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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

The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest — Yochai Benkler, Berkman Center Faculty Co-Director :: October 18, 2011; 6:00 pm :: Austin Hall, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA. :: Free and Open to the Public; RSVP required. (Listen to David Weinberger’s interview with him here).

Harvard Professor Yochai Benkler (The Wealth of Networks) is one of the world’s top thinkers on cooperative structures. In his new book, The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest, he uses evidence from neuroscience, economics, sociology, biology, and real-world examples to break down the myth of self-interest and replace it with a model of cooperation in our businesses, our government, and our lives. Continue reading

[HIV-1, coloured green, budding from a cultured lymphocyte. Photo: HIV-1, coloured green, budding from a cultured lymphocyte. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.] Online gamers crack enzyme riddle, from ABC News:

“Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or World of Warcraft: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.

The exploit was detailed on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, where — exceptionally in scientific publishing — both gamers and researchers are honoured as co-authors.” More >>

The Assignment Book: A project by Luis Camnitzer :: September 21 - October 16, 2011 :: Opening: September 21; 6:30 - 9:00 pm :: Aronson Galleries, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, Parsons, The New School for Design, 66 5th Ave @ 13th Street, New York City.

“In The Assignment Book I am trying to bridge the distance between artist and viewer, and start a dialogue and collective research instead of merely communicating by way of a monologue. I would like to share unresolved and sometimes ridiculous conundrums and questions that hopefully lead to critical inter- and multidisciplinary thinking, and unleash similar but collectively generated stimuli. Not unlike the blog format, answers and suggestions should enter the exhibition space so that the stage is shared with the visitors, leading to deinsitutionalized learning: Learning Without a School. In this I abandon the traditional declarative stance of the artist/teacher. Being accountable for how I deal with the assignments I become an unprotected artist/learner.” - Luis Camnitzer Continue reading

[Image: Golan Levin, QR Hobo Codes/QR Stenclier and Will Pappenheimer, bUD, Bureau of Urban Devolution] Distributed Collectives — curated by Kelani Nichole :: until August 27, 2011 (Closing Reception: 6:00 - 10:00 pm) :: Little Berlin, 2430 Coral Street, Philadelphia. Continue reading

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

Electronic Art on the Waterways featuring Greg Sholette :: April 22, 2011; 3:00 - 6:00 pm :: Boston Harbor, Massachusetts :: SPACE IS LIMITED. PLEASE RSVP.

Join Assistant Professor of Art Cat Mazza’s digital media class aboard UMass Boston’s Division of Marine Operations 64-foot vessel for a lecture by artist and writer Greg Sholette on his new book Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture. Sholette will touch on collective art practices’ use of new technologies. The boat ride starts at Fox Point Dock on the UMass campus and ends at a pier near the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) where passengers can see a new public artwork using augmented reality by the art collective Manifest.AR. Vessel piloted by Captain Russ Bowles. Continue reading

Agency: Assembly (Showroom) :: April 13 - May 28, 2011 :: Opening: April 12; 6:30 - 8:30 pm :: The Showroom, 63 Penfold Street, London.

The work of Agency constitutes a growing list of ‘Things’ that resist easy categorisation, such as divisions between culture and nature, creations and facts, subjects and objects, humans and non-humans, individuals and collectives. These things are derived from judicial processes, lawsuits, cases, controversies and affairs relating to the subject of intellectual property (copyrights, patents and trade marks, for example). Continue reading

TED 2011: Virtual Choir Joins Voices from 58 Countries, via Wired.