<div dir="ltr"><span id="m_2300243246015075951gmail-docs-internal-guid-a0a85862-7fff-4664-9f6a-9837b90c29da"><p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0pt 0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(14,16,26);font-family:"Akkurat Std",sans-serif;font-size:19.125px;white-space:pre-wrap;line-height:1.38" dir="ltr"><span style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline">As I have been working towards making time to write a response to this conversation, I was struck by the </span><span style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline">irony of finding time to keep up on a conversation about trying to figure out how to slow down. The sort of absurdity loop that is often a catalyst for my work, and this conversation has touched on. It is difficult for me to express the value and to validate slowness. I understand it viscerally, but the lexicon of the efficiency economy does not seem to lend itself to equating slowness and success. I would include other passive actions such as listening and considerate reaction as undervalued as well. As much as I want to suggest a wholesale denial of the economy of efficiency, to commit to that act as an individual is unhelpful communally, and if it were to happen on a larger scale, far too violent and destructive for me to imagine fully. Also, this economy of efficiency is not all bad. It has been implemented without consideration, or, more optimistically, the results that manifest from implementation lead to unexpected inequality and violence. From this point, I want to address Alex’s questions, and dip my toe into the area of profane illuminations, which may be a solid foundation for a strange system of a slow-topia.</span></p><p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0pt 0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(14,16,26);font-family:"Akkurat Std",sans-serif;font-size:19.125px;white-space:pre-wrap;line-height:1.38" dir="ltr"> </p><p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0pt 0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(14,16,26);font-family:"Akkurat Std",sans-serif;font-size:19.125px;white-space:pre-wrap;line-height:1.38" dir="ltr"><span style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Any progress, concerning the ideas we are putting forth, has to be, in part, founded on the idea of empowering those absorbed by the black box of this system without choice. Social media as a whole feels like a place where that promise was made and poorly executed. What was promoted as a place for anyone to share themselves, has been shifted into a bizzarro reflection of society where outrage is currency. Perhaps, we can transform the current state of our interactions with social media. How can social media move from a cacophony of the individual into a unified voice? Moreover, how can that unified voice genuinely represent the unique strengths of each individual? This is one of the segments of a strange system where a lot of potential energy seems to just burst into entropy. Or any sort of communal use, such as the famous example of how Facebook was used during the Arab Spring, is isolated, patched, updated out or adapted, and weaponized against future similar uses.</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt" dir="ltr"><br style="color:rgb(14,16,26);font-family:"Akkurat Std",sans-serif;font-size:19.125px;white-space:pre-wrap"></p><p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0pt 0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(14,16,26);font-family:"Akkurat Std",sans-serif;font-size:19.125px;white-space:pre-wrap;line-height:1.38" dir="ltr"><span style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline">As for progress from the funnel cloud, the only thing I can think of is learning to make things with the dust so we can divert or co-opt the power of the tornadic forward plunge. I feel like combining this desire with your other question, Alex may be a way to find a path in a direction that we may find collectively beneficial. The question then is, how can slow-topias empower the subsumed individuals to discover a communal method of movement from the destructive storm of perpetual growth efficiency economy?</span></p><p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0pt 0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(14,16,26);font-family:"Akkurat Std",sans-serif;font-size:19.125px;white-space:pre-wrap;line-height:1.38" dir="ltr"> </p><p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0pt 0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(14,16,26);font-family:"Akkurat Std",sans-serif;font-size:19.125px;white-space:pre-wrap;line-height:1.38" dir="ltr"><span style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline">The call for small and slow, reminded me of Timothy Morton’s idea of subscendence, in short, the disruption of the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and insertion of the idea that the parts are more complex, not necessarily greater, than the whole. In conjunction with the questions posed, this idea offers a glimmer of hope that each individual who takes part in the system, has at the very least, the potential to incite a powerful shift in ideals. Additionally, through the principle of subscendence those who have access must crack open the black boxes to see the intricacies of the parts, and disseminate the information for others to explore. </span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt" dir="ltr"><br style="color:rgb(14,16,26);font-family:"Akkurat Std",sans-serif;font-size:19.125px;white-space:pre-wrap"></p><p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0pt 0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(14,16,26);font-family:"Akkurat Std",sans-serif;font-size:19.125px;white-space:pre-wrap;line-height:1.38" dir="ltr"><span style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline">One method of subscendent manipulation that would have extraordinary consequences is to shift how words are defined. By reconfiguring the concept of success to include the notion of more passive actions, the slowness would creep into the collective consciousness. While it would be a long process, the idea of changing the mentality of the efficiency economy overnight seems antithetical to the ideals of slowness. I suppose, with this example, the slow-topia becomes a sort of manifesto of considerate action for change.