[-empyre-] Refiguring the Future: Week 2

[Renate Ferro]

Dear all Refiguring the Future: 
~Anneli wrote:
“Hearing about what Zach Blas and Micha Cardenas have proposed is the type of network I am contemplating. Of
course, as Renate brought up, democratizing Internet platforms, or
maintaining community run platforms requires an enormous amount of labor
and energy. Once we leave the reliance on corporations, there is a price to
pay. Perhaps the answer has to do with a move away from for-profit systems
and frameworks... At moments like this I think it’s important
to visualize the reality of the Internet: many cables connected underground
and underwater, our files stored on many computers all over the world.”

You have caught me at home today working in my studio and trying to organize next month’s discussion on –empyre- and an ode to three artists we lost these past few weeks: 
Grace Quantanilla (MX), Barbara Hammer (US), and Carolee Schneemann (US).  

I do have to qualify that both Zach and Micha never did follow through with Q or perhaps maybe one or two issues as I recall.  The work behind this forum, the listserv, is inordinately labor intensive.  It is so different than the blog in that participants need to be nurtured, enticed, and allowed to chime in at their own pace.  That is often in resistance to real life/work demands that these days are incredibly stressful for most of us who are artists, curators, technicians, writers and so much more. There are also back-channel tinkerings that keep our listserv going. There are times that it is populated with many posts and other times that the pace is slow or non-existent. 

The corporate response whether the web, or Facebook, or Instagram certainly does not nurture individuals at all, or perhaps  does that through algorithms.  I am not sure if you saw this this interview of Tim Berners-Lee who was lamenting the state or his internet in 2019. 
https://livestream.com/internetsociety/web30/videos/188647858

Looking forward to hearing from you more about your work in this area. Can you tell us about your own design/coding work?  Best.  Renate

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

On 3/20/19, 12:44 PM, "empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of Anneli Anne Goeller" <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of agoeller at saic.edu> wrote:

    ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------