[-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 137, Issue 7

[Erin McElroy]

Hi everyone,



Thanks for the lovely introduction, Kyle, and nice to read about your amazing work, Macon and Miguel. It’s definitely an honor to be part of this week’s theme!



As Kyle mentioned, I cofounded and organize the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project (AEMP) – a data visualization, data analysis, and oral history collective documenting the dispossession and resistance of Bay Area residents in the wake of the “Tech Boom 2.0” (http://www.antievictionmap.com/) <http://www.antievictionmap.com)>.  The project began back in 2013 even though the ideas behind it had already been brewing. While displacement in the Bay Area goes back centuries, it was in 2011 with the advent of the Tech Boom, or what has also been referred to as the App Boom—essentially a huge surge of investment and capital flow percolating in Silicon Valley and diffusing across the region—that eviction rates in both San Francisco and Oakland began to rise. Of course the antecedent foreclosure crisis also led to a massive wave of dispossession, but with the Tech Boom, the urban landscape began to shift in unprecedented ways. Not only did eviction rates, levels of income inequality, and property values begin to rise, unevenly across neighborhoods, but also city infrastructure began to change in novel ways. For instance, public bus stops became coopted by private tech companies, causing nearby property values to disproportionately rise, along with attendant eviction rates: http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/techbusevictions.html.  Public playgrounds suddenly became reservable on smartphone apps, leading to inflammations such as those caused by the “Dropbox Dudes” in which white male employees of large tech companies (Dropbox and Airbnb) attempted to kick youth of color off a playground in which they had been playing pickup soccer for years. And the list goes on: http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/publicspace.html. 



The AEMP fomented in response to this moment, to document the metamorphosis of the cityscape, as well as correlative modalities of resistance. Along these lines, we sought to produce data analysis working with (rather than “for,” pace Kim Tallbear) collectives aspiring for revolutionary change. Following a politic of mutual aid, we sought to produce tools based on knowledge not produced at an objective distance, but alongside activists and community organizations critical of the growing entanglement of venture capital, real estate, luxury development, increased racial profiling, and high tech.



Since producing our first map of what are called Ellis Act Evictions in SF (http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/ellis.html) <http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/ellis.html)>, we’ve produced dozens and dozens of maps, visualizations, and analyses. We’ve also recorded nearly 170 oral history and video tracks, documenting complex life and neighborhood histories: http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/narratives.html <http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/narratives.html>. While we began our cartographic ventures utilizing San Francisco data, from the start we hoped to produce regional work, and now, with the help of some of our partners such as the statewide group Tenants Together, we’ve been able to obtain eviction data for Oakland, Fremont, the City of Alameda, Santa Monica, and Los Angeles, and are in the midst of producing new work accordingly. We’re also building out a new web framework to house our data sets so that people can run queries and better study relationality/causality. We’ve currently got a map (that we’re expanding regionally) that allows members of the public to look up eviction histories of buildings in San Francisco and determine if the building has an eviction history, and if so, pledge not to rent or buy from a speculator/landlord that profits by eviction: http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/pledge/ <http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/pledge/>. As I learned not too long ago, the original use of the word “boycott” stems from nineteenth-century Ireland when tenants of a slumlord by the name of Sir Charles Boycott decided to go on a rent strike, and so with this tool we’re endeavoring a reclamation of its original utilization. After all, as we found in San Francisco, 80 percent of Ellis Act evictions transpire within the first five years of ownership, and 60 percent within the first year alone, thus proving the speculative nature of such evictions.



