[-empyre-] Debra Tolchinsky: Resolution for Digital Futures

[Timothy Murray]

In light of Barack Obama's masterful use of the digital 
infrastructure, I've been thinking a lot about the power of that 
infrastructure including its ability to connect millions of people 
around a particular idea, person or conversation. I've also  been 
thinking about how that power is so often squandered by numbing us 
and/or overloading us with too much information, simplified 
information, and sound bytes rather than substantive arguments and 
reflective artistic experiences.  I have no answers except to be 
aware of the dark side and the light side of the digital.  What can I 
do that adds to the conversation rather than just creates more noise? 
 How can we make sure there are quiet, slow reflective moments and 
how can we guard against being too expulsive with our information 
just because there is an easy way to get it out there, as we embrace 
all that the digital can help us accomplish including electing a new 
kind of leader and perhaps creating new kinds of political, cultural, 
artistic and electronic movements.

Debra Tolchinsky (US) is an assistant professor in Northwestern 
University's Department of Radio-TV-Film, and a multidisciplinary 
artist working in documentary film, emergent media, and curatorial 
practice.  Her work centers on the relationship between technology, 
medicine, and horror.  Recently she co-curated The Horror Show, at 
the Chicago City Arts Gallery which investigated -- via film, video 
installation, photography, and painting -- what is nasty, what is 
ubiquitous, but also what is not necessarily apparent ..  The show 
will travel to the Dorsky Gallery in Long Island City in August of 
2009.  Currently she is directing a feature documentary on college 
speed debate.  She holds a BA from USC School of Cinema-Television 
and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

-- 
Renate Ferro and Tim Murray
Co-Moderators, -empyre- a soft-skinned-space
Department of Art/ Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art
Cornell University