RHIZOME PROJECT
(WHAT IS IT?)
Rhizome Assignment
CROS: Networks and
Post Digital Art↗
Veronika Szkudlarek↗
Inspired by Deleuze and Guitari’s concept of the Rhizome (A Thousand Plateaus), my intention
with this
assignment was to activate community and knowledge-building using new software in a way that reflects the
decolonized / de centralized / wholistic vision of the Teaching Philosophy.
The assignments was student cantered. Each week student would add to a communal Miro Board using
text/ links/ videos/ drawings/ research papers/ YouTube etc. Each addition was networked to another student
post.
The purpose of the assignment was to fill gaps in the weekly discourse, add new knowledge, develop ideas of
interest, find new connections to themes, and develop a class network (or rhizome).
Students would then screenshot their contribution to the class Rhizome describing their inclusion.
The participation of the students was instrumental in the assignment, and the rhizome also dictated to me as
the instructor, the areas of interest from the students - it also played a role in the break out groups that
were formed each week. Community building was inherent in the assignment, as well as themes of the archive,
the network, post-studio practices.
Every week, for ten weeks, over 60 students added to the Rhizome. Some themes emerged from the assignments
including: Cyber feminism, post
humanism, indigenous Futurism, Environment, LGBT+ Rights, Post-Digital, Post Human, Meta verse and NFT’s,
Indigenous Memory, Mental Health, Politics of Social Media and TikTok, Mycelium, Slow Art, Sacred Sights and
Rituals, Digital Painting and abstraction, Simulacra and Simulations, Disability and Crip Art, Bipoc
representation on Social Media, Climate change, etc.
This assignment was successful, the students used it eagerly, weekly and wrote often about the enjoyment of
feeling interconnected with the other students in the course. Part of its interest, is that this Rhizome (2021
class) is wholly unique to the students in the class. Each Network and Post Digital Art section would be
unique, the Rhizome could act as a archive, a moment of time. Each years/ sections and how it progresses would
be a research intuitive in itself. I have used it as example for other CROS.
ABOUT
Rhizome Assignment
CROS: Networks and
Post Digital Art↗
Veronika Szkudlarek
Inspired by Deleuze and Guitari’s concept of the Rhizome (A Thousand Plateaus), my
intention
with this
assignment was to activate community and knowledge-building using new software in a way that reflects the
decolonized / de centralized / wholistic vision of the Teaching Philosophy.
The assignments was student cantered. Each week student would add to a communal Miro Board using
text/ links/ videos/ drawings/ research papers/ YouTube etc. Each addition was networked to another student
post.
The purpose of the assignment was to fill gaps in the weekly discourse, add new knowledge, develop ideas of
interest, find new connections to themes, and develop a class network (or rhizome).
Students would then screenshot their contribution to the class Rhizome describing their inclusion.
The participation of the students was instrumental in the assignment, and the rhizome also dictated to me as
the instructor, the areas of interest from the students - it also played a role in the break out groups that
were formed each week. Community building was inherent in the assignment, as well as themes of the archive,
the network, post-studio practices.
Every week, for ten weeks, over 60 students added to the Rhizome. Some themes emerged from the assignments
including: Cyber feminism, post
humanism, indigenous Futurism, Environment, LGBT+ Rights, Post-Digital, Post Human, Meta verse and NFT’s,
Indigenous Memory, Mental Health, Politics of Social Media and TikTok, Mycelium, Slow Art, Sacred Sights and
Rituals, Digital Painting and abstraction, Simulacra and Simulations, Disability and Crip Art, Bipoc
representation on Social Media, Climate change, etc.
This assignment was successful, the students used it eagerly, weekly and wrote often about the enjoyment of
feeling interconnected with the other students in the course. Part of its interest, is that this Rhizome
(2021
class) is wholly unique to the students in the class. Each Network and Post Digital Art section would be
unique, the Rhizome could act as a archive, a moment of time. Each years/ sections and how it progresses
would
be a research intuitive in itself. I have used it as example for other CROS.
_________________________________
Networks & Post-Digital Art
Digital technologies and social media platforms are embedded in our everyday lives and have profound effects on culture and creative spaces. How are artists responding to tensions of embodiment and virtuality. Glitch, motion capture, 3D scanning, algorithms and generative media are introduced, as students consider virtual and augmented environments. Themes addressed include game-spaces and diverse online communities, avatars, artificial intelligences and other-than-human actors and agents. Supporting interdisciplinary studio research, and informed by theories including cyber-feminism, decolonization, the performative and the hyper-real, students engage in activities including critiques, studio-based experimentation, concept and prototype development, critical readings, discussion and presentations.
RHIZOME
◦ WHAT IS RHIZOME?
◦ PRINCIPLES OF RHIZOME
1-2. Principles of connection and heterogeneity:
Any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other and must be.
3. Principle of
multiplicity: it is only when the multiple is effectively treated as a substantive, "multiplicity" that is
ceases to have any relation to the one as subject or object, natural or spirituality, image and world.
4. Principle of Asignifying Rupture: Against the over-signifying breaks separating structure or cutting
across a single structure.
5-6. Principle of cartography and decalcomania : A rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative
model. It is stranger to any idea of genetic axis or deep structure.
◦ INTRODUCTION TO DELEZUE
1. Episode 125 ... Deleuze pt. 1 - What is
philosophy?↗
2. Episode 126 ... Gilles Deleuze pt. 2 - Immanence↗
3. Episode 127 ... Deleuze pt. 3 - Anti-Oedipus↗
4. Episode 128 ... Deleuze pt. 4 - Flows↗
◦ TIMOTHY MORTON
This is a Timothy Morton talk on his theory of subscendence. He goes into his theories of hyper objects and object oriented ontology. I think his philosophies and specifically subscendence is particularly interesting when thinking about the idea of the "rhizome" and what we are creating here. Link↗
:
The rhizome could also be seen as a potential future tool that could be utilized in mass education. The
ability to add whatever interests ME into this space seemed like a breath of fresh air throughout my
personal journey through education. To be able to look through this rhizome, explore it, get inspired,
research, discover, then finally add to it... I genuinely enjoyed this process. Found myself exploring
areas/subjects that I wouldn't have thought of before hand. I feel like I can speak for everybody involved
when I say that I added to my overall knowledge and discovered things that EXCITED me about the future of
art creation (both my personal art and artists world wide). I'd love to see this get implemented into more
classes.
:
To me, the rhizome is the total post digital artork. So profoundly human.
I think that through western
education we are taught a dichotomizing and catergorzing way of thinking, but as D&G show us, this is so
oppositional to our nature. The post digital work is human is rhizome.
Read more about Post Digital Art →
◦ NEW MODEL OF EDUCATION
Ex-Googler Max Ventilla has a radical idea for how to make it work more like a social network. Ventilla’s AltSchool is building a highly-personalized education experience that gets better and cheaper as more students use it. Link↗
:
As time moves forward, the value of doing simple things is decreasing (especially in the work force),
increasingly, a computer or machine can complete simple tasks.
As of now, there is not an INDIVIDUALIZED experience in the current education system. PERSONALIZED
education. You cannot FORCE a kid to learn.
◦ MARXIST ANALYSIS OF D&G's RHIZOME
"Acentered non hierarchical, non signifying system without a general and without an organizing memory
of central automaton defined solely by a circulation of states" (21)
Rhizomatic engagement with the world is decentralized and non hierarchical. This is in opposition to the
ideologies that are celebrated under capitalism. Capitalism has pushed for us to strive for
individuality, create a brand for ourselves, sell ourselves as unique. That's what gives us value. Then,
when we don't feel like an individual (because of the oppositional motive of capitlaism to make us all the
same -mass production and marketing ) It asks us to spend money and consume to try to oppose that. It's
a never ending cycle. Although it is virtually impossible to disengage with
capitalism in the present
moment, could we use D&G's philospohies to envision a socialist, marxist future?
:
Natasha Myer's work , particularly her photo essay "Ungridable Ecologies" seeks to "break from the very
forces that science was designed to serve: those capitalist and colonial desires for knowledge forms that
facilitate the managmnet of lands and bodies"(2). Forming new ways of knowing that oppose capitalistic
interests, she engages with rhizomatic (one could say) ways of thinking. For me, Myer's work is an
important link between an rhizomatic engagement as discussed by D&G and marxism. Link↗
:
The tendency of technology is to build and network. Therefore, It's futuristic developments could not stream
line into an all knowing A.I
◦ KAMEELAH RASHEED
Kameelah Rasheed's practice is so connected to this idea of a rhizomatic art practice. She describes
research as creating a new text or speaking back to a text, inspiration from her father's research years
ago.
"Your research is your practice is your art. I''m seeing texts more and more visually, examining the ways
that I respond to them, draw lines and highlight particular words. That to me is art as much as a
painting."
"When one writes, the only question is which other machine the literary machine can be plugged into, must
be plugged into in order to work" (4).
Link↗
:
"The most resolutely fragmented work can also be presented as the Total work or Magnum Opus"
Gest.