At any rate, one of the central questions that the AEMP hovers over, and invariably returns to, involves the material weight of techno-utopianism. The augmented humanity and virtuality built and disseminated by large technology corporations and their constituents is often posed as salvific, yet is constituted by a dispossessive physics. For instance, Silicon Valley corporations support their employees living in “cool, hip” cities such as San Francisco and Oakland by providing private “Google buses” to enable reverse commuting to and from work, but obviate that such infrastructure facilitates the forced mobility of those squeeze out of their homes by real estate speculators eager to capitalize on tech salaries. Or, sharing economy corporations such as Airbnb support the lifestyles of transient tech workers who live (albeit precariously) in “digerati dorms,” often in dwellings once comprising poor and working-class long-term tenancies. Airbnb in fact contributed $8.3 million in San Francisco 2015 elections to prevent enforcement of regulatory policies that would help ensure the viability of long-term affordable housing. Yet sharing economy corporations often promulgate a logic in which their technologies are destined to ensure a new genre of humanity in which “routes” are more desired than “roots,” and in which mobility is fantasized, as long as it comes attached to liquid capital. And, interestingly, this trend has surfaced in the humanities too, often championing the age of the posthuman. 



While I am critical of the techno-utopian logic emanating out of technology corporations, and out of posthumanist discourse for that matter, I am interested in thinking through the revolutionary potential of technology. While I understand the desire to follow a neo-Luddite trajectory, especially for those dispossessed of home in the heart of Silicon Valley, I do remain hopeful of technological spaces and projects that are comprised of alternate logics, values, and imaginaries, and in part, it is this kind of hope that helps feed the Mapping Project.



I’ll leave it at here for now, and I’m looking forward to the conversation this week!

 

Erin

 




> On May 10, 2016, at 7:00 PM, <empyre-request at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au> <empyre-request at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au> wrote:
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> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
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> Today's Topics:
> 
>   1. ALL CALL:  moderator needed for MAY, -empyre at ISEA, and
>      Staying in touch (Renate Terese Ferro)
>   2. Week 2: Social Practice and the logics of Neoliberalism
>      (kyle mckinley)
>   3. Week 2: Social Practice and the logics of Neoliberalism
>      (Elizalde, Miguel)
>   4. (no subject) (Macon Reed)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 16:42:07 +0000
> From: Renate Terese Ferro <rferro at cornell.edu>
> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: [-empyre-] ALL CALL:  moderator needed for MAY, -empyre at
> 	ISEA, and Staying in touch
> Message-ID: <0ADB191A-784C-4728-A676-E578F589F698 at cornell.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> Hi all  
> Before Kyle jumps in to introduce week 2 he has graciously allowed me to make a brief all call and once announcement about ISEA. \\
> 
> Important announcements for our subscribers: 
> 
> 1.  We unfortunately do not have a moderator for the June discussion on -empyre.  If any of our subscribers has a timely topic and a group of guests who may take the month?s discussion over please email me as soon as you can.  
> 
> 2. We are excited to announce that -empyre-soft-skinned space will manifest itself in physical space for the upcoming ISEA Hong Kong Conference http://isea2016.isea-international.org/ 
> -empyre- will  be featured in a panel discussion but we are planning a Meet and Greet as well!  See below about the specifics of both.
> 
> May 20th, Friday 11:30 to 12:30 in CMC Room 2:  PANEL F2.2- E-discourse In Online Networked Communities: Structure, Timing, Tone, And Affect.
> 
> https://isea2016.scm.cityu.edu.hk/openconf/modules/request.php?module=oc_program&action=program.php&p=program
> Participants: 
> Renate Ferro, Cornell University: the list-serv ?empyre- soft-skinned space
> Timothy Murray, Cornell University: e-curating: global networks and curator
> Maurice Benayoun, City University of Hong Kong: the blog-the Memory Dump, the disregarded power of undone art
> Randall Packer, Nanyang Technological University: the e-conference- Collapsing the Walls of the Arts Conference
> 
> May 20th, Friday 12:30 to 2:30 in the CMC Lobby, for Lunch,  LOOK FOR THE -empyre buttons on attendees.
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> Follow us on TWITTER and FACEBOOK for more information.
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> Facebook   https://www.facebook.com/groups/empyrelistserv/
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> Follow us to stay in touch!  
> LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING MANY OF YOU.