</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt" dir="ltr"><br style="color:rgb(14,16,26);font-family:"Akkurat Std",sans-serif;font-size:19.125px;white-space:pre-wrap"></p><p style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0pt 0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(14,16,26);font-family:"Akkurat Std",sans-serif;font-size:19.125px;white-space:pre-wrap;line-height:1.38" dir="ltr"><span style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Alex, I enjoy your ending on a hopeful note, and I would like to do the same. Yesterday, I was alerted to NASA’s discovery of evidence pointing towards the existence of ‘exotic physics,’ or an explanation outside the standard model. This was, of course, blown out of proportion and touted as the discovery of a parallel universe where time runs backward, but later other sources reeled in the story a bit. My understanding of this phenomenon is cursory at best, neutrinos coming from where they shouldn’t. Still, it does give me a sense of peace in the cosmic neutrality of the multiverse, the embrace of the vast, uncontrollable uncaring arms of the silent chaos of it all. While this is tangential from the conversation, I do find it that this sort of reminder of the vastness of the unknown unknowns helps me grasp the importance of slowing down.</span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt" dir="ltr"><br class="gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></p></span></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 12:07 PM Alex Young <<a href="mailto:info@worldshaving.info" target="_blank">info@worldshaving.info</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 class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif">Craig and Eric, I think this discussion is pulling in some interesting directions. However, s</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif">adly, the demands of the day are pulling me away... So, I just wanted to propose a few questions that are </span><span style="font-size:11pt">hopefully</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif"> not too </span><span style="font-size:11pt">pontifical?</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif"> </span><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif">Without getting too circular, I wonder if by making strange the strangeness of an inherited infrastructure—lurking somewhere behind a dazzle of appearances—that props up an insulated reality of ‘blackbboxed platform capitalism’ we are not explicitly speaking of empowering those that are alien or lost in subsumption to it?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif">Whether by design or some manner of monstrous unwitting kludge it would be difficult to discount the idea that there is some form of intent verging on teleology that has shaped the networks in question, even if the vehicle of that intent is beyond individual reason as something more memetic and acephalous. What is a teleology if not a succession of acts of further and further estrangement? In moving myopically forward, there is a left behind. How might we simultaneously resist the breakneck speed of present systems (toward slow _topias) and manifest an urgent realization of equitability for all who have been cast off, neglected, buried, villainized, etc. both human and other-than-human? How do we move—each and all—collectively onward after a prolonged funnel cloud-like rampage of moving forward?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif">While the shadows cast by those powerful entities driving toward unending growth blanket us with an apparent paucity of options: an end or exit is ultimately inevitable… but on whose terms? Today, I awoke to a glimmer of ‘hope’ upon seeing a friend had shared a link to Out of the Woods Collective’s new publication <i>Hope Against Hope </i>was immediately drawn to their notion of ‘disaster communism’—as outlined in its synopsis:</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> “the collective power to transform our future political horizons from the ruins and establish a climate future based in common life.</span>”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Fodder for coming ruderal _topia(s), I am sure.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">-Alex</span></p></div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr"><br></div></div></div>
_______________________________________________<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></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">Eric D. Charlton, MFA<div>Instructor and 3D Technical Specialist</div><div><a href="http://www.ericdcharlton.com" target="_blank">www.ericdcharlton.com</a></div><div><br></div><div>Allegheny College</div><div>Department of Art</div><div><div>520 N. Main St.</div><div>Meadville, PA 16335</div></div><div><br></div><div>Pronouns: he/him/his </div><div><br><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div>