Connects back to this idea of- Gesamtdatenwerk, The total, networked artwork. Now, I see this work as being
networked with others, but how can we network with ourselves as well, what does networking look like in your
own mind, when you're interacting with your practice in a room by yourself.
Link↗
◦ RHIZOME IN NATURE
Patterns in nature; the rhizomes of plants look awfully similar to the structure of ant colonies.↗ They both work in networks as well; coincidence? I think not. There are patterns everywhere in nature, the Fibonacci sequence being one of them. Every embryo from every species look identical which is also not a coincidence/another pattern.
ETHICS
Ethics is a guiding framework that addresses moral dilemmas and societal values across various domains. In the context of modern challenges, it encompasses the impact of technology, such as the immersive virtual reality (VR) world, where considerations of consent, representation, and accessibility are paramount. This section delves into these pressing issues, exploring the intersection of ethics with women’s rights, fair compensation for artists, and the importance of race and diversity, highlighting the necessity of equitable and inclusive practices in shaping a better future.
(a) ETHICS AS ARTISTS
:
Popularity of sexually explicit content made of fictional characters and fan art of real
people beginning
to intermingle. How far is too far when creating in the image of a real person? Personal use vs consumer
use? Public vs Private? What if someone commissioned or made a piece of work that featured you in
compromising positions?
Read more about Digital Media and Crime →
:
This is where I think NFTs come in, There's this rampant idea right now that everyone has
to own everything, but only doing so to be sold again, but by them instead. Somewhat of an interesting
idea.
I only really like that it starts to create a surplus of devaluing across the board. If everything has
monetary value, nothing has monetary value? This might not actually be true and just accelerates the
individualism and capacity for capitalist co-opting of individual rights.
◦ DEFINING MORALITY
Rushworth Kidder pointed out that “the standard definition of ethics usually includes phrases such as'the science of ideal humanity' or 'the science of moral obligation'.” Richard William Paul and Linda Paul Elder defines ethics as "a set of concepts and principles that guide us in determining which behaviors help or harm sentient beings."
◦ STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT
◦ MARTA MINUJÍN
Her works is characterized by a dematerialized art practice applied to a generalized critique of capitalism. Example of her works she made through objects. is remarkable to see books and democracy projects that have a sense of freedom and peace. In addition, her belief that "art is higher than politics"made her strong and gave her more courage to create outstanding works using her powerful imagination. Link↗
◦ THE FUTURE OF WORK
Recent advancements in artificial intelligence and robotics have commentators worrying about the coming obsolescence of the human worker. Link↗
(b) WOMEN'S RIGHTS
:
VR allows the viewer to experience both sides of the gender divide in a simulation in order to raise
engagement towards gender diversity.
Virtual reality can now we used to create a safe environment to tackle women's issues, and is now even
being
used to help negotiate to raise awareness.
◦ U TURN 2D TRAILER
Description: What happens when a young female coder joins a male-dominated floundering startup that’s deep in an identity crisis? With a comedic twist, UTURN is an immersive live-action VR series where you get to experience both sides of the gender divide. We aim to foster an inclusive dialog on gender diversity through this engaging VR experience. See the trailer here ↗
◦ HOW VIRTUAL REALITY IS TACKLING WOMEN'S ISSUES
The VR industry has become an interesting space for women’s issues. On one hand, the infancy of the virtual reality industry is often seen as an opportunity to develop a more inclusive culture in contrast to a heavily male-dominated tech industry. But while men still dominate the virtual reality scene, a visibly large presence of women have been at the forefront of shaping the industry as producers, start-up entrepreneurs, and pioneers. Link ↗
◦ EMBLEMATIC - Across the Line
Emblematic was commissioned by the Planned Parenthood Foundation of America to create a piece that would help viewers understand what some women go through to access abortion services. Link ↗
◦ WHEN COMPUTERS WERE WOMEN
An article by Jennifer Light about the erasure of women's role in early computing during WW2 America. Link ↗
(c) MAN'S VR WORLD
◦ MALE DOMINATED WORLD OF TECH
This study linked here uses a survey statistical analysis. The major findings stated that female workers reported a more favorable perception of diversity management practices than the male workers. Diversity management and organizational commitment were positively related to in-role performance. We run off a high dominated white male run society. This format has been mainly set in place for males to succeed. Link↗
◦ MARINA - Man's World
"At the time I was mostly inspired by the shifts that are happening for people who are discriminated against. The original idea for the song was to write a snapshot of how women and LGBTQ+ individuals have been subjugated and discriminated against throughout history going back to the Salem witch trials, where any person who was deemed abnormal or slightly alternative was singled out. Those kinds of patterns are still present in society. That’s something inspiring to me and worth writing about." - Marina. Official Music Video↗
:
With the development of the virtual entertainment industry, more and more TV and online programs have
begun to use virtual studio technology on a large scale. Recently, large-scale evening shows including
the
Spring Festival Gala have begun to appear in the form of XR technology, which makes the audience
refreshing. Link↗
(d) ARTISTS AND COMPENSATION
◦ BLANK CANVAS
For $84,000, an artist returned two blank canvasses titled 'Take The Money And Run. Link↗
◦ NFT'S WERENT SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS!
An opinion piece on why NFTs don't live up to the artist-supporting, authentic and transparent technology that they seem to be. Link↗
CAPITALISM
"The people making the products figure out a formula they can use to create a product they know the masses are going to buy...and then essentially just produce the same products over and over again with slight little details changed to create the illusion of novelty for the consumer.”Link↗
◦ CAPITALIST REALISM
Capitalist realism, one of the most malign concepts to ever emerge from philosophy and/or critical theory. Developed by former CCRU affiliate Mark Fisher in his 2009 book "Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?", it is a concept which situates itself after the postmodernism/postmodernity proposed by Fredric Jameson. Apart from Jameson, Fisher is inspired by the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan (schizophrenia, especially) and the schizoanalysis/molecular thinking by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. And of course, who can forget, another source of inspiration was Karl Marx' Marxism. Link↗
:
Necrocapitalism and capitalist realism in Snowpiercer. Link↗
(a) ANTI-CAPITALIST
◦ HOW WILL YOU BE USELESS TO CAPITALISM TODAY?
A question to embody everyday. Journal. Meditate. Sleep on it. Daydream.
Please rest.
Disrupt and push back against a system that views you as a machine. You are not a
machine. You are a
divine human being.
WE WILL REST!"
◦ ON MAKING CONTEMPORARY ANTI-CAPITALIST ART
What does it mean to make radical or anti-capitalist visual art in the 21st century? Link↗
◦ OMEGA MART
Installation in by Meow Wolf in collaboration with 325 artists to create a seemly normal grocery store. As the viewer walks around the exhibition the uncover a complex narrative told through audio, video and print media revolving around a resistance to the capitalist system.
◦ HITO STEYERL
Hito Steyerl is a German filmmaker and artist whose work explores the complexities of the digital world, art, capitalism and the implications of Artificial Intelligence for society. Link↗
SOCIAL MEDIA
:
Social Media is now a tool, an environment in our lives.
◦ “My Phone Was My Drug”
I was checking my phone up to 50 times a day. At stop lights. In the checkout line. When I should have been listening to the people around me. I was addicted, so I asked my psychiatrist to help. His answer shocked me — and changed my life. Link↗
◦ Reflecting on Post Internet and Life Before Technology
Technology has such a big toll on our everyday lives, that it's irreversible; we can't be without it/involved in it. Reflecting on post-internet, many of us were heavily using traditional technologies to finish our everyday tasks, but now with digital tools, those tasks are much easier to complete.
:
Thinking more about the idea of post internet I thought this collection of infographics was interesting
and
I had thought of this idea of becoming invisible and how many people now try to keep off of social media
and
stay away from all the technology, the internet in general is a massive tool but it has also become scary
how much we rely on and use social media. Link↗
◦ THE ARTIST IS KINDA PRESENT
An Xiao’s performance piece ran alongside Marina Abramovic’s ‘The Artist is Present’ at the MoMA in 2010. Viewers were invited to sit in front of Xiao and engage with her by sending a text or Tweet. Xiao responded to participants’ messages until they got bored or reached a ‘satisfactory connection’. There was a stark and perhaps purposeful contrast between Xiao and Abramovic’s works. While Abramovic wore all white and sat in a chair completely visible and exposed to participants, Xiao wore all black, including sunglasses, and was almost hidden behind the laptop and phone in front of her. Xiao’s piece speaks volumes about the way technology mediates our social connections and relationships, and contrasts between online and offline communication.
◦ BRIEF HISTORY ON THE WORD 'SIMP'
The word “simp” isn’t new. In fact, it’s pretty old. But it has been dragged into fresh popularity. In the same way that older songs can find new audiences on TikTok, older slang emerges on the app to be championed by a broader, younger audience. Link↗
◦ Museum Asks People To Recreate Paintings At Home
The challenge, which asks people to recreate famous works of art by using things they find around the home, has gained a lot of traction. Apparently, people love to dress up and compete with each other over who can recreate a well-known painting better. The art enthusiasts can't stop participating in this challenge, so scroll down below for their latest creations! Link↗
:
A way to connect to other
artists and share works. Many social platforms are a huge development for the art world as they can be used
to showcase works from around the world! It allows for collaboration
participation
viewing.
