Tweeting the Revolution: Agency, Collective Action, and the Negotiation of Risk in a Networked Age — a talk by Beth Coleman (MIT) :: October 18, 2011; 12:30 pm :: Berkman Center, Harvard University, 23 Everett Street, Second floor, Cambridge, MA + webcast live :: RSVP required.

This paper looks at the impact of social media platforms on collective action. In particular, it focuses on spheres of activism where personal risk (bodily or otherwise) is the condition of participation. For this analysis, I discuss interviews conducted with Egyptian activists around the events of Tahrir Square. Issues of copresence, witness, and visibility are central to my discussion. This talk is based on a research paper developed with my coauthor Dr. Mike Ananny. Continue reading

Manfred Mohr: 1964–2011, Réflexions sur une esthétique programmée :: until October 15, 2011 :: bitforms gallery nyc, 529 West 20th Street, New York City.

It was May 11, 1971 when the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris opened the influential exhibition “Computer Graphics - Une Esthétique Programmée”. A solo exhibition by Manfred Mohr, it featured the first display in a museum of works entirely calculated and drawn by a digital (rather than analog) computer. Revolutionary for its time, these drawings were more than mere curiosities—they signaled a new era of image creation, setting in motion a trajectory of modernism and information aesthetics. Continue reading

Powers of the Hoard: Artistry and Agency in a World of Vibrant Matter by Jane Bennett :: September 13, 2011; 6:30 pm :: Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor, New York City.

How can objects sometimes be vibrant things with an effective presence independent of the words, images, and feelings they may provoke in humans? This question is posed by Political theorist Jane Bennett delivers the inaugural lecture as the Vera List Center for Art and Politics embarks on a two-year exploration of “Thingness,” the nature of matter. In the face of virtual realities, social media and disembodied existences, the center’s programs will focus on the material conditions of our lives. Continue reading

ISEA Istanbul presents Site Specifics: Mobile Media Art and the Contexts of Place — Chair Per­son: Chris­tiane Paul; Pre­sen­ters: Tanya Toft, Jack Toolin, Teri Rueb :: Sep­tem­ber 19, 2011; 9:00 - 10:30 am :: Sa­banci Cen­ter Room 4, Sa­banci Cen­ter, Lev­ent.

The panel dis­cusses cat­e­gories of loca­tive, site-spe­cific media art and their im­pact on un­der­stand­ing the con­text of place. Mo­bile com­put­ing po­ten­tially en­ables var­i­ous forms of so­cial in­ter­ac­tion and has to be con­sid­ered in re­la­tion to con­cepts of em­bod­i­ment, the cre­ation of mean­ing, as well as in­di­vid­ual au­ton­omy and agency. Continue reading

Fellow Prisoners by John Berger, Guernica, July 2011: The best way to understand the world, writes Berger, is not as a metaphorical prison but a literal one. And what better way to inspire solidarity than seeing ourselves (them) as fellow prisoners?

[...] “What is being lived today is new because of its relationship with space.

It’s here that the thinking of Zygmunt Bauman is illuminating. He points out that the corporate market forces now running the world are ex-territorial, that’s to say “free from territorial constraints — the constraints of locality.” They are perpetually remote, anonymous and thus never have to take account of the territorial, physical consequences of their actions. Continue reading

[Adam Greenfield @ Systems/Layers Walkshop] Some implications of networked sensing for privacy in public space: Toward a taxonomy of public objects by Adam Greenfield:

[...] “My feeling is that the complexity of this terrain is such that abstract principles and so-called “best practices” aren’t particularly likely to be useful in guiding us toward better decisions unless they’re firmly grounded in a concrete consideration of some present-day actualities. In our attempt to think more clearly about these issues, therefore, we start by considering five real-world informatic systems, all developed and deployed in the past three years. These are arrayed along a spectrum of concern, from a sensor I think of as self-evidently non-threatening, to something I believe the privacy community particularly — and advocates of high-quality public space in general — ought to be deeply troubled by…”

Ultra-red | Art, Collectivity, and Pedagogy: Changing the World in which we Live, Chto delat?:

The art world is going through a period of intense fascination with collectives. This is often combined with an enthusiastic interest in pedagogy. Curators, critics and institutions champion collectivity and pedagogy as, among other things, an alternative or corrective, if you will, to the art-star economy of the 1990s and its spectacular demise. These recent interests have benefited from the enormous influence of the French philosopher, Jacques Ranciиre. Seeking an explicitly political inflection in the terms of pedagogy and collectivity, many have turned to Ranciиre’s writings on spectatorship and the emancipatory potential in art. This appropriation in the visual art context has tended to ignore the extent to which Ranciиre’s own thinking occurs within a nexus of pedagogy and the collectivities that occur in performance. Continue reading

A group of activists, educators, technologists, and community organizers now known as Public Laboratory came together to organize the Gulf Oil Mapping project. Since May 2010, we have been working with New Orleans-based Louisiana Bucket Brigade to get Gulf Coast residents out on boats and along beaches to produce high-resolution aerial imagery of the spill’s effects. All the imagery from this project is being released into the public domain.

Grassroots Mapping is part of the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, founded by a group of activists, educators, technologists, and community organizers interested in new ways to promote action, intervention, and awareness through a participatory research model. Continue reading

July 2011 on –empyre soft-skinned space: Reclaiming Creativity as Agent of Change :: Moderated by Simon Biggs (UK/ Australia) with co-moderator and discussant Magnus Lawrie (UK) and invited discussants, Shu Lea Cheang (Taiwan/ USA/ France), Paolo Cirio (Italy), Jussi Parikka (Finland/ UK), Saul Albert (UK), Julian Oliver (NZ), Michel Bauwens (Belgium) and Simon Yuill (UK).

Established during the so-called “age of discovery”, cities such as London were not only loci of empire but trading hubs. At that time European nations exercised power at sea. However, there were other players on the high-seas — the pirates, portrayed as scavengers and thieves but also as social innovators and redistributive “Robin Hoods”. Continue reading