[-empyre-] Transitions: "New Media and the Middle East"

[Renate Ferro]

Hello, everyone.

As we transition into a new discussion in February of "New Media and 
the Middle East," we want to express our appreciation to Simon Biggs 
and all of the featured guests of January for leading us in such a 
fascinating and important discussion of the Netopticon.  What a 
tremendously exciting way to bring -empyre- into the new decade.  So 
thanks so much, Simon, for your contributions to the moderating team 
of -empyre- by directing our focus to such an important and lively 
topic.

While we often seek to program transitions from the focal theme of 
one month to the next on -empyre-, they don't often come quite as 
naturally as they do now.  Clearly we didn't foresee the flow of 
current events when over the past couple of months we starting 
approaching featured guests for this month's discussion.   It's very 
likely that recent discussions of the impact of social networking on 
events in Egypt will flavor this month's discussion and profit from 
last month's wide-ranging consideration of the Netopticon.
But just as the centrality of Twitter and Facebook to the Middle East 
uprisings have been subject to critical debate on our sister list, 
iDC, over the past week, our hope is that added focus on the ongoing 
artistic, curatorial, and critical projects of our featured guests 
will provide an additional context for understanding the relationship 
of new media, art, and the cultures and politics of the Middle East.

To do so, we're very happy to be joined this month by an 
exceptionally diverse set of guests whose practices and approaches 
derive from very different specific relations to the geopolitical 
landscape of the Middle East.  Our aim in managing -empyre- has been 
to maintain a robust international perspective, and we're now pleased 
that this month's discussion promises to broaden not only our list's 
perspective about the international range of artistic work and 
critical thought pertaining to technology and the arts but also, and 
most importantly, about the interrelation of projects in new media 
art to the geopolitical environments in which they occur.

We look forward to another robust month of discussion of -empyre-, 
and we thank all of our 1,450 subscribers for their commitment to the 
list.

Best wishes,

Renate and Tim

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


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