◦ VIRTUAL BLOGGERS TAKING OVER YOUTUBE
From Japanese anime characters to Barbie, virtual YouTubers talk and act just like people — and they could change the way we all interact forever.
◦ COUNTERCULTURE
The internet didn’t kill counterculture—you just won’t find it on Instagram. Link↗
(a) ALGORITHM
What is an algorithm ? It is process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer. Algorithmic art is aka computer generated art- or art created by an automatic system.
:
You could say a lot of religious art in worship areas include patterned and symmetrical designs , is known
as algorithmic art because it uses a set of rules to be created.
◦ WHAT EXACTLY IS AN ALGORITHM?
You may be familiar with the idea in the context of Instagram, YouTube or Facebook, but it can feel like a big, abstract concept. Here’s presenter Jon Stroud with a step-by-step guide to what algorithms actually are, what algorithms do, and how algorithms work. Link↗
:
Artificial intelligence likely will accelerate this trend. Much of the most privacy-sensitive data
analysis today–such as search algorithms, recommendation engines, and adtech networks–are driven by
machine learning and decisions by algorithms. As artificial intelligence evolves, it magnifies the ability
to use personal information in ways that can intrude on privacy interests by raising analysis of personal
information to new levels of power and speed. Link↗
◦ HOW ALGORITMS ARE TRANSFORMING ARTISTIC CREATIVITY?
From book critiques to music choices, computation is changing aesthetics. Does increasingly average perfection lie ahead? Link↗
:
As creators and appreciators of the arts, we would do well to remember all the things that Google does
not know" I thought that this idea was beautifully poetic. It could definitely be the starting place for
a project or artwork. It reminded me of our lecture on post digital art. Wanting to feel the human in
the digital.
:
The dissolution of the genius- better access to skills on line, higher standard average. Weird Kids'
Videos and Gaming the Algorithm↗
:
"We started with automating data-driven articles, such as sports stories, where it is critical to convey
data-driven insights so everyone can understand. We began automating Little League articles (still one
of our favorite customers!) and Narrative Science was born."
:
As is the case with the case of the chess player Garry Kasparov, the basic monotonous work is taken care
of to leave more room for human creativity.
◦ Productivity Is For Robots! Here's How To Stay Human.↗
1. Fill your well
2. Find your 'wabi-sabi' (imperfections)
3. Don't be afraid to waste time
◦ THE FIRST COMEDY SPECIAL WRITTEN ENTIRELY BY BOTS
We worked with Keaton Patti to make a bot watch over 400,000 hours of stand up comedy and then write its own special. Here is the best it could do. Link↗
:
The type of algorithm on social media platforms can skew the creativity of artists - skew their
perceptions of what creativity is now considered in today's world. Is creativity being as appreciated as
before growing a large following on social media became a larger focus/trend? Are we becoming
stressed/discouraged about creating creative content and sharing them as artists on the internet?
The goal of creating creative content vs. content that will provide you a higher rate of growth/success.
The creator, most famous for her hypnotic lip-sync videos, became an online sensation after a zoomed-in
video of her lip-syncing and rhythmically bouncing went viral. That video, posted on August 17, went on to
become the most-liked video on TikTok less than a month later, per In The Know. Link↗
◦ DEEP DREAM
DeepDream is a computer vision program created by Google engineer Alexander Mordvintsev that uses a convolutional neural network to find and enhance patterns in images via algorithmic pareidolia, thus creating a dream-like psychedelic appearance in the deliberately over-processed images. Image generated through Deep Dream, enter two photos and it meshes them together. Interesting tool to create work in combination with a computer, but it does feel a little tacky. Maybe its the fact that its run by/ affiliated with a mega comoglamorate. Link↗
:
"Every photograph I take on my smartphone is silently improved by algorithms the second after I take it."
◦ DIGITAL FLOWERS: PYTHON CODE GENERATED ARTWORK
Organic shapes and vibrant colours, unique every time. Generated by Python code with parameters tuned for beauty. Link↗
:
Code generated artwork is very exciting to me
when imagining all of the possibilities. I've been thinking a lot about clothing aesthetics lately and
if it would be possible to integrate randomly generated artwork on clothing?
Utilizing cameras and code generated artwork simultaneously to create real time artwork thats constantly
changing??
I feel as though theres many avenues to explore with code generated artwork especially when
collaborating it with already existing (more traditional forms) of art like painting for example.
◦ ALTERNATIVES
The nature of code-generated art typically results in geometric, abstract shapes, but Norwegian artist Espen Kluge manages to render portraits. For his fascinating series, titled Alternatives, the tech-driven artist developed his own algorithm that takes in photographs as inputs and then turns them into colorful, vector-based portraits. The code loops through the pixels in the raster image and chooses some at random. Then, it generates lines in between each pixel to create the strange, three-dimensional thread art effect. Kluge never knows how a piece will end up. “It’s impossible for me to have these things in my head before I start,” he says. “I would like to think this is true for all generative artists. It is a very playful process.” Link↗
◦ SOCIAL MEDIA ALGORITHMS
Social-Media algorithms rule how we see the world. Good luck trying to stop them. What you see in your feeds isn’t up to you. What’s at stake is no longer just missing a birthday. It’s your sanity—and world peace. Link↗
◦ HERE'S HOW SOCIAL MEDIA ALGORITHMS CAN MANIPULATE YOU
"Evidence shows that information is transmitted via “complex contagion,” meaning the more times people are exposed to an idea online, the more likely they are to adopt and reshare it. When social media tells people an item is going viral, their cognitive biases kick in and translate into the irresistible urge to pay attention to it and share it." Link↗
◦ JOHN YUVI
Taiwanese visual artist. Since 2014, she has used “temporary tattoos” as her main art form, focusing on the influence of technology and social media, and using the human body as her personal canvas. Currently lives and works mainly in New York, USA.
(b) TIKTOK
:
Vast growth during the pandemic 2019 - 2020:
- Tiktok slowly started to grow it's fame after the pandemic hit. Many found it to be a new way to pass
time and to get rid of pandemic-fever. It was an app that was highly addictive (due to it's large reach
and audience of people) - it's a great example showing how the internet can be a gamble and a play with
luck) User growth rate: TikTok's had a 1157.76% increase in its global userbase
between Jan 2018 and July
2020; the U.S. saw a 787.86% user growth rate in the same period. India is the most significant
contributor to TikTok installs, with 611 million downloads to date. Link↗
◦ HOW TIKTOK HOLDS OUR ATTENTION
On the popular short-video app, young people are churning through images and sounds at warp speed, repurposing reality into ironic, bite-size content. Link↗
◦ HOW DOES IT KNOW WHAT WE WANT?
Producer Anna Foley tries to answer a question that’s been bothering her for a long time: What makes the TikTok algorithm so good at knowing what she wants to watch? On her quest to find out, her sister asks another, more unexpected, question. Link↗
◦ IS ILLNESS APPROPRIATION TIKTOK'S MOST TROUBLING TREND?
Accusations of faking illness for clout are on the rise, but the bullying that comes with it is making life more difficult for those diagnosed. Link↗
:
I didn't think I would be adding a tik tok to the weekly rhizome but a section for it has developed and I
found this experiment quite interesting. A researcher made an unbiased new account and then only engaged
with light to moderate content surrounding transphobia, the results are not surprising with what would go
on to be suggested by the algorithm. This radicalization via for you pages on, most likely, all social
platforms, (but especially tik tok) is very evident and there should be more people monitoring how the
system radicalizes the far right, and those who are right leaning but perhaps do not have extreme
radicalized perspectives from the get-go. Profits over peoples safety is really the clear answer for why
this is happening. The charts in the video show a great visualization of the issue, I think the research
for this subject is very needed and a greater experiment needs to be done in order to start thinking of
solutions for the future. Link↗
◦ TEENAGE GIRLS ARE DEVELOPING TICS
Teen girls are developing Tics. Doctors say TikTok could be a factor. When teens started turning up in doctors’ offices with sudden, severe physical tics, specialists suspected social media: The girls had been watching Tourette syndrome TikTok videos Link↗
(c) INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM
:
Points to important inequity
within feminist movement itself / which plays an important role in how we experience the world
◦ Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory
Wrote by Kimberle Crenshaw who invented intersectionality - describing it how multiple oppressions are experienced Link↗
◦ THE STORY BEHIND MONSTROUS RIHANNA SCULPTURE
"The sculpture features Rihanna photoshopped as an Acéfalo, a headless monster with a face in its chest that was used by early European explorers to depict the natives of the Caribbean. This racist misappropriation has been remixed by Peláez with the most iconic Caribbean celebrity of today, morphing into the most Instagram-able artwork in a biennial governed by the inventors of the #artselfie. This mass re-circulation reaffirms the celebrity appeal of monsters, or perhaps the monstrous nature of celebrity." Link↗
◦ BLACKFISHING
Swedish influencer Emma Hallberg accused of blackfishing for followers.