> Renate
> 
> 
> Renate Ferro
> Visiting Associate Professor
> College of Architecture, Art and Planning
> Department of Art
> Tjaden Hall 306
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 23:08:12 -0700
> From: kyle mckinley <bicirider at gmail.com>
> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: [-empyre-] Week 2: Social Practice and the logics of
> 	Neoliberalism
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAHBJU_KxnsGDXWOZyJFrcBMG078xu5nCLLu5hsB3mqKg1JNn9g at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> hi everyone,
> In this week's discussion about the politics of social practice we'll shift
> our focus to thinking concretely about the practices of a few of our
> guests, and how those practices attempt to confront neoliberalism and
> gentrification. Those guests are Miguel Elizalde, Erin McElroy, and Macon
> Reed -- see bios below. I've asked each guest to simply describe a recent
> or on-going project, and, where applicable, reflect on themes of social
> practice and social reproduction that surfaced last week.
> 
> Miguel Elizalde (Spain / US) is a Spanish artist and educator living in
> Winona, Minnesota. Words were his first tool, later was video and nowadays
> is space & sound. Nowadays, most of his work is about the presence of
> infrasound in public spaces, however, I continue using any of those three
> tools depending of the project.
> 
> He also has 20 years of experience creating commercial communication
> campaigns for all type of brands and companies. At this time, he holds the
> position of Assistant Professor of Transmedia at Winona State University.
> 
> Erin McElroy (US) cofounded/directs the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project - a
> data visualization, data analysis, and oral history collective documenting
> the dispossession and resistance of Bay Area residents in the wake of the
> Tech Boom 2.0. As a doctoral candidate in Feminist Studies at UC Santa
> Cruz, Erin engages postsocialist analytics and critical race and ethnicity
> studies to study tech-induced racialized dispossession in the Silicon
> Valley region and in Romania. Erin holds a MA in Cultural Anthropology, is
> a scholar with the ?Oakland School? of Urban Studies, and is an active
> organizer with the mutual aid collective Eviction Free San Francisco.
> 
> Macon Reed (US) is a multi-disciplinary artist, whose works probe the
> notion of optimism through queer and feminist lens, examining the lines
> between transformation and failure, trauma and healing, playfulness and
> escapism. Drawing on rituals of normative enculturation with regard to team
> socialization and competition, her work interrogates the limits of optimism
> and the point(s) at which cheerfulness becomes self-destructive, with a
> specific interest in physical performance and sculpture.
> 
> looking forward to a vibrant conversation,
> kyle
> 
> --
> http://www.kylemckinley.com/
> http://buildingcollective.org/
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> Date: Tue, 10 May 2016 18:50:18 +0000
> From: "Elizalde, Miguel" <MElizalde at winona.edu>
> To: "empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au"
> 	<empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: [-empyre-] Week 2: Social Practice and the logics of
> 	Neoliberalism
> Message-ID: <D3573E42.4958%melizalde at winona.edu>
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> 
> Thank you Kyle for the introduction. I?m very pleased to join the conversation about the logics of Neoliberalism in relationship with Social Practice. I would like to share with all of you some thoughts about the "Madrid Con Manuela? movement that happened in Spain one year ago.
> 
> Thirteen days of "Madrid con Manuela"
> 
> ?Madrid with Manuela? is the name of a social movement that aided Manuela Carmena?s successful campaign, resulting in being elected as the Mayor of Madrid in the Spanish local elections of May 2015. This participatory group emerged just two weeks before the voting day when the polls revealed that only 40 % of the voters knew who Manuela Carmena was. The primary goal of ?Madrid con Manuela? was to communicate the major achievements of the candidate. The political platform supporting Manuela Carmena, Ahora Madrid, was a coalition between Podemos and social platforms, related to the ?Indignados? social movement from 2011, which didn?t have any structural link with the supporting group of ?Madrid con Manuela?.
> 
> This text analyzes this of ?Madrid con Manuela? as its possible definition as a transmedia project. In addition to this, I will research the use by the management group of commercial communication elements for a non-commercial goal, in this case winning the elections.
