[-empyre-] Zombies!
Scott L. Minneman
minneman at onomy.com
Thu May 31 12:24:46 EST 2012
I missed Tim's not first time through/past. Much as I'm a fan of culture
jamming and thought-provoking interventions in the public sphere, can we
really express any surprise any longer when things like this NYC plastic bag
(bomb!) incident happen?
A friend of ours here in San Francisco installed a suspicious-looking art
piece in a bus stop on Van Ness. They closed the street, they cancelled the
opera - they tracked the item back to him by finding the store he bought a
key component in, and then got his name from his credit card info. He got
roped into many hours of public service, but he's lucky it wasn't much
worse, given the financial fallout and such.
I'm not sure how anybody can make a piece like this and not realize that
there's a significant risk that some overzealous local law enforcement or
possibly a "homeland security" type is going to throw the book at them
if/when somebody freaks out. I agree that it's more than a little
sad.especially when charges appear to have escalated (like.how is it that
something so non-bomb can trigger such charges (like those benign blinky
figurines in Boston a few years ago)).
People are dumb.*really* dumb. Not spending some thought thinking about how
to insulate yourself from the stupidity of others is silly. As a designer
of public interactives, I've spent countless hours musing about (and usually
addressing) the myriad ways that things I've designed and/or built could
cause harm to people who use them wrong (unintentionally and even
intentionally). I wish I could count on people having some common sense,
but I think it's become common sense not to put ourselves into situations
where the common sense of others is being counted on.
Let's talk about something important, like people eating other people's
faces and not responding to being hit with rounds from a firearm. Can you
say Zombie Apocalypse? .sure you can.
slm
From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
[mailto:empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Renate Ferro
Sent: Monday, May 28, 2012 10:21 AM
To: soft_skinned_space
Subject: [-empyre-] empyre for May closing down on Thursday: anyone else out
there care to comment?
Hello to all empyre subscribers and the guests of this month's discussion.
I would like to ask any of this months invited guests to take the next few
days to comment further on any of the past weeks discussions. I will be
closing down the discussion on Thursday the 31st. Particularly Anne's
guests from this fourth week of the discussion. It would be great if you
could post and tell us about your own work and projects in relation to the
topic.
Many thanks. Renate
On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 4:13 AM, Timothy Conway Murray <tcm1 at cornell.edu>
wrote:
Hi, all,
I just came across a news item that the upscale furniture designer, Takeshi
Miyakawa, has been arrested in New York for installing "fake bombs" around
New York City. The 'bombs' were hung in trees and lightposts in celebration
of Design Week and consisted of plastic bags with the I Love NY logo, which
were illuminated from within by LEDs mounted on a little plastic box.
One panicked phone call to the police resulted in Miyakawa's being charge
with "reckless endangerment and placing false bombs and criminal nuisance."
The judge ordered him sequestered for 30 days of mental evaluation!
What more can be said about this designerly installation being literalized
as 'revolutionary technology." Given the tabloid nature of this, I share
with you the link from the NY Post:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/artist-takeshi-miyakawa-charged-art-inst
allation-draws-panic-article-1.1081674
Tim
Read more:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/artist-takeshi-miyakawa-charged-art-inst
allation-draws-panic-article-1.1081674#ixzz1vUQgBwbM
Director, Society for the Humanities
Curator, Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art
Professor of Comparative Literature and English
A. D. White House
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York. 14853
________________________________________
From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
[empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] on behalf of Anne Balsamo
[annebalsamo at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 6:43 PM
To: soft_skinned_space
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] [-empyre-} Consumer Technology as Revolutionary
Technology?
To push the topic thread in a slightly different direction, I'd like to go
back to a point that Margaret raised about "consumer technologies becoming
revolutionary technology."
Directs attention away from the level of innovation that we've been
commenting on, i.e., innovation by embedded institutional participants, to a
consideration of innovation EVERYWHERE: on the street, in the garage, as a
way of making do. This opens up the issue of the cultural implications and
possible impact of what in the US is referred to as DIY, Maker or Hacker
culture.
