[-empyre-] rehearsal of a network - [week 4]

Alice Famer juniorfarmer at gmail.com
Thu Jun 28 23:43:20 AEST 2018


"It was women’s fingers that enfolded the data-corpse into the fabric of
the world. Sadie Plant tells us that these fingers are like a spider’s
spinnerets, extruding digital silk, weaving the history of networked
technology, which at its core is a cunning practice of emasculation:
‘cyberspace is out of man’s control, [it] destroys his identity...at the
peak of his triumph, the culmination of his machinic erections, man
confronts the system he built for his own protection and finds it female
and dangerous.’ For Plant, man sentenced himself to annihilation when he
let the feminine hydra of digital technology out of its black box. Now, it
is everywhere, slyly completing its task. Cyberfeminism is an occult form
of warfare. It understands about ‘cyber - space’ what Cixin Liu’s ‘dark
forest’ theory understands about the cosmos: all existence is determined by
hostility and so the highest form of intelligence lies in occluding one’s
coordinates. The hypothesis explains why the universe, statistically full
of life, is dead silent. It is not because, as is commonly thought, life
has not found a way to communicate, but because it understands that silence
is the most advanced form of intelligence. Our physical and virtual spaces,
which are increasingly inseparable, are alike a dark forest, where every
step must be taken with care, as revealing one’s existence portends
annihilation. The most desirable skill, the most coveted trick, and the
most longed for disposition can only be this—a fluency in the trading of
secrets. The skills we need to strategically deploy concealment,
de-concealment and re-concealment."

this is from Bogna Konior's  "Ancestral Cyberspace: On the Technics of
Secrecy" (
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/584d3a10be6594f67565c0a0/t/5b34c37a0e2e7239ad7bc9ee/1530184579239/AncestralCyberspace.pdf
)

thinking about how the warfare of cyberfem (i think this itself is leading
2 discussions on Gender Accelerationism (G/ACC) and LesbiaNRx) functions
within networks specifically.
Hacking, ddos attacks, patchwork + weavinggg

On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 5:35 PM Shu Lea Cheang <shulea at earthlink.net> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> dear All
>
> threads entangled deeper into Mycorrhyizal networks that Simon
> meticulously argued.
>
> As a moderator for the first time of such 'old fashioned' mailing list,
> (and let's leave it text based forever),  I am feeling an indescribable
> tension, anxiety as I check in on admin page to 'pass' the sporadically
> incoming postings...
>
> the roots have no bound composting (thus renewed) underground... and how
> do we follow? cross-path?
>
> Let me try -
>
> We have checked ourselves into the 90s of its online communities which
> parallel to artistic intervention on the Net at the time, but existed as a
> society on its own, multiple mini-societies, mainly local (unlike the known
> international ones we refer to, spectre, nettime, to name a few), some
> archived, some legendary... bring it up to date,  the current 'warred' zone
> of local social media,  sign in to wechat in China and whatsup in the
> States, has to echo these 'scenes' of the 90s.
>
> I do not want to lose Alice Famer's references on patchwork/weaving as we
> got 'sidetracked' and 'righttracked' to mycelium..
>
> thanks to dollyoko's taking us back to real (small) spaces of "deep social
> experimentation and collaborative creativity", somehow i connect these days
> with occupied squated space, move in and takeover... Jaromil can possibly
> echo these days with Amsterdam stakeout of a time? not to fall into any
> nostagia or romantic about it... collectives get dissolved, creativity
> fights over credits, and ultimately who's doing the dishes? taking out the
> garbage?
>
> Much thanks to  Jaromil's summing of past 3 weeks... there are so many
> quotes of the contributors, each can lead us to 'rabbit holes' as dollyoko
> dares us to venture in???
>
> again-
>
> I am standing still in this junction with walkers in all directions, that
> particular center of the universe in Shibuya's transit exit.........
>
> the swarm of thoughts from outer universe hitting at you... spores falling
> like spring snow, invasive as they are.
>
> help me through this last few days of June..........
>
> many thanks
>
> sl
>
>
> On 27/06/18 09:56, Simon wrote:
>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
>
>
> Dear <<empyreans>>,
>
> On 26/06/18 06:37, Shu Lea Cheang wrote/quoted:
>
> I believe that mycelium is the neurological network of nature. Interlacing
> mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information-sharing membranes
>
>
> Mycorrhyizal networks became entangled in the underground theatre work of
> Minus Theatre. But for reasons that rather go against those adduced in and
> around CMNs here, in their emphasis on the gains to be had, got from,
> harvested off the literal and metaphorical fungolalia and fungalia. The
> gain, for example, of communication: what if--we speculated in the
> spectacles we made--communication were not the point, but an
> exploitation-abstraction layer covering over--a too-human groundcover--the
> *work* of decomposition? What if communication is *in *and an *excess* of
> this work? And what then if the scatter, crackle and static of languages
> were the condition of their significations? The breaking-down, the waste
> itself, the soil, ground? Such work--of decomposition--would not be valued
> according to elements and minerals *liberated* but would be valued in and
> through itself, as forming the maternal matrices in indeterminacy,
> inaction, asignifying, across inorganic and organic strata. Decomposition
> lays waste: elements are understood to be liberated and the value is in
> this breaking down, giving off phosphorescing halos in an excess of
> incandescent energy illumining the dark, not a light dispelling it.
>
> best,
> Simon
> http://squarewhiteworld.com/
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forumempyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.auhttp://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
>
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