> 
> Social media channeled the stream of creativity from ?Madrid con Manuela? involving more than 2000 participants creating visual content in different media. The type of works produced by the group evolved organically from 2D posters to video pieces and performative actions on the street. The main platforms used in the campaign were Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp, Telegram, Youtube, SoundCloud, Instagram, Tinder, Tumblr and Wordpress. The most successful platform was Facebook where more than 23.000 thousand participants were active in the community page. The Facebook secret group that organized the activities had 2000 members in the very first days of the campaign making any type of coordination impossible in such a brief period of time, 2 weeks. The media mix wasn?t planned. The initial idea was to create as much visual content as possible transforming some of them into posters sealed thoughout the city. Pretty soon, individual participants were opening accounts in other platform
> s for text, video and audio content. The movement expanded from the digital to the physical realm, in particular video projections, collective poster displaying and exhibitions.
> 
> As background info, Manuela Carmena is the mayor of Madrid, capital of Spain and a city with a population of more than 3 million in the urban area with another 4 million in the metropolitan area and the rest of the province of Madrid. She was elected on May 24th 2015 as the candidate of Ahora Madrid, a coalition of young political parties and social movements connected to the Indignados[i] movement of May 15th of 2011. Her candidature was the second most voted with 20 representatives, leaving the political party that supports the government as leader with 21 representatives for her candidate Esperanza Aguirre. As the majority of the city council holds 29 representatives, Manuela Carmena was elected as Major, adding the 9 votes of the Socialist Party to her 20 representatives while the governmental candidate, Esperanza Aguirre, had access to only 28 votes, one less that Manuela Carmena, her 21 representatives plus 7 from Ciudadanos, a young right-center liberal party.
> 
> The importance of this campaign remains in the size of the opponent, the right wing political party in Spain, Partido Popular or PP. The main leader of PP in the Spanish capital is Esperanza Aguirre. She is a countess with extensive political experience; former minister in the President?s Aznar cabinet (1996-99), President of the Senate (1999-2000) and President of the Community of Madrid, the region where the capital is located, from 2003-12. All the polls guaranteed her a wide victory in the elections. Her only problem was that she didn?t represent a new image for the PP, something the voters demanded based on some previous research. She holds a reputation of being undefeated in Madrid, her main area of influence and the primary reason why President Rajoy chose her to represent their Political Party. During the previous weeks to the campaign, the fact that greatly influenced her campaign was that she was in court accused of running over the traffic police when they tried to
>  give her a ticket. In front of her, the group Ahora Madrid, a temporary political coalition between Podemos and social movements, connected to the May 2011 Indignados demonstrations and had a candidate with no political experience but a long record of professional success, Manuela Carmena. She was a lawyer and emeritus judge of the Spanish Supreme Court with a special sensibility towards social justice issues. She is also a bike rider, as a 71 year old lady she continues riding her bike or taking the subway to go to work. Although Carmena wasn?t a leading figure of the Indignados movement, she showed sympathy for this solidary and collaborative movement emerged from the 2007-08 financial crisis in Spain.
> 
> The event that triggered this event was a poll that showed that even being Manuela Carmena the most appreciated candidate only a 37.9% of the voters knew who she was. The same poll revealed the most voted candidate would be Esperanza Aguirre. The day after, Nacho Padilla, a creative Director of the advertising agency Viernes, specialized in PSA and NGOs, shared his worries in a Facebook post. From the comments to that post he decided to create a secret group in Facebook ?to do something to reverse the situation?. Most of the original 30 people worked directly or indirectly related to the advertising market from art directors, copywriters or graphic artists as illustrators. Those ties between the conceptual requirements of the creative team and the graphic artist as providers were the ones that shaped the campaign initially. This is the reason of structuring the campaign process with designing posters for the elections, sharing them on internet, printing them back, adhering th
> em on the streets and shared them again online. The presence of volunteers from the digital world like programmers or producers was reduced as the platform never developed any new tool as an application or a website. The team had around 15 people with management responsibilities. Each platform was updated by one person who asked for help to the group in case of a heavy load of work. In case of coordinated operations like creating a Trending Toping in Twitter, the entire group worked coordinated, requesting external help as needed.
