[-empyre-] Week Four: Celebrating the Machine Dreams ZINE

[Margaret J Rhee]

It is with the greatest pleasure to introduce our exciting participants 
for this week, Mark Marino, Saba Razvi, Ana Monroe, and Sun Yung Shin 
with others to be announced! This week also celebrates our launch of the 
publication Machine Dreams Zine: Volume One, with contributions from our 
participants.

Betsy and Lawrence's contribution on Westworld was recently published in 
the collection, and we are thrilled to launch the Zine here at empyre.

As Mark shared with machine poetics, the space we created with Machine 
Dreams two years ago continues to be one that is vibrant and inspiring. 
I co-organized Machine Dreams with Neil Aitken, and Lucy Burns at UCLA 
in 2014, the gathering featured invited talks and performances by Mark 
Marino, Dmitry Benerson, Minsoo Kang, and many others. Here is a fun 
write-up by the LA Weekly: 
http://www.laweekly.com/event/machine-dreams-a-symposium-on-robots-arts-and-difference-5627753

To continue the conversation, we've recently published a Zine 
compilation from work drawn from the symposium, and with additional 
works from other artists and scholars working on machines, art, and 
literature, including Susan Vanderborg.

You can view the entire collection for free, here: 
https://issuu.com/repcollective/docs/machine_dreams_issuu

Additional links, and the full description, and participants bios below. 
Thank you again Mark, Saba, Sun Yung, and Ana, and many others for 
participating this week!

*

Machine Dreams Description:

A Zine compilation of creative work and critical theory on the machine, 
arts, and difference. Contributions largely drawn from the conference, 
Machine Dreams: A Symposium on Arts, Robots, and Difference held at UCLA 
in 2015, and co-organized by Lucy Burns, Neil Aitken, and Margaret Rhee. 
With additional writing and art included, the Machine Dreams Zine offers 
provocative and playful remediations on the machine in our digital 
times. Designed by The Mystery Parade. No profit made.

Tumblr: https://machinedreamszine.tumblr.com

Book: http://www.blurb.com/b/7940102-machine-dreams-volume-one

PARTICIPANT BIOS

Mark C. Marino (http://markcmarino.com) is a writer and scholar of
electronic literature living in Los Angeles.  He teaches writing at
the University of Southern California where he Directs the Humanities
and Critical Code Studies Lab (http://haccslab.com [1]).  He is also
the Director of Communications for the Electronic Literature
Organization.  Although mostly human, Mark has had a long time love
affair with chatbots.

Saba Syed Razvi is the author of In the Crocodile Gardens (Agape 
Editions), Limerence & Lux (Chax Press), Of the Divining and the Dead 
(Finishing Line Press), Beside the Muezzin’s Call & Beyond the Harem’s 
Veil (Finishing Line Press), and the forthcoming heliophobia. Her poems 
have been nominated for the Elgin Award, the Bettering American Poetry 
Awards, The Best of the Net Award, the Rhysling Award, and the 
Independent Best American Poetry Award. She is currently an Assistant 
Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Houston 
in Victoria, TX, where she researches interfaces between Science and 
Contemporary Poetry, as well as Sufi Poetry in translation, and writes 
new poems and fiction.

Ana Monroe

One year after earning her Modern History A.B. from Columbia University 
in 2004 and following a quick stint as a translator at the first Apple 
Store in the world (Soho, New York), Ana began her design training by 
jumping into the creative role of Prop Stylist for Still Photography 
projects. In this position, Ana was responsible for the physical 
elements of the shoot: the props, the sets, the fabricated, and the 
found.

Moving quickly into Production Design for both larger scale Stills 
projects as well as Motion Picture, Ana led the Art Department section 
of movie making.As a Production Designer, Ana worked closely with the 
Director and Director of Photography to bring a script off the page. 
Research into the visual languages of diverse groups and historical 
periods, ethnographic inquiries, and sheer imagination all combine to 
form identity of a production. The practical side of both Styling and 
Designing required the development project management skills. She 
created and managed budgets, schedules, and personnel. The scope of this 
role honed not only the ability to conceptualize and produce myriad 
design styles, but also that of visualizing and evaluating options, 
managing teams, and growing client relationships.

She applied and was accepted with an Honors scholarship to the award 
winning Media Design Practices Department at Art Center College of 
Design in 2014. Working in the field with UNICEF as part of her 
2014-2015 year, Ana quickly gained praise for her self directed 
technology projects with Luzira Primary School as well as her 
evaluations of UNICEF’s MobiStation and ICT projects.

During her 2015-2016 thesis year, she received both Honors and Thesis 
Awards and worked with advisors such as BMW DesignWorks lead Mike Milley 
and Art Center College of Design's DesignMatters Chair Mariana Amatullo. 
She is now a Service Designer leading multiple projects from The 
Innovation Lab at OPM, detailed to the Office of Veterans Experience at 
the Department of Veterans Affairs.


-- 
Margaret Rhee, Ph.D.

Visiting Assistant Professor
Women's and Gender Studies
University of Oregon