[-empyre-] Introduction

[Byron Rich]

Thanks for the response, Sophia.

I’m particularly struck by this: “For example, my Embodisuit project is a garment covered in circuit boards to experience data haptically. Whether I exhibited this work in technical, art, or more everyday contexts, I was completely stunned that everyone defaulted to calling the circuit boards “sensors”. It was really a struggle for them to wrap their minds around the idea that you can have electronics on the body without sensors. That’s because tech companies only show us futures for wearables that heavily rely on sensors because they want our data to sell or serve us ads. Getting people to become aware of that narrow and biased vision for the future is something artists can do by drawing attention to the problem, imagining alternatives, and helping people envision different futures for themselves.” In considering this statement, and Ben’s comment “Put another way, we can't just build a great alternative, we have to also facilitate individual development of a critical reflex towards software and platforms so that when an alternative arrives people know and feel why it's important to shift.”, I can’t help but think of Anne Robert Jaques Turgot (1727-1781) who is often credited as being the “founding philosopher of progress”. Turgot believed that science and reason led to the enlightenment. Here we are two centuries later, and I can’t help but think about what Turgot would think about how reason and science have seemingly diverged, at least on a scale that we can use blanket critiques regarding society in terms of our relationship to emerging and established technologies with relative impunity. 

In Lepenies Art, Politics, and Development, a book I’m likely to keep referencing this month, he argues that during the time of Turgot and Condorcet, humanity wasn’t broadly grasping the future as something that could be defined, rather than something that would “automatically come by itself.” Interestingly, the lack of critical discourse, or even more worryingly, the lack of care despite the overwhelming information regarding data collection via social media, etc. in contemporary culture as we can see manifest in our Facebook feeds where (at least many of my) friends denounce the platform yet continue to rely on it as the point of connection. I guess what I’m getting at is a feeling of worry when the most critically aware of us are still so heavily reliant on these tools of communication that we are letting them as Ben stated “prescribe culture”. The work of artists like the three of you that have joined us this week seems more salient than ever as we all struggle to find points of connection in these uncharted waters. Hope exists thanks to the kind of critical discourse spawned by these interventions, and perhaps we’re approaching a point where defining the future is once again wedded to reason. 


-- 
Byron Rich 
Assistant Professor of Art
Director of Art, Science & Innovation
Global Citizen Scholar Faculty Director
Affiliated Faculty - Integrative Informatics 

Allegheny College
Doane Hall of Art, A204
Meadville, PA
(o) 814.332.3381
www.byronrich.com

Allegheny Lab for Innovation & Creativity
www.sites.allegheny.edu/alic/

Co-chair of Exhibitions & Events - New Media Caucus
www.newmediacaucus.org

Reference letters require three weeks of lead time. 

From: Sophia Brueckner
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2020 10:50 AM
To: Ben Grosser
Cc: Byron Rich; empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

Byron asked “As someone really invested, aware, and working in the discourse of social media and its proliferation of policy and culture, are you hopeful at all?”

Ben said: “As Geert Lovink said recently, artists have a ‘special responsibility’ to take on the tech corporations...artists can leverage their ability to build/create/amplify in ways that challenge the trillion dollar corporations and their billionaire leaders, to make works that help everyday users see that the designs of monopoly platforms *prescribe* culture. Put another way, we can't just build a great alternative, we have to also facilitate individual development of a critical reflex towards software and platforms so that when an alternative arrives people know and feel why it's important to shift.”

This has been such a great conversation! I wholeheartedly agree with Ben that one of the most important things I do as an artist is create work that helps everyday users understand how these tech companies are prescribing our culture, influencing our thoughts and behaviors, and providing us with some pretty sad visions for the future.

We do throw around the word “dystopia” a lot, and this conversation makes me want to express what I think a dystopia is in a more nuanced way. When I think of a dystopia, I think of a world where things are deeply broken, but it is so self-reinforcing that people can no longer imagine an alternative. The technologies we rely on today are broken, but I don’t think we are yet heading towards that self-reinforcing state. We know that social media technologies are addictive and shallow. However, most people I know feel increasingly frustrated and want an out the more they use them. They just don’t know how to get out yet. That awareness makes me hopeful even if new, healthier technologies aren’t going to replace the ones we have any time soon. Increasing that awareness is what motivates me! 

For example, my Embodisuit project is a garment covered in circuit boards to experience data haptically. Whether I exhibited this work in technical, art, or more everyday contexts, I was completely stunned that everyone defaulted to calling the circuit boards “sensors”. It was really a struggle for them to wrap their minds around the idea that you can have electronics on the body without sensors. That’s because tech companies only show us futures for wearables that heavily rely on sensors because they want our data to sell or serve us ads. Getting people to become aware of that narrow and biased vision for the future is something artists can do by drawing attention to the problem, imagining alternatives, and helping people envision different futures for themselves.

One of the things I often talk about is “critical optimism”, which means earnestly trying to build good things but also being able to critique the weaknesses of your ideas. Instead of black or white thinking, imagine medium to light grey thinking. :) I get really frustrated by both blindly optimistic visions of the future as well as unconstructively pessimistic ones. Both extremes are actually a form of passivity. Both extremes mean you get to give up and not, as Donna Haraway so beautifully says, “stay with the trouble.” As an artist, I can help people be more aware and thoughtful, and I can help them feel like their individual efforts working towards a better future are worthy and important even though they will never be perfect. So, while I’m extremely critical of the technologies we are forced to deal with now, my artistic practice overall is very hopeful.

-- 
Sophia Brueckner

http://www.sophiabrueckner.com


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