> 
> The campaign had only three main guidelines; talking positively with an optimistic tone of voice about the candidate, refuse the existence of the adversary, verbalized as Esperanza Aguirre doesn?t exist and verbalizing the support in the sentence Madrid con Manuela. The unique selling proposition was with Manuela Madrid becoming Madrid again. The reason why the campaign was a series of biographical notes about the candidate to reinforce is that she is the best mayor possible for the city. This informative side was materialized in 16 slides uploaded to Slideshare about her professional career and the ethical values she supported as a judge. This was also supported in a Wordpress site that collected all the interviews in mass media about her ideas for the future. The political program of the candidate was the last main piece of information that was added as posters to the online hub, the Tumblr page. The Facebook page worked as an entry point for all those interested in the cam
> paign supported by Instagram and Twitter.
> 
> Rather than developing a narrative like any conventional transmedia project, the ?Madrid con Manuela? campaign?s goal was to create hype around the candidate, a social buzz that generated a political debate encompassing Manuela Carmena. This was the main success of this phenomenon. The campaign had three stages, an initial effort to create the first pieces, from prestigious graphic artists and generating community on internet, a second step of contacting journalists specializing on internet content that wrote about the social phenomenon from a mass media point of view and helped them go beyond the social media sphere reaching other audiences, like people over the age of fifty. This was the final step involved when traditional mass media like TV and radio networks reported the social movement that was happening in Internet. The redundancy rather than the complementary between platforms was another aspect of the identifying characteristics of this campaign. As the goal was to c
> reate as much buzz as possible in the shortest period of time, repetition was key thoughout the sharings in Facebook or the retweets of Twitter. As the campaign moved forward, other type of pieces like movies or songs started to emerge in social media. With so many alternatives and more than 600 posters, it was the participants who decided what to share.
> 
> The campaign was never designed as a Transmedia narrative even considering 10 social media platforms were deployed. This is the main reason why only the slideshare[ii] with the Manuela facts or bio notes and the wordpress site with press releases of Mrs Carmena worked as complementary platforms to the Facebook and the Tumblr pages, in turn working as repositories of the posters. The posters were the main element that acted as the glue also present in Twitter and Instagram as images.
> 
> The lack of a user journey[iii] is justified by Nacho Padilla, the founder of the movement, as ?most of the users just engaged in the aesthetic and emotional experience of the posters without engaging in more informative platforms?. On the other hand, the collective were sure that the information about the candidate supported the rational behind the campaign. This is the reason behind the Manuela Facts, purely informative slides about the candidate. This page had less that 5000 visits, to compare we should consider that some of the posts in Facebook has more 6000 shares. The document ended with a list of links in traditional online media like newspapers marking an ending road. The rational elements of the campaign were structured as an advertising campaign where the rational benefits just support the emotional tone of the campaign. This approach is similar to how Linda Herrera depicts the first movements of the Tahrir Square Revolution in Egypt in 2010[iv]. In that case, she 
> refers to the use of Marketing in a broad sense to raise awareness of the abuses of the Egyptian Government in the death of Khaled Said.
> 
> The migratory cues, as described by Geoffrey Long[v] quoting Marc Ruppel as ?hints in one media form to look for additional content in a different extension?, they are not present in ?Madrid con Manuela?. Beyond the repetition of the sentence Madrid con Manuela and a graphic depiction of the candidate, there are no other elements repeated in more of the pieces. From 616 posters, only 91 didn?t have any visual reference to the image of Mrs Carmona. The role of the migratory cues was filed by explicit mentions to visit another platform and trans-platform hashtag that work in Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at the same time. Examples of this are the hashtags #elprogramademanuela, #madridconManuela #madconmanuela y #manuelaalcaldesa.