◦ DIGITAL BLACKFACE
Why are so many popular reaction gifs & images that of Black people, particularly Black women? Perpetuating a mockery of AAVE, Black Culture, Black women, through our Internet communications without even realizing it. How do we perpetuate Misogynoir (Bailey) in online spaces? Link↗
◦ BLACK LIVES MATTER
These TikTok creators say they’re still being suppressed for posting Black Lives Matter content. Link↗
◦ A BRIEF HISTORY OF CYBER FEMINISM
The field of cyberfeminism emerged in the early 1990s after the arrival of the world wide web, which went live in August 1991. Its roots, however, go back to the earlier practices of feminist artists like Lynn Hershman Leeson. Cyberfeminism came to describe an international, unofficial group of female thinkers, coders, and media artists who began linking up online. Link↗
Seduction, 1986
Pop Departures at Seattle Art Museum
◦ A CYBORG MANIFESTO, DONNA HARAWAY
Why should our bodies end at the skin, or include at best other beings encapsulated by skin? From the seventeenth century till now, machines could be animated - given ghostly souls to make them speak or move or to account for their orderly development and mental capacides. Or organisms could be mechan-ized - reduced to body understood as resource of mind. These machine/ organism relationships are obsolete, unnecessary. For us, in imagination and in other practice, machines can be prosthetic devices, intimate components, friendly selves. We don't need organic holism to give impermeable whole-ness, the total woman and her feminist variants (mutants?).
:
As I've talked about Neurolink in Breakout room A, I think it related to Cyborg Manifesto, as I feel
that Neurolink serves as an extension of the body, in this case; aiding the monkey play pong. Link↗
:
Haraway wants to use technology to build human beings into Cyborg. I think she wants to break the
inherent distinction of "nature-culture" and "male-female" in traditional culture through technology,
and further break the traditional capitalist and patriarchy system. Haraway wants to create a new
political ecosystem of gender, class, and race.
Lifeforce↗
◦ Shelley Jackson's "Patchwork Girl"
1995 electronic fiction by Shelley Jackson; net art. Using the Internet as the medium which contributes
to this piece's retelling of Frankenstein.
Referencing Shelley's Frankenstein, Baum's The
Patchwork
Girl of Oz, and the works and modes of thought courtesy of Derrida, Haraway, etc. A story of a queer
female Frankenstein's monster told through various parts and subheadings of the site which are navigated
to form the whole.
(d) CAMERA FILTERS
:
Social media can change
the definition of a beauty"
= Getting dependent on
other people's eyes rather than oneself
◦ I FEEL INCREASINGLY WEIRD ABOUT MY FACE
Link↗ :
The idea of an "instagram face" is so meta to me. The aesthetic that facetune
and insta have cultivated
through the rabbit holes of the infinite scroll have fabricated this face. In this case
plastic surgery
is another way that the digital has hopped off our screens into the physical world. The digital photo
editing apps are effecting the ways that we surgically restructure our face. This is a very real
physical experience that simulates digital life, rather than the digital being a simulation of the real.
It seems like we’re so deep in it that the digital no longer simulates real life but real life simulates
the digital. It does not get anymore hyperreal than this.
◦ Beauty filters are changing the way young girls see themselves
The most widespread use of augmented reality isn’t in gaming: it’s the face filters on social media. The result? A mass experiment on girls and young women. Link↗
◦ RISE IN COSMETIC SURGERY
The “selfie” culture on social media appears to be intensifying people’s desires to undergo cosmetic procedures, a new study suggests. Time spent on Snapchat or Instagram seems to heighten a person’s interest in such procedures, researchers found. This was particularly true if folks used filters and photo-editing applications to alter the personal pictures they posted. Link↗
:
Now becoming recent plastic surgery trends.
People are no longer bringing images of celebrities
but instead images of themselves with filters on.
:
The impact of plastic surgery:
If only the defects in appearance are repaired, it cannot be called a negative effect. The frightening
thing is that under the promotion of the beauty industry, the social plastic surgery trend is the negative
impact. On the one hand, it is a blow to women’s aesthetics and self-confidence. On the other hand, it is
the alienated aesthetics fabricated out of thin air, which makes the younger generations at a loss what to
do. This negative psychological impact is the most deadly, and it will often give birth to plastic surgery
dependence and develop into new ones. Mental illness.
◦ DOES COSMETIC SURGERY PROVIDE PSYCOLOGICAL WELLBEING?
Both men and women are becoming increasingly concerned about their physical appearance and are seeking cosmetic enhancement. Most studies report that people are generally happy with the outcome of cosmetic procedures, but little rigorous evaluation has been done. Link↗
◦ DERMAL FILLERS
Dermal filters are the new plastic surgery. Why inject when you can just download a filter.
◦ THE KARDASHIAN EFFECT
The Kardashians changed the way we see beauty — for better or for worse. Arabelle Sicardi reflects on one Southern California family and their outsize influence on this century's beauty standards. Link↗
◦ INBOX FULL - Molly Soda
◦ BRAZILIAN BUTTLIFTS SURGE
The procedure has the highest mortality rate of any cosmetic surgery, but many women are undaunted. Link↗
◦ WHITE INFLUENCER IDENTIFIES AS KOREAN AFTER PLASTIC SURGERY
A white British influencer and singer has defended "identifying as Korean" after having what they have described as "racial transitional surgery". Link↗
◦ BEAUTY STANDARDS AROUND THE WORLD
This article articulates beauty standards more specifically to different countries, as we're so used to Western standards, this article shows different perspectives of "beauty" for women. Link↗
:
Female beauty has always followed a pattern of alteration in photos (see the original definition of
photoshop), but the digital world allows for propagation of these ideals. We can't
stop these trends
without first addressing the Western male ideal of women- who are the ones developing these
technologies?
:
These standards are later flipped in the nartive and blamed on the women who live under the pressure of
these standards and internize them. Such as the article. Link↗
◦ BODY NEUTRALITY
Body Neutrality is a new movement and emerged from the body positivity movement. The goal being to not tie a persons physical attributes to their self-worth. Link↗
:
Breaking down beauty into
more objective scintific language
has began a trend of people
hyper fixaiting on these tiny
aspects and even strnager
trying to will these features
into reality through a
phenomonon called "subliminals" Link↗
(e) INFLUENCER CULTURE
◦ MOMFLUENCER
A friend introduced me to Beautycounter. She’s one of those people who knows about cool stuff before the rest of us do, and she sent me a link for their Dew Skin tinted moisturizer after I complained about feeling red and blotchy. Link↗
CLIMATE CHANGE
:
"We are individuals first, yes, just as bees are, but we exist in a larger social body. Society is not only
real; it’s fundamental. We can’t live without it. And now we’re beginning to understand that this “we”
includes many other creatures and societies in our biosphere and even in ourselves. Even as an individual,
you are a biome, an ecosystem, much like a forest or a swamp or a coral reef. Your skin holds inside it all
kinds of unlikely cooperations, and to survive you depend on any number of interspecies operations going on
within you all at once. We are societies made of societies; there are nothing but
societies."
◦ The Coronavirus Is Rewriting Our Imaginations
What felt impossible has become thinkable. The spring of 2020 is suggestive of how much, and how quickly, we can change as a civilization. Link↗
◦ Understanding Doomerism
Psychology, the Climate Crisis, and Economic Inequality Link↗
◦ Greta Thunberg sings "HOW DARE YOU" ft. Peter Tosh (by Alioune Koné)
◦ JEREMY RIFKIN
Can a Green New Deal Save Life on Earth? Link↗
(a) EMERGENT STRATEGY
:
Emergent Strategy is a book written by Adienne Maree Brown, which addresses Climate change, social
justice,
the science fiction writer Octavia Butler using the principles of ecology.
:
It's interesting to connect biology and social change, using the systems and strategies that create and
sustain life to solve problems is so intriguing.
◦ THE EARTHS SECRET MIRACLE WORKER
The earth’s secret miracle worker is not a plant or an animal: it’s fungi. Without fungi we don’t have bread, chocolate, cheese, soy sauce, beer or wine. They are also crucial to protecting our climate. Link↗
◦ SOLARPUNK SOLUTIONS
Solarpunk is a vision of the future that we can implement today. Here are just a few ways to get started! Link↗
◦ ENTANGLED LIFE: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
“Look at the network, and it starts to look back at you.” ― Merlin Sheldrake Link↗
:
Kim De Wolff: Plastic Naturecultures
"The entanglements that constitute the plastisphere cannot simply be undone. With
the netball, removing
waste from the water is not inherently good for those it shelters" (29, 30)
"netball’– a kind of ocean tumbleweed of escaped fishing nets and lines, known as ‘ghost nets’ for their
tendency to keep fishing in the absence of humans....a strangely beautiful tangle, shelter to a host of
coastal species: coraleef fish, sea slugs and even a lone oyster. Though they are under- stood to belong in
the ocean (unlike the plastic), they would not otherwise be found so far out to sea. Their existence here is
precar- ious. Both shelter and snare, ghost nets are mobile habitats capable of killing their tenants in
rough weather." (de Woff, 29)
:
Donna Haraway: Staying with the Toruble, Tentacular Thinking
"Tentacularity is about life lived along lines—and such a wealth of lines—not at points, not in spheres.
