#TrainingYRHuman by ecoarttech: A participatory Twitter-based artwork about the agency of animals who live with human-animals. While new scientific research has illuminated animals’ behaviors, their ethical attitudes, modes of cognition, and psychological awareness, our everyday experiences can also tell us a lot about our companion species if we listen carefully — about their diverse personalities and creative problem-solving and the ways they invent to express themselves and meet their needs in desires in a human-dominated world.

The #TrainingYRHuman participatory physical installation will début in beta form at the Animal Influence media art exhibition at Emily Carr University of Art + Design’s Intersections Digital Studios, November 2011. Thank you to University of Rochester for support of this project. More info >>

The Nonhuman Turn in 21st Century Studies :: May 3-5, 2012 :: Center for 21st Century Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee :: Call for Papers – Deadline: December 19, 2011.

Invited speakers include Jane Bennett, Ian Bogost, Bill Brown, Wendy Chun, Mark Hansen, Erin Manning, Brian Massumi, and Tim Morton.

This conference takes up the “nonhuman turn” that has been emerging in the arts, humanities, and social sciences over the past few decades. Intensifying in the 21st century, this nonhuman turn can be traced to a variety of different intellectual and theoretical developments from the last decades of the 20th century: 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

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…”