"The street finds its own use for things," as Gibson wrote 20 years ago.
What's different now? I'd be interested in pointers to critical analyses
that seek to make sense of the cultural shifts--these moments of disassembly
and reassembly--that don't privilege a technology or medium.
> As I reflect on my years-long collaboration with Jon, Scott and Dale, this
is what I think of: first we (by "we" I mean the culture at the time)
muddled along designing new technologies-originating social media. Then,
last year, consumer technology became revolutionary technology. The actions
of the Arab Spring, propelled by social media, transformed a region of the
globe. Activists deployed available technology and created a collaborative
space for organizing dissent. At this time, the outcome of these
revolutions is uncertain, but the utility of their methods of communication
is unquestionable. And this powerful shift in the media landscape, allows
me to think of the work we did together as a miniscule part of an enormous
cultural shift. And from the standpoint of design, provides a vital and
renewable form to go with the function of our technological devices.<
On May 7, 2012, at 4:03 PM, Jon Winet wrote:
> Cherry-picking Anne's comments and dark observations with some of my own
...
>
> On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 3:02 PM, Anne Balsamo <annebalsamo at gmail.com>
wrote:
>> Thanks Mark for kicking up the dust!
>>
>> Some comments and dark observations follow:
>>
>> On 5/5/12 1:14 PM, "Mark Stephen Meadows" <mark at markmeadows.com> wrote:
>>
> [snip]
>
>>> you are what you search, right?
>>
>> Yes and no. What gets reflected back (based on the gleanings of my
digital
>> wanderings) is a reflection in a cracked mirror. I still believe it to
be a
>> case of garbage in = garbage out. Do I feel important, understood or
>> recognized when the sidebars on my search or FB page reflect back to me
my
>> recent digital preoccupations: horses, dating sites for women over 50,
>> non-prescription sleeping aids? Does anyone even pay attention to that
>> slice of digital wall paper? Image saturation and obsessive repetition
>> makes me inured to the message.
>>
>> I built a prototype of a reverse oracle: When you enter a
technology-based
>> search term, what gets "returned" is not results & instances of usage in
>> random contexts, but rather questions.
>>
>> I am my questions, not my search terms. SIRI notwithstanding, this may be
my
>> last defense against the singularity.
>>
>
> Apparently I'm quote-happy in this convo. Zeroing in on your final
> statement, quoting the February 14, 2011 NYTimes article* quoting John
> Seely Brown, brought front and center into the mainstream conversation
> during the Jeopardy match of the millennium, regarding Watson, a form
> of UI far more transparent than Google's quasi-mystical search
> logarithm:
>
> "Indeed, for the computer scientist John Seely Brown, machines that
> are facile at answering questions only serve to obscure what remains
> fundamentally human.
>
> 'The essence of being human involves asking questions, not answering
> them,' he said."
>
> I'm pretty sure I can hold onto that ray of hiope as well, as it
> certainly also identifies the heart and soul of avant garde creative
> practice, to operate and experiment working outside of the narrow
> angle of too much of quotidian experience.
>
> * "A Fight to Win the Future: Computers vs. Humans"
> By John Markoff
>
> [major snip]
>
>> Repression is a pain-management technique.
>>
>
> Amen to that, sister! - And a tried and true technique as old as
> civilization itself if Dr. Freud had it right ...
>
> ______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre
--
Renate Ferro
Visiting Assistant Professor of Art
Cornell University
Department of Art, Tjaden Hall Office #420
Ithaca, NY 14853
Email: <rtf9 at cornell.edu>
URL: http://www.renateferro.net
http://www.privatesecretspubliclies.net
Lab: http://www.tinkerfactory.net
Managing Co-moderator of -empyre- soft skinned space
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/attachments/20120530/52de3d02/attachment.htm>
More information about the empyre
mailing list