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

Shu Lea Cheang shulea at earthlink.net
Fri Jun 29 18:18:01 AEST 2018


Let's talk about these fingers ....

The grand dame of cyberfem VB has deep rooted her fingers in the dirt.. 
if ever a network to be re-constructed, it has to go underground, it has 
to be communicated in silence (as the most advanced form of 
intelligence), again, we find ourselves in deep forest, dark forest, in 
"deep doll space zero"(gashgirl aka dollyoko).

Then, Jaromil alarmed us, " Just like network routing algorithms were 
inspired by ant scenting patterns, we are witnessing a moment in history 
in which the mainstream industry with all its techno-poetic powers have 
embraced the patterns of Mycelia."

oh oh! need to join bubbleclub, "start your living culture at home"....


I am off , who can babysit my compost worms?


over

sl







On 28/06/18 15:43, Alice Famer wrote:
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
>
> "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 
> <mailto: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 forum
>>     empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>>     <mailto:empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
>>     http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     empyre forum
>     empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>     <mailto:empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au>
>     http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/attachments/20180629/6b5743d2/attachment.html>


More information about the empyre mailing list