[-empyre-] closing out Fake News

[Renate Terese Ferro]

My apology for not finishing off last month’s discussion last week.  I took some time off for the Us holiday more importantly to regroup.  I hope you will all forgive me.  

To close out last months discussion I want to thanks Lindsay Kelley, Anna Munster, Mark Marino, Talan Memmott, Kevin Hamilton, Byron Rich, Randall Parker, Ana Vales for being guests during our month long discussion on Fake News.  Globally fake news has intensified as not just a western phenomenon. Fake news has intensified globally in 2017 and continues to do so. This past month  provided us an opportunity to connect in with global events as they were unfolding.  Randall made a pressing point that sums up the month’s sentiments: 
<snip>
I see the developing fake news issue as the catalyst of a much greater problem: the intentional distortion of reality for the purpose of gaining political control. Fake news is a means to an end, what happens when morally bankrupt demagogues are in pursuit of absolute power. 

To this end, it beholds us to construct critical “weapons” that we can use to deconstruct and defuse this diabolical fakery, and it is my hope, that during this next week, the empyre list can serve as both a virtual roundtable for discussion, as well as a space for developing tactical methods we can employ as media artists, theorists, and educators in our everyday lives and work.” 

<snip>
Thanks to Lindsay and Anna for sharing for sharing their event at the University of New South Wales, “ FAKE NEWS from the Art and Politics Bureau” and to Patrick Lichty as well for sharing his own work and perspective from the Middle East.  Thanks to the other artists who shared their own work and the writers who also shared their perspectives. Let’s agree to  tactically to “deconstruct” and “defuse.”  Many thanks to all of you as we move onward. 

Best.  
Renate

Renate Ferro

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