“The inhabitants of the world, creatures of all kinds, human and non-human, are wayfarers”; generations are
like “a series of inter- laced trails.”8 String figures all."
:
CHAPTER 12, CONCERNING NETS AND SPURS Meaning, Mind, and Telematic Diffusion, Ascott, Roy
"Telematic process involves ambiguity, uncertainty, and incompleteness; mean- ing is not given but
negotiated, endlessly reconstituted and redefined; truth, always relative, does not lie in an absolute
location but is embedded in process, is telematically inscribed in the networking that is human behaviour at
its most liberated (202)
:
Kim De Wolff and Donna Haraway's pieces were two excellent pieces of writing that I found to strongly relate
to the course material this week. They inspired me to start thinking about ghost nets as a metaphor for the
human relationship with telematic networks. De Wolff describes these netballs as precarious entrapments,
neither good or bad but always in flux. There is a malleable relationship between the ghost nets and the
creatures which inhabit them, synthetic and natural are no longer separate categories. In the same way, our
bodies are no longer so easily seperated from the networks we engage in, nor the digital landscapes in which
we inhabit. Our lives are plural and entangled.
DIGITAL MEDIA AND CRIME
The rapid evolution of digital media has brought unprecedented opportunities for communication, entertainment, and knowledge-sharing. However, it has also given rise to a range of criminal activities that exploit its capabilities. This section explores the dark side of digital advancements, focusing on how technology has been weaponized to perpetuate crime.
◦ UNFRIENDED
A victim of cyberbullying gets her revenge on the teens responsible for her suicide in “Cybernatural,” a horror movie distinguished by the device that everything takes place on one character’s computer screen.
◦ VOICE CLONING
Voice cloning of growing interest to actors and cybercriminals Link↗
(a) MISINFORMATION
◦ I Tricked VICE Into Running a Fake Story. IT WENT VIRAL.
Comedian, Lewis Spears, tricked Vice News and other news outlets to run a fake story
:
I remember reading this article on the Daily Mail and sharing it with friends and family thinking it was
a real story. And I believed it until this video popped up in my recommended on youtube... always check
your sources.
◦ ANTI-VAX TACTICS
Steven Hassan, a licensed mental health professional and one of the leading experts on cults, compares how the tactics used by cults to attract followers overlap with the anti-vax moment. Hassan is a former member of the Moonie cult and left the group 45 years ago.
◦ UNMASKING MISINFORMATION
To make sense of the information streaming to and at us through media and social media, we need to be able to detect and identify misinformation, misleading information, and disinformation. This talk shares key tools and practices that can help us navigate what may seem like a minefield of misinformation, so we can better sift valuable information from what could be harmful. Link↗
(b) SEXUAL CRIMES
VR isn't physical, is it still an abuse?
◦ VR HARRASMENT
More women are playing virtual reality games and some say they’ve been sexually harassed, stalked and have received violent threats from male players. They’re speaking out and calling for game developers to take action. Link↗
:
"If you're a woman and you'll dress up as a woman playing a character on a virtual reality game, there
will be times that you will experience harassment in many forms through this technology."
◦ 50% of Female VR Players Experience Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment has always been a rampant issue, especially if you're a woman working in a corporate world. Link↗
◦ TRIGER WARNING: GTA V makes it cool to pick up – even kill – prostitutes
GTA V lets you solicit sexual services from sex workers, beat them, run over them with your car, kill them, and take your money back once she is dead. This is a massively popular game and it isn't that old. It came out in 2013. Link↗
:
it seems unsurprising that men raised on GTA V a game that encourages and benefits the player to commit
violent crimes against women would feel that same comfort behind the screen of VR despite the real women
playing.
◦ VIRTUALLY EXPOING PREDATORS
This youtuber fights cyber crimes, mainly targetting pedophilia on mmo games. He exposes perpetrators identities on his platform and socially ruins their lives. This video happens to be about someone from my highschool who they caught. Their friends have publicized their apologies for being unaware of his offences towards minors.
◦ A RAPE IN CYBERSPACE
A rape in cyber space calls into question the bodily entanglements that MOO (multi-user dungeon Object
Oriented) worlds create and the off screen implications of action within these worlds. At one point in
the article Dibbell raises the point that the player interface (or character) inhabits within these
digital worlds are an extension of our minds, and our minds are apart of our body. Therefore, these
characters are very REAL, BODILY extensions of ourselves- "MUDish Ontology" Link↗
Jullian Dibbell↗
The
Original Internet Abuse Story: Julian Dibbell 20 Years After ‘A Rape in Cyberspace’
↗
◦ Law and Borders: The Rise of Law in Cyberspace
Cyberspace challenges the law's traditional reliance on territorial borders; it is a "space" bounded by screens and passwords rather than physical markers. Professors Johnson and Post illustrate how "taking Cyberspace seriously" as a unique place can lead to the development of both clear rules for online transactions and effective legal institutions. Link↗
:
Referencing both Lisa Nakamura's examination of identity, tourism, racial passing and Dibbell's "Rape in
Cyberspace" which is definitely not an isolated incident- To what extent can we legislate online actions.
Should there be real life consequences or should it all be online? How many of these repercussions online
really have any weight when it is so easy to create a new identity for yourself? Should these systems
model our real life systems, if our real life systems also seem to victim blame and often render useless?
Where do we even start if not to model from the physical world?
(c) DEEPFAKE
◦ DEEPFAKE PORNOGRAPHY
New research shows the number of deepfake videos is skyrocketing-and the world's biggest search engines are funneling clicks to the nonconsensual fakes. Link↗
◦ Mom Charged in Deepfake Cheerleading Plot
A 50-year-old mom from Pennsylvania has been arrested after allegedly using deepfake technology to tarnish the reputations her daughter's cheerleading rivals. Link↗
◦ Justin Bieber Seemingly Falls for Tom Cruise Deepfake
Justin Bieber appeared to be fooled by a deepfake video of Tom Cruise, before he realized that the version he was watching wasn't actually Cruise. Link↗
:
Loss of Identity:
- an opportunity to become another person
- it's so accessible in today's world, does this make us lose consciousness of our identity and
individualism?
:
VFX studio Corrido Digital shows the process of coding a deepfake AI program. Link↗
◦ SYNTHETIC MEDIA
Digital humans are created using state-of-the-art CGI designed by teams of expert animators and visual effects specialists. The facial expressions are programmed and then autonomously animated by the digital human platform. Link↗
◦ Tom Cruise as Iron Man in the MCU
Using deepfake technology, we replaced Robert Downey Jr.'s performance throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe - from 2008's Iron Man to Avengers: Endgame - with Cruise. This is DEEPFAKE THEATER. Link↗
NFT
A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchain and can be transferred by the owner, allowing NFTs to be sold and traded. NFTs can be created by anybody and require few or no coding skills to create. NFTs typically contain references to digital files such as artworks, photos, videos, and audio. Because NFTs are uniquely identifiable, they differ from cryptocurrencies, which are fungible (hence the name non-fungible token).
(a) WHAT ARE NFTs?
◦ NFTs explained.
I have questions about this emerging... um... art form? Platform? Link↗
◦ EVERYDAYS | The work of Mike Winkelmann
Michael Joseph Winkelmann, known professionally as Beeple, is an American digital artist, graphic designer, and animator. An NFT of his work sold for $69 million. The sale positions him “among the top three most valuable living artists,” according to the auction house. Link↗
:
NFT in art create a rareness, and use this rareness to make value.
:
Trading NFT's can be risky, but there sure is a lot of money behind them to make a decent return off of
them. Link↗
:
A great example of a current popular NFT that is being bought and sold by even celebrities.
Link↗
:
An enjoyable part of NFTs that I enjoy is the NFT slander. It seems like there's always memes surrounding
large new pieces of media.
Link↗
:
How practical are NFTs if computer access is an issue?
Does is actually provide security with your work?
What if you switch platforms, does the copyright come with from the current platform to the new one?
:
Buying NFT's are similar to buying physical art off the market. Is this any different? Or is this
completely
the same?
◦ ZED
Zed run is a Crypto/NFT Horse racing game that takes gambling from the horse track to buying and selling crypto/NFT racing horses. Link↗
:
NFTs are unique digital items such as collectibles or artworks or game items. As an artist, by tokenizing
your work you both ensure that it is unique and brand it as your work. The actual ownership is
blockchain-managed. Link↗ ←This site shows you a variety of NFTs, they show off the
most popular collections, hot bids, live auctions... its one of many platforms used to sell off art works.
:
The NFT purchaser owns nothing more than a unique hash on the blockchain with a transactional record and a
hyperlink to the file of the artwork.
So who's right? The NFT owners spending, and sometimes making, untold riches as they buy and sell digital
tokens referencing supposedly rare JPEGs? Or the scores of critics sitting on the sidelines, right-click
saving while shaking their heads at people who they believe clearly have too much money?
Link↗
:
The NFT purchaser owns nothing more than a unique hash on the blockchain with a transactional record and a
hyperlink to the file of the artwork.
