Please support this inspiring and important project! Local Autonomy Networks (Autonets) is a line of mesh networked electronic clothing with the goal of building autonomous local networks that don’t rely on corporate infrastructure to function, inspired by community based, anti-racist, prison abolitionist responses to gendered violence. The project is focused on creating networks of communication to increase community autonomy and reduce violence against women, LGBTQI people, people of color and other groups who continue to survive violence on a daily basis. The Autonets garments, when activated, will alert everyone in range of the the local mesh network who is wearing another autonet garment that someone needs help and will indicate that person’s direction and distance. More here.

Listen to KPFK’s interview with Micha Cárdenas:

[A network of nodes (29)] Emergence in the Social Web by Liat Berdugo:

Abstract: Complex systems sometimes exhibit what’s known as emergence — the phenomenon wherein the whole is more than the sum of its parts. For instance, ants acting individually are mindless, but collectively they self-organize to form intelligent colonies with intricate behavior patterns. I explore whether something similar can be said of the way that a collective consciousness seems to emerge from the nodes in a social web. I begin by showing why emergence is a compelling way to understand what happens on the social web, and examine meme generation and social movement formation, specifically, as resultant emergent phenomena. The emergence of social phenomena is nothing new — it happens in offline communities like family units, corporations, and cities. Continue reading

[Image: The Aesthetic Face(s) of Anonymous, owni.eu) AMT Lecture Series: Gabriella Coleman – e pluribus Anonymous: in lulz we trust :: November 10, 2011; 5:00 pm :: Parsons New School for Design, Room #1200, 12th Floor, 6 E16th Street, New York City. Continue reading

Identity Bureau Workshop: How to Make a New Identity by Heath Bunting :: October 20, 2011; 10:30 am - 5:00 pm :: Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk), Keizersgracht 264, Amsterdam. Continue reading

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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

CELL by James Alliban & Keiichi Matsuda:

Commissioned by Alpha-ville for the 2011 festival this interactive installation plays with and proposes alternative landscapes in the technological ether surrounding our everyday movements. Personal identity is increasingly becoming a broadcasted commodity, as a result of this, our constructed personae enmesh and define us. CELL realises our virtual reflections, making digital projections into literal ones. This installation creates luminous clones, exposing these parallel realities as it replicates the body movement of visitors. As the visitor moves through the installation space, personal data mined from internet profiles is randomly tagged onto the alternate, technologically refracted form of the body, revealing the second self while simultaneously allowing us escape from it. Continue reading

Digital Crossroads: Media, Migration and Diaspora in a Transnational Perspective :: June 28-30, 2012 :: Utrecht University, the Netherlands :: Call for Papers and Panel Proposals — Deadline: January 10, 2012. Continue reading

CuratingYouTube presents: Anonymous: Shared Identity in the Era of Global Networks — Online Exhibition Curated by Sakrowski with support from Ute Fischer:

Anonymous: Shared Identity in the Era of Global Networks attempts to give an overview of the movement of the Internet-activists ‘Anonymous’ through a comparative and aesthetic investigation in the form of a series of video-grids including videos that were made by the activists in the course of their protests activities.

‘Anonymous’ is applying the medium ‘web video’ in order to announce its activities taking place on the Internet and in real space, as well as call for others to participate. Thus, the videos should be seen as an important interface between the Internet and the so-called real world. Continue reading

The Politics of Visibility: Mediating the Global, Local and the In-between :: November 4, 2011 :: Parasol Unit, 14 Wharf Road, London, N1 7RW, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

A collaboration between Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art and City University London, The Politics of Visibility: Mediating the Global, Local and the In-between is a one-day conference that brings artists and academics together to examine the relationship between art, media, transnationalism and power. Continue reading