Re: [-empyre-] PRNMS :stories and silences Forward from Joel Slayton

[Christina McPhee <christina112@earthlink.net>]

Hi all,  our mailman software keeps rejecting Joel's post, which he  
sent us earlier this morning.  Herewith as forward.
cm


From: Joel Slayton <joel@well.com>
Date: August 30, 2006 2:37:32 PM PDT
To: soft_skinned_space <empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] PRNMS :stories and silences


Hello everyone,



Thank you Christina and empyre for hosting this discussion.  The  
feedback and commentaries are important to us.  Perhaps it is useful  
for the readers if I recapitulate the premise of the Summit as a  
process rather than outcome.



In contrast to ISEA2006, the Summit was intended as an emergent  
process through which 8 international collaborative working groups  
would meet to discuss their activities and outcomes.  As a compliment  
to the Symposium and Festival where artworks, authored papers, and  
curated and juried artworks are presented, the Summit was intended to  
focus on the actualities of inter-cultural collaboration by providing  
a forum for intimate discourse and conversation.  The Working Groups  
were organized by the Chairs and the specific focus of activities  
defined by the members along with whatever working process, agenda  
and objectives made sense to them.  As a platform the Summit provided  
an opportunity to enable a set of interactions well in advance of the  
ISEA2006 and serve as a stepping stone for extruding what I referred  
to as transactions spaces that might evolve beyond the ISEA2006/ 
ZeroOne San Jose.



Why did we do it?  Well, San Jose is Pacific (in the globalized sense  
of the term). The histories, demographics, ethnicities, cultures,  
economy and politics are framed with in the dynamic of the regions  
networks and relations.  For us, it was a logical to take the  
position of learning more about who we are and what we might become  
through listening to the intelligences and experience of others.   
That was the objective, to open up, to learn, to share, to become  
informed by other perspectives.



We, of course, recognized that the politics are complicated and  
scaled across various imaginaries and theoretical positions.  It is  
unreasonable to assume that there is a shared politic, economic or  
social that is dominant.  My selection of Lu Jie and Saskia Sassen as  
keynotes for ISEA  were chosen specifically to illustrate the  
complexity represented in the gaps, the analytic borders and  
displaced spaces of operation that are raised in discourses on  
globalization, urbanization, trans-nationalism, migration, locality,  
community etc.



In my closing remarks I stated my view that the Paciifc Rim is a  
hueristic for navigating these issues and conditions with respect for  
plurality, not something to be defined.  From that perspective Raqs  
Pacific Parables fit nicely.



I extend my warmest regards and thanks to everyone who attended and  
contributed.



Joel