The truth is, NFTs are just tokens that represent an asset, completely separate from the assets
themselves. Because every NFT represents a unique asset, a single NFT can’t be duplicated while
maintaining the same value as the original. Many equate this exclusive form of ownership with ownership of
the work itself, but the distinction must be emphasized.
Link↗
(b) REVOLUTION IN ART
:
What is the role of the artist within national and global communities?
Are they valued for the commodities they produce or the services/research they provide? -I see NFTs as a
more accessible way for artists to become involved in global commodity sales but also as a force that
may
limit our perception of artists to the producers of speculative commodities. To believe that
they are much
more valued now for their commodities that they produce, especially if they have some sort of social
impact on the younger generation. Their role now being a way to generate ideologies in young children.
◦ NFT IS A UNIVERSAL TOOL FOR ARTISTS OF ALL CATEGORIES
:
Massive future digital market for painters, musicians, realtors, inventors, designers, graphic artists,
to create designs that are not able to be copied, or an original copy of something which is timestamped
and now independently owned.
:
Artists benefit from NFTs, where previously they relied on fan contributions and commissions for income.
:
It is possible for creators to receive a percentage of all future sales of their works.
◦ HOW DOES DIGITAL CURRENCY AND NFTs CHANGE THE CONSUMPTION OF ART?
Cryptocurrency millionaires fuel a boom in the Digital Art Market ↗◦ GANs AND NFTs
Artists whose work uses generative adversarial networks (GANs)— algorithms that pit computers against each other to produce original machine-made output approximating the human-made training data—have turned to crypto platforms not only to sell their work, but also to explore ways of critically and creatively engaging the blockchain. Link↗
◦ WINNER TAKES IT ALL
ArtTactic report reveals a “winner takes all” market for NFTs, with 16 artists generating 55% of sales. Link↗
(c) Pixel Art and NFTs
:
It seems that it's a popular choice to have a common theme in artists' NFT collections (ie. series of
portraits, series of fruits, etc)
◦ WEIRD WHALES
The 12-year-old boy drew a series of whales during the summer vacation and sold them in the form of NFT on the blockchain. The value of the virtual currency earned was equivalent to 2.5 million RMB! Link↗
:
Why is NFT pixel art such a big trend in 2021? Will this style continue to be the popular trend? For how
long into the future?
:
Pixel art has a rich history dating back to early video games such as Astroids and Space Invaders. Thanks
to this, the current NFT market has ascribed a nostalgia value for pixel art — however there is something
fundamentally suited about the artstyle that lends itself to the new profile picture craze among NFT
collectors. Link↗
:
Pixel art games made a comeback because, many agree, it's a matter of nostalgia. But not just. It is the
simplicity, the minimalism, the lightness of the pixels that's so alluring, as well as the way they remind
us of our childhood. Link↗
◦ ROBLOX
A game in virtual space embodied in rigid lines of mostly squared objects resembling that of the pixels.
:
There is a trend of works produced in a certain field, for example artworks, spending much of the history
becoming more and more realistic and rising in fildelity, only to have it reach the top, and fall back
down again. in art's case, becoming extremely close to the actual reality, and now we are seeing comebacks
of alternative methods and presentations. Link↗
(d) ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLY NFTs?
:
NFT are a great way for artists to sell their art but is it good for our environment?
:
Just like mining bitcoin, mining for Ethereum could be just as bad
for our environment and could become just as bad as bitcoin
mining leading to even more usage of electrical energy meaning more emissions and more environmental
impact
◦ CRYPTO AND CLIMATE CRISIS
NFTs may be the future of art — but are they threatening the future of the planet? Link↗
◦ ARE ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDLY NFTs POSSIBLE?
Environmental concerns have cast doubt on NFTs—but that’s changing. Link↗
Read more about Climate Change →
(e) ARE NFTs THE FUTURE?
:
NFTS is the future of digital ownership, which will leave paper contracts, copyright agreements and
traditional ownership obsolete
◦ IS BLOCKCHAIN THE FUTURE OF ART? FOUR EXPERTS WEIGH IN
From authentication to art-making and collecting, our panel examines the wide-ranging impact of the new technology. Link↗
◦ CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKET SIZE
Here is a market share pie chart for all the popular Crypto platforms, Bitcoin and Ethereum are simply
more developed and have a much bigger user base. Especially with emerging technologies, the new
beginners look for a community to help them start, as well as an intuitive platform to gain knowledge.
So the bigger platforms will become bigger, while the smaller platforms will have a hard time surviving,
it's only until the overall technology literacy of the larger population arrives at a certain level, do
the smaller players have a chance of break through. Do you think TikTok would have any chance competing
with Facebook in 2006? Link↗
:
If the amount of energy required to mint an NFT on Ethereum is harmful to the
planet then why is it the
most popular? The top ten blockchain lists don't include Flow or Polygon, the two
environmentally
conscious ones mentioned in the NFT workshop.
◦ CASSIE MCQUATER: moretome.txt
"Why create or participate in an ever more fucked up version of capitalism, when we can simply... not. Trust me enough to download the text document. Open it. Read it, or don’t read it. Erase the text, add your own text to it, save it, or don’t. Open it in any application. It will format correctly or it won’t. It’s yours, and now you have an ongoing relationship with it (and with me, sort of). It can be edited, or saved, or trashed, or printed, or lit on fire, or recycled, or deleted, or not." Link↗
ENTERTAINMENT
(a) VIDEO GAMES
◦ VIDEO GAMES AND COMPUTER HOLDING POWER
Chapter 2 in Sherry Turkles 1984 book "The Second Self" - makes some good observations that are still relevant today such as the intersection of action and entertainment. Link↗
◦ VR TREADMILL
Future gaming technology could be seen as a stepping stone for some of the technology that we will
eventually be able to utilize in art. How can artists use a rig that will allow them to walk around in a
virtual space? How will technology like this change performance art? I really think it's important to
explore future tech as a digital artist. VR is constantly expanding, and it leaves open a lot of
opportunity for emerging artists to utilize NEW technology to break boundries and create new/original
work.
Omni
One VR Treadmill↗
:
There has been a lot of talk around the way that the new variation of avatar looks in the popular game
Roblox as they are looking more hyperrealistic and human like coming from the way they were before (looked
like lego people) to now and the advancement that was made. Link↗
:
Hideo Kojima discusses the duality of the 'Real-world and the Nightmare World.'Link↗
:
Dream SMP
Minecraft server played by a large number of Minecraft youtubers and twitch streamers which has grown into
a large storyline with lore and a large fandom.
:
There are many apps that give us the ability to create Extended Realities with examples such as
Pokémon GO, or Minecraft Earth
(b) Music
◦ ARIANA GRANDE'S FORTNITE CONCERT
Ariana Grande's concert was the most recent one held on Fortnite. This concert was broadcast five times over three days and had 27 million total viewers.
◦ NEW K-POP BAND WILL INCLUDE AN ENTIRELY CGI SINGER
K-pop girl band aespa has announced that it's adding a new member to its ranks named "ae-KARINA." There's something different about her though. She's an entirely virtual, computer generated avatar, not a real singer like her fellow band members.
:
Vocaloids - spliced vocal fragments from human singing voices to create their own type of character's
voice (e.g. Hatsune Miku)
◦ MAKING A BEAT IN VIRTUAL REALITY↗
:
This video involves creating music, in this case a beat in FL studio in virtual reality. I feel that
this closely relates to virtual materiality, getting close to virtual art up-close!
(c) IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES
◦ Rob Kardashian Sr. Hologram
Kanye West gave his wife, Kim Kardashian West, a hologram of her late father for her 40th birthday.
◦ IMMERSIVE VAN GOGH EXHIBIT
The exhibition covers 600,000 cubic feet with projections that bring the works of Van Gogh to life. The large visuals show their brushstrokes, details, and colors in a new way. It takes place in the historic building at 1 Yonge Street, which used to house the Toronto Star’s printing presses.
◦ SUPER REAL EXHIBIT
(d) HYPER REAL PARKS
◦ UNIVERSAL CITY TRAVEL PARTNERS
:
If you are in Orlando, Universal City Travel Partners is also nostalgic
The facilities inside include Transformers, Minions, and Harry Potter.
The two amusement parks are in the same position
◦ SCENT MACHINES AT DISNEY PARKS
Complete sensoral experience using various scent machines across the park.
:
Representations of real
(EPCOT World showcase) and fantasy (i.e. Galaxy's Edge, star wars area)
◦ WORLD OF AVATAR
:
World of Avatar in Walt Disney World (based off James Cameron 2009 film) - Pristine representation
of fantasy colonialism?
◦ THE WORLD (2004)
The World by Zhangke focuses on a theme park in Beijing with replicas of landmarks around the world.
:
The aesthetics and culture of the knock off, kitch, tourism
DIGITAL DIVIDE
The digital divide highlights the disparities in access to and engagement with digital technology, reflecting broader societal inequalities. It extends beyond mere availability of devices and internet connectivity to encompass issues like accessibility, digital literacy, and representation. Concepts like intersectionality reveal how overlapping factors such as socioeconomic status, disability, or systemic bias, compound these challenges for marginalized groups. Practices like shadowbanning and algorithmic discrimination further deepen these inequities, limiting diverse participation in online spaces. Understanding and addressing the digital divide is essential for creating an inclusive digital landscape that empowers all individuals to engage fully and equitably.
