[-empyre-] Wrapping up February: Social Media: algorithms, untruths, and insurrection.

[Renate Ferro]

Thanks Jennifer for writing in.  We will keep our discussion open until we introduce our next month's discussion a bit later tomorrow morning. I would like to thank all of our guests this month who joined in to our discussion on Social Media: algorithms, untruths and insurrection.  In considering the topic for the month we were immersed in the aftermath of the US Insurrection on January 6th, but as time has passed so much of the complicated layers of that day have been peeled back and revealed with what we understand to be just beginning. The heartbeat of that day was most certainly organized by investments in capitalist social media. 

A huge thanks to Ben Grosser for his help in getting such a broad and global group of participants.  The global perspectives of our guests were important and crucial to the 
expansive themes that we were able to consider. I would like to take a few moments to mention some of the highlights for me.  Though there were many I will just touch upon a few by each contributor. 

 Overall, we agreed that an interventionist strategy through writing, coding, art, and/or performance allows us to analyze, discern, assess, and theorize the weight of the circumstances of algorithms, capitalist surveillance, mechanical management and more. 

Historically, many thanks to Ana Valdes for rehearsing for us how very early technology
was used in French activist group, Modems Sans Frontiers, and the Zapatista’s to activate simple and ordinary communication networks that were otherwise completely shut off.  Also, to Tim Murray for sharing his early collaborative curatorial and writing net art pieces via C-theory Multi-media which aimed to conceptually obfuscate which “opened doors through critique, and critical imagination.”

Artist Ben Grosser’s own work in tactical media also seeks to disrupt “surveillance-based engagement-and profit-motivated monopolistic-platform-enabled algorithmic
feed.”  Ben added that by engaging in tactical media the decision in creation and use can provide a springboard for criticality. Both Leo Selvaggio and Justin Blinder agreed with Ben that obfuscating technology is a form of political and social resistance. 

Derek Curry proposed that the use of social media as a political organizing tool was inevitable “the distribution of political ideologies, organization, and radicalization, should have been one of the first concerns rather than something that is often talked about as a ‘side effect.’” Derek with collaborator Jennifer Gradecki create artistic work that poses algorithmic tactical media by as Jennifer describes includes “developing and democratizing a technical and experiential understanding of the current virtual landscape, with the aim of opening up conversations how these socio-technical systems are designed and used…” 

Critically, Alan Sondheim questioned arts resistance all together proposing that this tactical approach may be a problematic utopian. While Geert Lovink proposed we need to abandoned it all for a fresh start by proposing a six-step plan implemented over the course of five years. 

 Alex Taek-Gwang Lee considered the political merry-go round where “the idea of mechanical management based on surveillance technology” so apparent in the current economy drives the “mechanization of work…drives each worker to be a part of the
mechanism.

Domenico Barra wrote, “The scale of what we are discussing is huge, considering the amount of people, billions, interested and influenced by our online day by day, every day emotional scrollacoaster.”  

Both Barra and Leo Selvaggio propose a more social/emotional response. Barra calls “for emotional interrogation into vanity, ego and culture.”
and Selvaggio the "performance and curation of identity." Robby Collins also believes in the performance of the whole body as a cue, “The more we know about the surveillance around us, the more we co-perform with it.”
 
Barra and Ricardo Castellini also propose that media literacy is necessary particularly in dealing with misinformation. Kerry Guinan proposed that the concept of glitch communication technologies was crucial for him in making his relational works.  “I'm
interested in how these glitches de-reify commodities and systems.”

Ulises Mejias proposed that our goals “be framed in terms of the divestment and boycott strategies that have already been employed to resist older forms of colonialism.” He agreed with Barra, Castellini and Guinan that “those tactics need to be supplemented by initiatives in education, culture and solidarity.”

During our last week, Rahul Markerjee wrote about the surveillance and injustices on protestors and activists in India.  The complications of using apps like WhatsApp and others are used by progressive groups but also right-wing vigilante groups.

Thanks to Rahul for giving us his perspective.  As we moved through our discussion this month our guests from the Netherlands, South Korea, Germany, Ireland, and the United States revealed that this has been an issue that has been at the cusp of global artistic intervention, social and political consideration and most definitely education. It truly has been a complex discussion and a reminder to all that the entire month’s posts can be accessed via our archive. 
http://lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/2021-February/date.html 

Best to all of you. 
Renate 

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