</font></a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>