> 
> Connected with the idea of the migratory cues some authors, like Bernardo Gutierrez, mentions the importance of the figure of the Dave Gray?s idea of brokerage in social media where ?brokers are in a position to see the differences between groups, to cross-pollinate ideas, and to develop the differences into new ideas and opportunities?[vi]. Following this idea we find that this is a digital version of what the creative departments of advertising agencies have been doing for decades, specifically aiming to detect tendencies in the social realm that they can apply or use to build commercial messages.
> 
>> From a hermeneutic codes[vii] point of view, ?Madrid con Manuela? uses the cultural codes in a notable way, making constant cultural cross references to other disciplines like film or music trying to appropriate the meaning of those references. This post modernism process of reappropriation attempted to set up the symbolic world of the candidate, Manuela Carmena, creating some contradictory examples justified by the global appeal of the candidate and helping to break the preconceptions that the opponents political parties had from a movement like Ahora Madrid.
> 
>> From a negative capability approach, being an election period is difficult to avoid the suspense of the results. As a way to materialize this kind of cliffhanger, a few days from the election day, a poster submission showed Manuela Carmena in a meditative attitude thinking ?What if we win??
> 
> The variety of graphic styles could be identified as the main strength of this campaign. The color palate, illustration style, typography and design were so widely unique that it covers a great deal of the spectrum of possibilities. There were some of them from professional graphic artists to amateurs with a limited control over the technologies they were using. They can be defined by the lack of analog pieces of work, as handmade drawing. This is another key aspect of the success of this campaign, the wide variety of styles prevented saturation in the audience. The vast majority of the pieces could be considered unique as they were very personal approaches to Manuela Carmena, projecting their hopes for the future in their endorsements of the candidate.
> 
> Other aspects of the keys of success is the reduced scale of the project to a city. Even considering that the population of Madrid passes the 3 millions, and the surface exceeds 230 square miles, the limited space helped to expand and align the campaign to the physical space of the city in a process of reappropriation of public spaces that were limited in their uses by the former Major such as removing public benches from parks and squares. The volunteers projected the images of the posters in the facades of some of the buildings, the locations of the events were shared via Whatsapp. During the campaign, the collective created a stand in the Reina Sofia square where they gave printed versions of the posters for free. The activities on site included poster exhibitions, performances, placards and collective distribution of posters. This physical presence helped to expand the campaign to those groups of voters who are not users of internet technologies like elderly people, an ag
> e group dominated by their main opponent, in this election, the Partido Popular.
> 
> As the campaign reached Elections day Eve, in Spain it is a day of reflection, ?Madrid con Manuela? faces three main contradictions even considering its success. The first contradiction, or as some of the leading people of the project called it, paradox, is this bottom up social movement where the political campaign was created by the voters themselves without the intervention of the political party just mystified the candidate Manuela Carmena, leaving aside any possible criticism or grey area of her professional resume or ideological opinions aside (unclear sentence). There is some criticism inside the movement supporting her because in the past she was close to the Socialist Party. The main reason for this lack of criticism was that there was not enough time and the overwhelming amount of criticism from her opponents, especially the Partido Popular and Esperanza Aguirre, who even accused Manuela Carmena as a sympathizer towards the Basque terrorist group ETA when in fact sh
> e was threatened by ETA, having to use bodyguards for her protection while serving as a judge. Another reason is the goal of building a positive campaign without falling into provocations from her opponents. Even the criticism in social media from supporters of other political parties was answered with positive messages trying to keep a smile no matter how harsh the criticism.
> 
> The message was overloaded with emotion rather than an elaborate rational argument to vote for Manuela Carmena. The greater paradox was to have a lot of supporters behaving as apostles claiming the arrival of some kind of Messiah, in this case Manuela Carmena, a person that 2 weeks before the campaign just those ones interested in the political history of Spain knew beforehand. Only breaking the old stereotypes of the left wing parties is how Ahora Madrid and its candidate Manuela Carmena was able to beat all the polls made before the campaign. This new type of citizenship fits some of the characteristics of the cultural citizenship described by Lilie Chouliaraki as a crossover between a silly and an artsy-fartsy type of citizenship where the discursive overruns the narrative[viii].
