[-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 131, Issue 7

Sat Nov 14 03:48:51 AEDT 2015

Thanks, Ismail — and apologies for my delayed reply.

As the students at UCT were occupying administrative buildings, students at various campuses in the United States, such as Yale University and University of Missouri — as well as Patty’s institution Ithaca College and my former institution Amherst College — have been raising awareness of the racial inequities that have been institutionalized in higher education. I’ve been following the developments from afar through images and summaries posted on Facebook.

How do the students at UCT and other South African universities manage the centralized control over mobile and internet networks? 

I’m interested to hear what others have to think about the use of mobile apps and social networking platforms as tools for such protests and uprisings. In one of my classes last week, we reflected back on 2011 by looking at art exhibits in Tunisia and the destruction of the Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain. What other examples are people discussing?

Best,
Dale

On Nov 10, 2015, at 12:24, Ismail Farouk <ismail.farouk at gmail.com> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Dear Patty and Dale,
> 
>  
> Thank you both for your responses. To provide more context, as I write this email students at UCT are occupying the administration building in solidarity with workers who are fighting for dignified salaries, medical benefits and pension funds. This protest forms part of a larger campaign to #endoutsourcing at all universities across South Africa and was initiated by #rhodesmustfall. Over the past month, students have been barricading access points to campus, using their own bodies, along with large rocks and other large objects to bring about a #nationalshutdown. In addition, students have been protesting in the streets almost daily, and there have been weekly marches to parliament, where government are being held to task as students demand free education through the #feesmustfall campaign. Over the weekend, over 150 students and staff were arrested at the University of Johannesburg, and there continues to be a highly militarised police presence at the historically black universities like UWC, where Pramesh Lalu teaches. 
> 
>  
> On the ground, mobile apps like Whatsapp have been the primary organising tool for communicating ongoing actions, for raising funds and for organising food and supplies from support networks. Beyond the use of hash tags, and the use of Twitter, which has been powerful in the fight against media hegemony, students have turned to the medium of documentary film to highlight issues around ongoing discrimination and inequalities at tertiary institutions. See #Outsourced and #Luister on Youtube. 
> 
>  
> I hope my short post has helped by providing some context on the types of tools and media being used and the interplay between the digital and the embodied. Patty could you elaborate what you mean by transnational consideration?
> 
>  
> Thank you,
> 
> Ismail
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 9 November 2015 at 03:00, <empyre-request at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au> wrote:
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> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> 
> Today's Topics:
> 
>    1. Re: week one | mobile apps and environmental performance
>       (Patricia Zimmermann)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2015 15:45:57 +0000
> From: Patricia Zimmermann <patty at ithaca.edu>
> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] week one | mobile apps and environmental
>         performance
> Message-ID:
>         <BN4PR07MB220948B5528E317411558781DE160 at BN4PR07MB2209.namprd07.prod.outlook.com>
> 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
> 
> Ismail,
> 
> I am struck by the history implied in your post.  It's now ten years since your project SOWETO UPRISINGS, a radical reimagining of the multiple narrative routes of protest, a historiography that generates an archive as it also maps space differently.  The other part of your post describes the student uprisings in South Africa at the moment, a movement that has been virtually erased from news coverage in the US and Europe.  I only learned of it through a Facebook link and then through the  powerful talk on radical historiographic temporalities of Premesh Lalu at a recent closing lecture at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University (mounted by Tim Murray of Empyre).
> 
> You post is so powerful.
> 
> I wondered if you might share with our list what kinds of mapping, mobile, and organizing interfaces are being deployed in this new movement?  How do they intersect with the issues you outlined?  How do they move between the digital and the embodied?  And what kinds of mobilizations in both digital and embodied, on the ground demonstrations, are evolving? It strikes me that the current student movement in South Africa perhaps opens up our discussion of mobile apps and environmental performances towards a move transnational consideration.
> 
> Patty
> 
> Patricia R. Zimmermann, Ph.D.
> Professor of Screen Studies
> Roy H. Park School of Communication
> Codirector, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival
> 
> Ithaca College
> 953 Danby Road
> Ithaca, New York 14850 USA
> 
> http://faculty.ithaca.edu:83/patty/
> http://www.ithaca.edu/fleff
> 
> 
> ________________________________________
> From: empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au> on behalf of Dale Hudson <dale.hudson at nyu.edu>
> Sent: Friday, November 6, 2015 8:41 AM
> To: soft_skinned_space
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] week one | mobile apps and environmental performance
> 
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Thanks, Jeff.
> 
> Patty and I really loved the way that the PlantBots initiate discussions without the same potentially threatening affect of more direct approaches to documenting the health and environmental hazards of GMOs, which we imagined as a corollary of sorts to ways that corporations exercise intellectual property to discourage innovation with digital technologies and media content.
> 
> Could you tell us more about what you?re been doing int relation to pollinator decline? I would also be interested to know whether you and Wendy have been thinking of any of these issues in relation to indigenous rights?
> 
> Best,
> Dale
> 
> 
> On Nov 5, 2015, at 17:00, Jeff Schmuki <jschmuki at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> > Hello Dale and All,
> >
> > PlantBot Genetics began as a street-based project where we would release PlantBots into public spaces.  These humorous PlantBot Invasions would easily draw attention, and once someone stops for a moment, they will ask a question. Humor is a vital ingredient as it creates a safe place for the discussion to occur.  Those visiting hopefully come away empowered through links, published information, and guidelines for better food and environmental practices at home. Today we often use an 18? off-grid, trailer (ArtLab) converted into a mobile platform containing a library of information and hands-on activities. Most are surprised at the proliferation of GM products in the market and being unlabeled, we all are consuming them. Is it better to have a choice? When the project began in 2009, most were unaware of GMOs and wanted to learn more. Today many do know and while some just want to play with the PlantBots, complex discussions on supporting transparency in food labeling, suppor
>  ting local farming, composting, pollinator decline and native plants, always transpire. Everyone seems to have a good time and PlantBot fun transcends language wherever we are. GM research is being done worldwide today, and is a complex issue yet, "what will it all become" is an interesting question. PlantBot Genetics believes conversations from these events is powerful and provides the opportunities for change, whether it be at the individual level or through community-wide discourse. Most recently we have been focusing on pollinator decline in the US and abroad.
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> End of empyre Digest, Vol 131, Issue 7
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