[-empyre-] Contagion and -empyre-

Thu Apr 9 03:15:03 AEST 2020

Hi everyone, 
As we pass through the first week of April on -empyre-, it's been amazing to have Melinda remind us how intricately engrained her founding of -empyre- was in response to medical challenge and isolation, just as the vast majority of -empyreans- are now probably welcoming the arrival of this discussion as they remain secluded at home with the assistance of our extensive cyberlife.   I remember well when Melinda introduced -empyre- in an interactive display at ISEA 2002 in Nagoya, Japan, at a moment when we were celebrating the networked arts as a hopeful intervention in a new millennium.  It's been incredible to witness the longevity of our community and its continual appetite for artistic exchange and critical discussion.

The past week in the States has been rather astonishing in which public discussion of technologies of prevention have highlighted the extent to which the global pandemic has enabled the enhancement of biopolitical technologies of contamination and repression.  In sharp contrast to a noble and thoughtful speech about the urgent need for equality just delivered by Bernie Sanders as he suspended his presidential campaign, we are confronted on our television screens nightly by our Barnum & Bailey President who hawks his perverted versions of reality, including dubious wonder drugs, while promoting capitalist competition for products essential to public health.  The past two days we witnessed his right wing appointed Supreme Court uphold the Republicans' wish to hold the Wisconsin primary yesterday in the midst of pandemic spread, rather than delay it or transfer it to paper ballot, another cynical attempt either to suppress voting or subject Democratic voters -- who joined long lines to vote -- to the potential dangers of the public touch of the virus.  We've been dismayed to see many state governors sneak into stay at home orders their devious plans to restrict access to female health coverage and abortion (declaring them as 'inessential').  And, as I noted earlier, we learn of daily Trump reversals, hidden behind COVID-19 headlines, of the widest range of U.S. standards and laws designed to protect the environment, from clean water to clean air.

As someone who theoretically and curatorially has embraced guerilla art and theoretical practices that step aside from the pessimism of biopolitical hegemony, I find it all the more deeply troubling to witness this consolidation of biopolitical sovereignty in my country, as across the globe, as the divisions of access to healthcare and welfare lead to greater death and poverty.  It is in this context of urgency, however, that I embrace the founding spirit of -empyre- as a dialogical project that can take advantage of global telecommunicational technology to pause or step aside from mainstream media in order to ponder the complex realities in which we live and the myriad side events -- social, artistic, medical -- that might continue to empower to work for social justice.  In this context, I find myself enlivened by my personal theoretical commitment to thinking the empowerment of "the event" and the extensive artistic interventions in bio and tactical art that embrace technicity and techne in contradiction of its technological contamination.

As we move from the month's framings by those who have managed -empyre- since its inception, Melinda Rackham, Christina McPhee, and Renate Ferro, I look forward to being challenged and enlightened by the incredible lineup of featured guests for the rest of the month, whose expertise cross the disciplines on which we so count for social improvement and guerilla intervention, from art and design to public health and political theory. 

This morning, Renate and I stood on the side our road -- the main country highway to New York City -- to applaud two busloads of Ithaca nurses and doctors willing to risk their lives to head to relieve exhausted health care workers in New York City.  We reflected on the extent to which this viral challenge offes us, across the fields of disciplines and practices, the opportunity to articulate various forms of response.  Thanks for joining us in this minor critical effort via -empyre-. 

Timothy Murray
Director, Cornell Council for the Arts and Curator, Cornell Biennial
http://cca.cornell.edu
Curator, Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art 
http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu <http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu/>
Professor of Comparative Literature and English

B-1 West Sibley Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853

On 4/3/20, 4:17 PM, "empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of Renate Ferro" <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of rferro at cornell.edu> wrote:

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        Dear Christina and to all of you, 
        I am responding quickly for now but will respond in depth more later tonight. 
        First forgive me for not updating your short bio which I copy below.

        Thank you so much for sharing your drawings and it is so wonderful for you to join us again.  Is there handmade paper that I see?  How amazingly lush they are-- especially in light of the fact that most of us have been sitting in front of our screens and ZOOM these past few weeks.  Please share more about the making of these amazingly sensuous pieces.  
        I post the link you shared 
        http://www.christinamcphee.net/trekking-toward-a-hellish-plight-caminando-al-tormento/

        I also have a series of very large drawings that I am attempting to work on between my screened sentence of late.  I am curious to hear what other -empyre- subscribers are doing with their down time away from technological screen.  The lyrical poems you share take me away to such a different zone than this one I write in this afternoon.  We all need a place of centeredness.  That sounds rather cliché but I feel that it is more important than ever right now. 

        Updated Biography:  
        Christina McPhee is a North American mid-career visual artist of European descent, working in drawing, painting, and electronic media. Her map-like, contingent, topologic works, through low relief and tesselated forms, reflect on shapeshifting, intersubjectivity, and ecologies. Solo museum exhibitions include American University Museum in Washington, DC and Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden. Internationally, she has shown in museum exhibitions at MAMM (Colombia), Bildmuseet, and Thresholds Perth (Scotland); as well as documenta 12 and Bucharest Biennial 3. American museum collections of her work include the ICP and Whitney Museum of American Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Sheldon Museum. She received the MAP award for performance in 2012 with Pamela Z for their collaborative intermedia work, Carbon Song Cycle. Born in Los Angeles, she lives and works in southern California. (Pronouns: she/her) www.christinamcphee.net

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

        On 4/2/20, 3:34 PM, "empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of Christina McPhee" <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of naxsmash at gmail.com> wrote:

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