> 
> The second paradox of this phenomenon is the role of open source software to manage this movement. Only some managing aspects were organized via TitanPad[ix] with intention to elaborate collaborative documents where the campaign relied heavenly in big social media networks like Facebook/Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr. Again the lack of time forced the audience rather than trying to build a specific tool for this campaign, with only 2 weeks to convince people to participate in the poster creation process. The goal was to avoid obstacles rather than finding the most coherent and honest campaign. There are online tools available to share content in Spain that weren?t used for the lack of spreadability as their use is still limited to open source and DIY movements. It was more efficient to go where the public was, even considering that most of the instigators of this campaign have serious doubts about some of the practices of these platforms. Electing Manuela Carmena as Mayor of M
> adrid was perceived as almost an impossible task just until the very last days of the campaign where the election polls were invited to be optimistic. Beating the Partido Popular after more than 26 years ruling the city was difficult enough.
> 
> ?Madrid con Manuela? always used social media platforms that already existed for a question of efficiency and time constrain as the goal was to reach the maximum amount of people in the minimum time possible. The use of open source tools was used once during the second half of the campaign for internal communication purposes. As most of the volunteers were familiar with the massive online media, these alternative tools were only a priority for the communication team of Ahora Madrid. ?Madrid con Manuela? used all commercial social media platforms available for the broad public. From a social discourse point of view there is a lack of criticism over the media used for the campaign.
> 
> As some of the responsibilities of the campaign expressed, some of the politicians were surprised by the fact that ?the voters themselves were making the campaign for them?. This is the main key of success of the campaign, its openness made it really difficult to attack by other political parties as they didn?t know where to focus their critiques. The hive mind[x] developed during these two weeks by the participants in this process and the relatively small scale of the project, being only one city, were also keys for success. As Nacho Padilla said the only criteria to assigned task inside the collective was just to leave every duty in the hands of the most resourceful person of the group in that task.
> 
> ?Nobody told me it was impossible, so I did it? Jean Cocteau said. This could be the summary of the thirteen days of existence of ?Madrid con Manuela?.
> 
> List of links
> 1-Madrid Con Manuela, Twitter account. <https://twitter.com/madconmanuela>
> 2-Madrid Con Manuela, Facebook account. <https://www.facebook.com/events/453287668165177/>
> 3-Madrid Con Manuela Youtube account. <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_jzieIHDBV1eW4X5zzX2XA/feed>
> 4-Madrid Con Manuela, Instagram account. <https://www.instagram.com/madconmanuela/>
> 5-Madrid Con Manuela, Tumblr account. <http://madridconmanuela.tumblr.com/>
> 6-Madrid Con Manuela, Wordpress account. <https://madridconmanuela.wordpress.com/>
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> [i] Moyano Perez, Javier. (They call us Indignados) Guardian Press Books 2013
> 
> [ii] Madrid Con Manuela (2005), http://www.slideshare.net/DanielYustos/manuela-hechos
> 
> [iii] Giovanely, Max Transmedia Storytelling: Imagery, Shapes and Techniques. Lulu.com 2011
> 
> [iv] Herrera, Linda. Revolution in the Age of Social Media. (London, UK, New Left Books. 2014) pp. 59-64
> 
> [v] Long, Geoffrey. Transmedia Storytelling Business, Aesthetics and Production at the Jim Henson Company <http://cmsw.mit.edu/transmedia-storytelling-jim-henson-company/, accessed 1 December 2015.
> 
> [vi] Gray Dave, <https://plus.google.com/+DaveGray/posts/CQRVeKEsUvF, accessed 1 December 2015.
> 
> [vii] Giovanely [13].
> 
> [viii] Chouliaraki, Lilie. Self-Mediation New Media Citizenship and Civil Selves (NY, USA: Routledge, 2012) pp. 13-21
> 
> [ix] https://titanpad.com/B3VqvrhSj1
> 
> [x] Surowiecki, James. The wisdom of Crows (NY USA: Anchor Books, 2005).
