[-empyre-] interactivity and Digital Futures

[sdv at krokodile.co.uk]

humm an interesting challenge is being posed here with the words 
"critical" and "tactical".

I am interested in the increasing normalization of the new media,  with 
the consequence that I was not to surprised to read that the Israeli 
State is making use of New Media, Twitter  and networks to manipulate 
opinion and legitimise it's colonial and imperial invasion of the Gaza 
Strip (urbicide). Not so much a "paradigm change implied by 
participatory play/ creativity" but  more another medium in the arsenal 
of capital. Surely this confirms that politicians no longer think solely 
in terms of geopolitical entities but increasingly also think of 
themselves as networks.

A sensible resolution then might be to ask - how we might prevent the 
new media becoming the network arm of the geopolitical nightmare ?

sdv

Timothy Murray wrote:
>> Johannes,
>>     
>
> If I read between the lines, I sense that your 
> "resolution" would be for "interactivity" to 
> respond to social questions about "how to care to 
> act, how to give and how to receive" but that you 
> are pessimistic about this possibility.  While 
> "interactivity" could surely result in non-social 
> behavior, I suspect that a good many subscribers 
> to -empyre- are invested in new media platforms 
> precisely for their social promise, whether it be 
> through "critical spatial practice," "eco-art," 
> "tactical media," etc.
>
> We would be very interested in receiving more 
> resolutions that detail the possibility of such 
> practices.
>
> Best,
>
>   Tim and Renate
>
>
>
>   
>> A few years ago it seemed inevitable that digital
>> culture and new media arts would
>> be based on interactivity and the paradigm
>> changes implied by participatory play/ creativity
>> and networking. The promise of a new aesthetics
>> of interaction made me think that technically
>> derived interface performances could adopt the
>> digital into social processes that also taught us
>> new techniques of behavior, new "acting"
>> techniques. So over the past few years, my lab in
>> Germany has been trying to publish a manifesto on
>> "interaction"
>> (http://interaktionslabor.de/manifesto.htm).
>> While we try, we also become more disillusioned.
>> In the new year, I want to examine why
>> interactivity (the technical kind) is not
>> working. And why the growth of virtual reality,
>> gaming environments and second lives does not
>> answer any social questions about how to care to
>> act, how to give and how to receive.
>>
>>
>>
>> (bio)
>>
>> Johannes Birringer (UK)  is a choreographer and
>> media artist. As artistic director of the
>> Houston-based AlienNation
>> Co.(www.aliennationcompany.com), he has created
>> numerous dance-theatre works, video installations
>> and digital projects in collaboration with
>> artists in Europe, the Americas, and China. His
>> most recent production, the digital oratorio
>> Corpo, Carne e Espírito,  premiered in Brasil in
>> 2008. He is founder of Interaktionslabor
>> Göttelborn in Germany
>> (http://interaktionslabor.de) and director of
>> DAP-Lab at Brunel University, West London, where
>> he is a Professor of Performance Technologies in
>> the School of Arts. His new book, Performance,
>> Technology and Science, was released by PAJ
>> Publications in 2008.
>>
>> --
>> Renate Ferro and Tim Murray
>> Co-Moderators, -empyre- a soft-skinned-space
>> Department of Art/ Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art
>> Cornell University
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>>     
>
>
>