[-empyre-] Introducing Week 3 on empyre: Viral Economies: Hactivating Design

[Renate Ferro]

Many thanks to Zach, Daniel and David for being our guests this week
on empyre.  I'm am hoping that they will continue to participate
throughout the rest of the month as their schedules permit.  As the
discussion threads continue on grids and viruses I'd like to introduce
Art Jones, Ricardo Dominguez, and Brooke Singer as our guests this
week.  They are great friends and have all visited us in Upstate New
York here at Cornell.  I have attach their biographies below and look
forward hearing about their recent work.

Art Jones is an image/sound manipulator working with film, digital
video, and hybrid media. His films/videos, CD-ROMs, live
audio/videomixes and installations often concern the
inter-relationships between popular music, visual culture, history,
and power. As a VJ he has performed with a variety of musicians and
artists, including Soundlab, DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, DJ T-Ina,
Amiri Baraka, Femmes with Fatal Breaks, and Alec Empire and Phillip
Virus. He has completed a trilogy of music videos and a CD-ROM, and
continues to perform at various locations in Chicago and New York. He
is from the Bronx and lives and works in and between Chicago and New
York.

Ricardo Dominguez is a co-founder of The Electronic Disturbance
Theater (EDT), a group who developed Virtual-Sit-In technologies in
1998 in
solidarity with the Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico. He is a
co-Director of Thing (http://post.thing.net) an ISP for artists and
activists. His recent Electronic Disturbance Theater project with
Brett Stabaum, Micha Cardenas and Amy Sara Carroll the *Transborder
Immigrant Tool* (http://bang.calit2.net/xborder ) - (a GPS cellphone
safety net tool for crossing the Mexico/U.S border was the winner of
"Transnational Communities Award", this award was funded by *Cultural
Contact*, Endowment for Culture Mexico - U.S. and handed out by the
U.S. Embassy in Mexico), also funded by CALIT2 and two Transborder
Awards from the UCSD Center for the Humanities. Ricardo is an
Associate Professor at UCSD in the Visual Arts Department, a Hellman
Fellow, and Principal/Principle Investigator at CALIT2
(http://bang.calit2.net). He also co-founder of *particle group* with
artists Diane Ludin, Nina Waisman, Amy Sara Carroll
(http://pitmm.net). *particle group* has a new project archive
entitled "nanosfÉRICA" at
(http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/particle-group-intro) and you
can also find a video meditation by EDT and *particle group" entitled,
"(nano_Garage(s): Speculations about (Open Fabbing)" here:
http://medialabprado.es/article/nanogarajes_especulaciones_sobre_fabbing_abierto

 Brooke Singer is a media artist who lives in New York City. Her work
blurs the borders between science, technology, politics and arts
practices. She
works across media to provide entry into important social issues that
are often characterized as specialized to a general public. She has
exhibited at the Warhol Museum of Art, The Banff Centre, Neuberger
Museum of Art,Diverseworks, Exit Art, FILE Electronic Festival, Sonar
Music and Multimedia Festival, The Whitney Artport, among others.
Recent awards and commissions include a New York State Council on the
Arts (NYSCA) Individual Artist award, a Headlands Center for Arts
residency, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority
(NYSERDA) award, a New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) fellowship
and an Eyebeam and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) Social
Sculpture commission. She is currently Associate Professor of New
Media at Purchase College, State University of New York, and
co-founder of the art, technology and activist group Preemptive Media.

 Renate Ferro
 Visiting Assistant Professor
 Department of Art
 Cornell University, Tjaden Hall
Ithaca, NY  14853

 Email:   <rtf9 at cornell.edu>
 Website:  http://www.renateferro.net

Co-moderator of _empyre soft skinned space
 http://www.subtle.net/empyre
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre

Art Editor, diacritics
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/dia/