> 
> 
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> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 10 May 2016 20:00:24 -0400
> From: Macon Reed <swapmeetproject at gmail.com>
> To: empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> Subject: [-empyre-] (no subject)
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAMM+hrypOCqBwD0DXNCgoj-aeOT5QF3bpNrE3ZEfbz4F4aMf=Q at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> 
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> Thanks for the lovely intro Kyle!
> 
> Kyle and I were talking and thought a good idea for a starting point
> would be to share a bit about my most recent project, Eulogy For The
> Dyke Bar. For those who are not aware, there are very few dyke (or
> lesbian) bars left in the country. While spaces focused primarily on
> cis gay men have felt some loss, whole neighborhoods, bars, and apps
> often remain present and active for them to experience. Female and
> feminine-spectrum queer people are hit much harder by the impacts of
> things like gentrification, socio-economic disparities, etc.
> 
> Project Description:
> 
> Eulogy For The Dyke Bar is a fully immersive structure that revisits
> the legacies and physical spaces of dyke bars, an increasingly rare
> component of the contemporary queer cultural landscape. Made of simple
> materials and seductively saturated colors, this hand-made
> installation includes a full bar, pool table, jukebox, and
> wall-to-wall wood paneling.
> 
> The installation is activated through its use as a fully-functional
> bar and programming within the space. As as interactive,
> community-centered site, Eulogy For The Dyke Bar acknowledges the mass
> closing of dyke bars, asking a host of questions: Why are these spaces
> closing? How do cultural and socio-economic factors, such as
> assimilation or gentrification, contribute to this phenomenon? Are the
> same factors impacting spaces for gay men? What role have physical
> spaces such as dyke bars played in the past and how has that changed
> over time? How do we learn from these spaces and move forward in
> creating new ones that are safe and affirming for all female and
> feminine-spectrum communities while embracing expansive notions of
> gender and sexuality across generations?
> 
> *Eulogy For The Dyke Bar uses the term "dyke" in its most expansive
> sense and recognizes that gender and identities are complex and fluid.
> If you have identified with the term or an experience of feminine-
> spectrum queerness in the past or present (or perhaps future), and/or
> feel an affiliation or ally-ship with dyke culture, you are welcome,
> and valued at the dyke bar.
> 
> Events in EFTDB:
> 
> Central to EFTDB is the active, meaningful inclusion of members of the
> queer community across spectrums of gender identity, age, sexuality,
> race, sobriety, class, etc. The closing Eulogy Ritual event is a
> powerful site for conversation as it creates a space of support,
> healing, education, and storytelling across generational, ideological,
> and other divides within the community. Poets, organizers, artists,
> writers, and other community members come together to memorialize dyke
> bars with stories and performances that contemplate their place within
> queer community in the past, present, and future. Additionally EFTDB
> hosts trivia nights, drag shows, podcast listening sessions of the
> Last Call: NOLA series, and panel discussions with theorists, bar
> owners, and community organizers.
> 
> In closing:
> This recent project of mine and has really changed the way I plan on
> working in the future. I see my work as both an object maker and
> organizer here, creating a sort of container or frame for a
> conversation to take place. I got to create this installation two
> times this year and was really moved by the number of people that
> turned out to both share their stories and listen. The piece
> definitely hits on gentrification and socio-economic disparities that
> queer (and particularly female and feminine-spectrum queer people)
> experience, but also reaches to connect and heal people across
> generational divides. I prefer when a project can work on a lot of
> different levels at one time, guided largely by those who bring
> whatever they need to share to the space. I have more to say and think
> the project needs to improve in a few important areas, but will start
> by sending this out for starters.
> 
> Looking forward to hearing more from you Erin and Miguel (and everyone) I
> think we will have lots to think about!
> 
> Thank you,
> Macon
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
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> 
> End of empyre Digest, Vol 137, Issue 7
> **************************************

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