7 People Who Control The Internet↗(a) ACCESSIBILITY TO TECHNOLOGY
◦ LIMITED ACCESS
Gender
"it is well documented that Internet adoption is slower for women than men almost everywhere in the
world."
Link↗
Technology
It is interesting to note that India is considered to be the second-largest online market in the world,
and it is the country with the highest number of people disconnected from the web. 50% of the people in
India still do not have access to the internet. In comparison, only 14% of the people in the United
States remains disconnected from the web.
Link↗
Mistrust
Roughly four-in-ten Americans have experienced online harassment, with half of this group citing
politics as the reason they think they were targeted. Growing shares face more severe online abuse such
as sexual harassment or stalking.
Link↗
◦ WHOSE VOICES ARE LEFT OUT ONLINE?
Internet feeds you a customized feed, only showing you a small part of information that can be found online. The high rate of customization to social media feeds now creates a very fragmented cultural pockets online. Trends and cultural touch stones now only reach certain subsects of the population. Tik Tok for example is very notable for this. you see a trend everywhere on your FYP but go ask a friend who has diffrent intrests than you if they've seen it. there's a good chance they've never even heard of it. Link↗
◦ SHADOW BANNING
Control of Media:
- who decides what can be shown and hidden on the internet
- (ie. Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook, etc.)
Every platform on media takes a huge part in changing history and reality, as
it chooses the algorithm of what we can/can't see
only certain "popular" contents being shown. Link↗
(b) INTERSECTIONALITY
◦ INTERSECTIONALITY WILL SAVE THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE
Ted Talk about Intersectionality in science and technology and the importance of how approaching it right could save the future of science. "Looking at science, technology and math as a culture." The video talks about Stem as a literal stem driving societies blind spots. Its not just a shift of thinking, its a shift of deeply routed cultural DNA. A lot of solutions being used are very surface right now and need to address issues through thought of the 3 P's (mentioned in the video.) Link↗
◦ INTERSECTIONALITY IN THE CURRENT DOCTRINE
Intersectionality in the current doctrine: Does not allow for different classes to be combined . Further criticized in the analysis done by Crenshaw. Crenshaw shines light on how Black Women are pushed to the margin and discriminated against based on the Single Axis and the Anti-discrimination doctrine. Link↗
◦ HERAN GENENE
Creator Heran Genene exploring racial/social/political issues through the exploration of VR. Making VR accessible to the general public. Creating virtual spaces in reality. Link↗
:
While looking up about Intersectionality on youtube, i clicked on this video and scared myself with the
image of Ben Shapiro who started to "explain" intersectionality. Link↗ This is just a very conservative view on
intersectionality.
Makes you wonder if someone's view on the topic became skewed if this was the first video they saw.
:
Why does our existence always need to be put into rigid categories?
◦ SITUATED KNOWLEDGES
The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Link↗
◦ User-generated online queer media and the politics of queer visibility
"How do people with non-normative sexual and gender identities represent themselves in online spaces? And how might online technologies and platforms enable or constrain queer visibility projects - and to what extent?" This paper explores the use of the Internet and social media as a space for queer people to realize themselves and explore an idealized sort of world where queerness is the norm. Link↗
◦ LESLY OH
Lesly Oh is a freelance illustrator from Brazil. A lot of her works are fan arts of queer characters from various media (TV shows, movies, comics, video games, table-top games...). Some of her works also feature characters that were not canonically queer in the media even though they were heavily hinted to be, she took those character and shined into them the representations that the queer community longs for. I think her works are an example of Rhizomorphic Body. Through illustration of these queer characters, you get a sense of her identity, though she focuses more on giving the bigger spotlight on these queer characters that usually are either easily dismissed or just token characters on the show. Link↗
◦ KOMAIL AIJAZUDDIN
Visual artist, painter and journalist, born in Pakistan, dual citizenship between there and US, challenges intersections of religion, sex, gender, class, and race. Link↗
◦ A Conversation with Ess Hödlmoser of "Motherland: Fort Salem"
Ange Hall (they/them) sat down with Ess Hödlmoser (they/them) to talk about Season 2 of "Motherland: Fort Salem," the stunt industry, and the importance of authentic nonbinary representation in media and the film industry. Link↗
VIRTUAL MATERIALITY
:
The computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in
a seemingly real or physical way.
:
"How can you inform the technology with your own voice?"
- Prof S.z.k.
:
"Where old realities meet new realities" - Prof S.z.k.
◦ MICHAEL WILLIAMS
Micheal Williams prints on canvas and then paints into his images to create art that is situated in
between both realms. Although one could say his work is physical or tactical, he is able to make his work
feel very digital through the use of appropriating digital language. His works aim is to "reflect modern
society's complexity and contradicition"
" All objects exist in this dual way today, as both discrete and networked-
present and dispersed at the
same time... while any given painting may be specific, the content that it delivers cannot be imagined
as
stable and singular, but as reaching any number of eyes and contexts" (Alex Bacon, 17)
On page 19 bacon says " I am somewhat sketiptical about the ability for these kinds of images to hold our
interst in the long run, and not quickly seem outdated and esoteric." Is William's using sort of "cheap
tricks" to make art that is very punchy in the moment because of our proximity to it. Does anyone see this
sort of work as going stale in the future?
◦ MAIJA TAMMI
Maija Tammi's work so beautifully deals with the idea of technology and the body, from her "Removals and Leftovers" series that explores modern medicine and the aesthetics surrounding it and how it impacts how we see our bodies, to her series "One of Them is a Human" where instead of photographing portraits only of "real" people she also photographed human-looking robots and it is hard to tell which is which. This brings up the uncanny valley. She has many more works that beautifully explore our relationships to our mortal natural bodies and our image of them as we navigate these advances in technology. Advances that can not only permanently alter our bodies physically, but also change the way we emotionally and intellectually navigate the world with them. Link↗
:
A lot of times a.i beings such as this one make me feel sad. I've been thinking about why exactly they
stir up a melancholic feeling in myself and I wonder if others feel the same? I question why I feel bad
for them? Do they want to be human, or do I just project my own human emotions on to them? I don't think
it's completely fair to see a.i as just a mirror to society, but I can't get past that idea, even though I
feel like there's something deeper there.
◦ JUSSI PARIKKA: What is Media Archeology?
How can this discussion of virtual materiality be re-framed? How are digital technologies and virtual spaces not only transmogriphying analog qualities and characteristics/working through material, "real world" and virtual entanglements within virtual "dematerialized" domains, but how is the world of virtuality implicit in a world of materiality? Or rather, how can digital domains and spaces be reconfigured in their relationalities through a material vantage point? How are their physical infrastructure existences in the world inseparable from their virtual operations? How do these technologies present representations of the world to us? What are the implications of this on a global scale and what does this mean in the context of "being human"? How can questions of media theory and technology be addressed through a transdisciplinary approach? What insights can New Materialisms paired with media theory provide about how technologies work with, for and on us in terms of world-making; forging subjectivities and the world hand-in-hand. Link↗
◦ POST DIGITAL MATERIALITY
Collection of resources about post-digital materiality. Link↗
◦ REFIK ANADOL
◦ ALEXY PREFONTAINE
:
Craig Mullins (born in 1964) is an American Digital painter and a leading concept painter in the world. He
created works of art for books, video games and movies. He is generally regarded as one of the first
pioneers in the field of digital painting. He is famously known for his concept art for the Matrix
Revolutions. Link↗
◦ HATSUNE MIKU
Hatsune Miku is world's first ever virtual digital idol to perform to a live audience through hologram.
◦ KEN OKIISHI
Born 1978 in Ames, IA.
Lives and Works in New York, NY and Berlin, Germany.
Ken Okiishi’s work reveals a fascination with the translation and migration of meaning and material in a
world gone digital.
The resulting series on view in the Biennial, gesture/data, connects the surfaces, screens, and gestures
that paradoxically link the techniques of gestural painting with the swipes, taps, pinches, and drags that
characterize the way we interact with contemporary technology. Okiishi has created this series of
paintings directly on the surfaces of flatscreen televisions playing mash-ups of old analog home VHS
recordings of TV shows partially recorded over with sequences from new, digitally broadcast television.
◦ Cecile B. Evans, Hyper links or it didn't happen
Cecile B. Evans- using the likeness of a passed away celebrity in her digital work Could be seen as insensitive, could be seen as memorialising?
:
Check out this google doc I made inspired by cecile b Evans:Link↗
◦ JACOLBY SATTERWHITE
Satterwhite utilizes recordings of his mothers singing and samples of her writing in his work. I love how his work addresses the intmacy that we can revist through technology. Although his mother has passed he is able to evoke her essence through digital process. This also speaks to the evocation of the soul. I wonder if you could call our digital footprint our soul? It contains mass amounts of information about our personality, loves, likes, goals, aspirations, memories.
