[-empyre-] Can -empyre strike back or is it the end of our -empyre?

[Renate Terese Ferro]

Thanks Erin for your insightful post From Data Preserves to Dépense without Reserve” on Media Ecologies. Your resources are so much appreciated and a special shout out to Michelle Murphy and Patrick Keilty who organized the data rescue event. 

I have wanted to write this post to all of my fellow -empyre subscribers but have been delaying. So I will do it here and now.  I have been wondering these past few months if -empyre- soft-skin space has run its course.  Though we have a well documented archive
http://lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/
that traces our history since January of 2002 it has become much more difficult to find participants willing to keep our community going.  While we have many fans who lurk it has been difficult to find willing and able participants  to organize topics, participate actively, sit on our Moderating Team, and other responsibilities that -empyre requires.  As you know Melinda Rackham’s idea of an online listserv community laid the seeds for -empyre.  Now close to 2000 subscribers there are many days when one or two of us keep things moving behind the scenes.  

-empyre need some vibrant helpers who are willing and dependable to keep it sustainable.  Currently we have three others who sit on the Moderating Team including Tim Murray from Cornell University, Soraya Murray from Santa Cruz, and Derek Murray also from Santa Cruz.  So this response that Tim made in early January, “to crank up the noise of the net by submitting your New Year’s resolutions against oppression, fascism, neoliberalism, and conservatism” goes out to all of you once again on not only the continent of North America but in Australia and England and Asia and everywhere else our subscribers are lurking from.  Only a handful of you have responded so far.  In my mind -empyre- soft-skinned space has been a virtual active participatory space since 2002 that has traced the history and critical mission of networked technology and digital media, performance and theory.  It has since its inception struck back critically in so many ways.  

CAN WE SUSTAIN ITS CRITICALITY?  CAN WE CONTINUE TO STRIKE BACK?  IS THERE ANYONE OUT INTERESTED IN HELPING US CONTINUE TO STRIKE BACK THROUGH THIS PLATFORM.  If so please feel free to post your resolution this month.  We will keep this discussion topic going until the 31st of January.  On February 1st we will launch a new topic “Between Art and Biology” in conjunction with the College Art Association’s New Media Caucus Round Table Discussion. 

We  need of topics for the upcoming months of March, April and May.  Also looking for vibrant and active organizers who are willing to help out our MODERATING TEAM. If you are interested please email me BACKCHANNEL. If not we will probably seek to shut down -empyre over the next few months.  

Is it truly the end of -empyre? I hope not. 

Renate


Renate Ferro
Visiting Associate Professor
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department of Art
Tjaden Hall 306
rferro at cornell.edu