[-empyre-] week one | mobile apps and environmental performance

[Patricia Zimmermann]

A few thoughts on the current moment, mobile apps, environmental
performances, by way of not wrapping up or summarizing our last week, but
by way of opening up some threads.  My heart and mind are heavy with the
news from Paris and the attacks.  I read in Le Monde last night that the
hashtag #porteouverte rippled through social media to help people find
places to stay after the attacks.  The idea porteouverte is so powerful on
so many levels, an insistence that doors opened and spaces reclaimed in
small acts matters in any and all crises. Open door seems identify and mark
this moment. At least, it is a phrase and action that is necessary.

As I write this, I am coming off a week of student protests across the
United States about race, student debt, inequality.  I never thought I
would see the day where football players change the course of a university.

 And I never thought I would see the sidewalks of the quad at Ithaca
College in upstate New York lined--no, crammed, jammed-- with students in a
die-in, laying down in the rain, holding signs that proclaimed TOM ROCHON
NO CONFIDENCE  (he is the President of Ithaca College) and POC at IC  (people
of color at IC).  There were over 2,000 students, faculty and staff at this
walk out, in what must be a record for political actions on our campus (I
have heard some of the actions during the anti-war in Vietnam movement were
as large, but can't document that).  At the original Blue Sky event,
 panelists--not one an academic--disparaged classes and "book learning" as
a holdover from the middle ages. And where students--considered legal
adults in the US--were trivialized through a familialist language calling
them "kids".  The billionaire described going to an island off the coast of
Bali and being reinvigorated by the "primitiveness" of residents who did
not have cell phones.

 At a campus wide event the President convened to have a dialogue on race
and diversity after the uproar over a Blue Sky reimagining event where a
billionaire alum referred to an African American alum as a "savage" and as
a "girl" over 2500 students and faculty walked out, chanting.The POC at IC had
occupied the stage and read their critiques of our current administration's
inaction on race.

The walk out at Ithaca College on Wednesday was mobilized through social
media and face to face networks. None of the faculty who attended--me
included--had any knowledge that the students would do a die-in with 20
minutes of silence.  I found the contrast/contradiction between the
intensity of the chants and then the 20 minutes of silence to be powerful.
I am still thinking about it.

The days before this action featured many social media messages that other
campuses were standing with Ithaca College, carrying signs that said their
schools stood with Ithaca College.  Hamilton College. Wells College.
Amherst College. USC.  Probably more.  It was this last week that I
realized these student protests on race and inequality and student debt are
a national movement. I realized that Ithaca College is not standing and
fighting alone.

There are also myriad faculty issues--we have voted to do a no confidence
vote in our President, with voting starting November 30.  Our issues are
multiple, layered, and urgent, and resonate with many other campuses in the
US and of course around the globe:  corporatization of the board,
disconnect between the virtual imagined worlds of the admin with their
corporate consultants and the granularity of teaching and research,
problematic relationships of gagging student media and other voices,
endless institution of reimagining plans for our institution with virtually
no faculty governance, firing of staff for budget remedies, the explicit
production of a culture of fear and paranoia and silence that robs our
academic community of exactly the kind of robust conversations and debates
it needs to protect, enhance, provide space for.

I read Ismail's post about the struggles of students and staff in South
Africa with great interest and empathy. The barricading of the university.
The occupation of the administrative building to argue for workers to earn
a dignified salary.  The arrests of 150 students and staff.  The daily and
weekly marches to Parliament.  And what I read rerouted me to see that
universities are engaged in a transnational struggle with very high
stakes.  I also realized I have not read any coverage of what Ismail
describes in any of the more mass market news sources I read.  And that I
know about this struggle through a symposium Tim mounted at Cornell,
through FB posts and links, through articleds by Premesh Lalu, and through
Empyre.

As I walked to the walk out Wednesday at the IC campus, I noticed many vans
of regional and national news organizations.  I do not think I have ever
seen as many reporters --local, regional, national--on the Ithaca College
campus. The coverage was astounding to me, as we are a small school of
6,000 in upstate  New York. When I tell many people I teach at Ithaca
College outside the US, I am often asked if I work at Cornell. Stories in
the NYT, Huffington Post, Guardian, Time, Democracy Now.

But maybe this national and international coverage is not the whole story.
Ismail points out that organizers in South AFrica are using What's App as a
primary organizing tool for actions, food and supplies, employing Twitter,
and supplying vidoes to YouTube.  The POC@ IC refuses to give interviews or
talk to any mainstream new organization or media, issuing instead
statements.  This tactic has lead to many more voices being interviewed,
including faculty.  But the mobilizing and dialogues appear to be happening
in social media, in the realm of apps and interfaces, and even in old
fashioned handouts with no attribution listing the case against the IC
administration.

I do not want to make the claim that this is the "twitter revolution" as
once announced about the Arab Spring actions.

What I see is that there are multiple worlds and multiple technologies
complicating and enhancing political mobilizations.  They sometimes are
separate, and sometimes intersect.  The moment feels new--and urgent.

Porteouverte.

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
>
>
>
>
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>
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