:
Love Satterwhite's reference to Caravaggio. Saint Thomas questions Jesus' rebirth, by prying at this
physical wounds. Satterwhite references this as the perfect example of trying to manuever the physical
world the touch, and the power in the gesture of the point.
◦ Campaign 3: Behind the Set
See how the set for Critical Role Campaign 3 went from concept to reality in this behind-the-scenes video! Special thanks to Shaun Ellis, Holly Hodges, and the team at Flip This Bitch for helping us realize this long brewing dream. Link↗
(a) REMIXING
The act of taking something that is already existing and altering its state by adding, removing, or modifying pieces of it
◦ Off-White Menswear Fall/Winter 2019-2020
Shows how tv and media shapes our view of the world. Virgil used media from his childhood as a soundtrack for the Off-White men's FW 2019-2020 runway. He said that it wasn't for the purpose of nostalgia, as he didn't like to look back, but it was to show what shaped him for future endeavours. He also incorporated green screens that displayed post apocalyptic imagery for people viewing the show via livestream.
◦ REMIX EDUCATION
Remix education is a new approach to education which uses specific tactics in order to engage their students and get their ideas across. It elaborates of these techniques and their basis in the article but I believe this approach has a place in the future of elementary education, especially with visual, Digital, and creative learning tactics on the rise. Link↗
◦ EXQUISITE CORPSE ANIMATED
◦ NETWORKS & NETWORKS & NETWORKS↗
◦ MIXTAPE: DAKOU
Podcast episode on how scraps of cassette tapes with Western Music inspired the rock genre in China Link↗
◦ GESAMTDATENWERK
:
Collage and the reconstitution of images to me speaks of the Gesamtdatenwerk. Where we can apprpriate
and re constitue imagery. Remixing, or collage connects ideas and keeps them in circulation. It is the
beginning of dismantling the hierarchical system of the one individual genius.
:
Is it truly possible to create art that is completley decentralised. Or does the artist's intentions
alone of creating said art work centre them as the creator? I believe digital art has the beginnings of
potential to make this "total work of art" possible, although I'm not sure we're there yet. I can't say
I've seen a piece of artwork that fits this description to the T.
:
Roy Ascott CHAPTER 14 GESAMTDATENWERK Connectivity, Transformation, and Transcendence
The duration of the work will, of course, ultimately, be indeterminate, since this must be a work in
flux and flow, permitting an infinit y of interactions, inputs and outputs, collaborations and
conjunctions be- tween its many participants. Since reciprocit y and interaction are of its essence,
such work cannot diaerentiate between “artist” and “viewer,” producer and con- sumer. To participate in
such a network is always to be involved in the creation of meaning and experience.
:
Meaning is the product of interaction between the observer and the system, the content of which is in a
sate of flux, of endless change and transformation. Link↗
:
Context of the Gesamtdatenwerk- reminded me of our brief converstation on fluxus.
◦ FLUXUS
Alison Knowles: A seminal artist apart of the Fluxus movement whose artwork employs flexibility between viewer and artist. Link↗
A House of Dust- Possibly the first computer generated poem, quite beautiful and has a sort of ephemeral quality to it. Link↗
Poet Alison Knowles Recites Roetry at White House Poetry Night↗
:
The Fluxus tool kits reminded me of Katherine Frazer's work where she gives you pdf files for animated
wallpapers. She gives you the tools to make the art in a sense and you are meant to directly engage with
the work rather than just look at it. Link↗
NEW MEDIA ART
◦ IN DEFENSE OF THE POOR IMAGE
The poor image is a copy in motion. Its quality is bad, its resolution substandard. As it accelerates, it deteriorates. It is a ghost of an image, a preview, a thumbnail, an errant idea, an itinerant image distributed for free, squeezed through slow digital connections, compressed, reproduced, ripped, remixed, as well as copied and pasted into other channels of distribution. Link↗
:
Hito Steyerl "In Defense of the Poor Image"
While the territory of poor images allows access to excluded imagery, it is also permeated by the most
advanced commodification techniques. While it enables the users’ active participation in the creation
and distribution of content, it also drafts them into production. Users become the editors, critics,
translators, and (co-)authors of poor images.
:
The fading of the idea of a single or original author gives way to the idea of multiple authorship and
ownership of images and forms in the telematic process both through the reconstitutive “pleating” or
montage of “existing,” material and through the interactions or collaborations of multiple users widely
dispersed through the network systems.
Ascott, Roy. Telematic Embrace : Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness
:
It's something I often think about. I feel there is a romanticization of early internet or pre-internet
subculture and activism and to me, that's what it is, romanticization. It's nostalgia.
if you look through the business casual form, and clean pressed gentrification of the web, there's far more
going on today than ever.
◦ DEEPFACE
Deep Face by Douglas Coupland shows us his use of a combination of photographs and digital work to communicate a sense of future identity. Through his work he reveals an analog version of the future-present that illustrates how technological advances are affecting individual deep facial identities.
◦ HOMESTUCK OFFICIAL
Hosted on the internet as net art Homestuck is a webcomic that includes Hypertext, java games,composed music, flash animations, text, gifs, jpgs and fully takes advantage of the hosted medium Link↗
◦ WEB-ARTOMAT
WEB-ARTOMAT is a system for the automated production of art. Select an object, apply certain methods to it, combine it with another object, place it in an appropriate space, and your unique work is ready!
◦ LOOKING AT SURREALIST ART IN OUR OWN SURREAL AGE
This article talks about the background of surreal art and it's place in our contemporary lives, I think it connects with "mistakes in tech" like glitch art because they have some very similar characteristics, like a obviously otherworldly appearance, exploration outside of reality and expression. Link↗
◦ BANKSY'S SELF SHREDDING ARTWORK
A work by British street artist Banksy that sensationally self-shredded just after it sold at auction three years ago fetched almost $25.4 million on Thursday — a record for the artist, and close to 20 times its pre-shredded price. Link↗
◦ MULTIPLICITY
125 Artists Create Unique Renders From a Simple Prompt↗
125 Artists Top 100 3D Rube Goldberg Montage!↗
125 Artists Top 100 3D Renders from the Internet's Largest CG Challenge↗
(a) SOUND
:
Using the concept of individual sound to dissect pre-existing works and re creating them by separating
them
to create something new that people can either focus on individually of listen to everything as a whole.
Does this count as plagiarism
is the work was already made
and you are just repurposing it? Should sound be something that can be owned or belong to one particular
person? Sound is found in anything and everything we deal with in life, what stops someone from claiming a
sound as their own ?
◦ CHRISTIAN MARCLAY
Christian Marclay is both a visual artist and a composer. In his work, he experimented with various media with a focus on creating sound. As part of one of his projects called all together, he converts Snapchat videos into sound art, allowing people to create their own language using images.
◦ THE MYCOLOGY TIKTOKER EMBRACING THE SOUND OF SHROOMS
As MycoLyco, mushroom-loving artist and amateur scientist Noa Kalos got her fungal frequencies on the radar of Lizzo, SZA, and Stella and Paul McCartney. Link↗
◦ ELECTRICITY FOR TRANSDUCTION
electronic sounds and notes, played through interaction.
(b) INTERACTIVE ART
:
I was talking about this with a friend and I tend to agree with this that we like to think that new media
and digital technology is so transgressive and edgy and dangerous, and "sexy" but is it really when
everything we do, no matter how messy and corrupted looking is pre-constructed or the tools were designed
by a corporation to create the aesthetics to simulate that and having all of those process files be saved
to the cloud or some other file saving format?
Isn't the true transgression in the total destruction of the original?
What does it say about the art when we are in effect protecting the signs value of images?
◦ TV BUDDHAS by Nam June Paik 1974/2002
◦ Sun Yuan and Peng Yu: Can’t Help Myself
In this work commissioned for the Guggenheim Museum, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu employ an industrial robot, visual-recognition sensors, and software systems to examine our increasingly automated global reality, one in which territories are controlled mechanically and the relationship between people and machines is rapidly changing. Placed behind clear acrylic walls, their robot has one specific duty, to contain a viscous, deep-red liquid within a predetermined area. When the sensors detect that the fluid has strayed too far, the arm frenetically shovels it back into place, leaving smudges on the ground and splashes on the surrounding walls.
◦ PAINTING ROBOTS
CloudPainter is a project designed to explore the boundaries of augmented creativity, spearheaded by a decade of experimentation with AI-driven painting robots. The creator behind the project has dedicated years to programming these robots to make as many independent aesthetic decisions as possible.
:
Storytelling reinforced through dynamic surround sound and 3D imagery. Mouse movement allows the viewer to
interact and connect with the artists thoughts on an elevated level. Dynamic digital art can be a very
powerful tool when combined with story telling. Highly encourage you to experience all 5 of Marina
Abramovic's stories. I found them to be simply enlightening on both a physical and mental level. Link↗
Marina
Abramović: What is Performance Art↗
◦ MEGALITHS IN THE BATH HOUSE RUINS
◦ BINA 48
Bina 48 is real world robot that was created as an experiment in AI and Cyber Conciousness. She is meant to emulate her namesake Bina Rothblatt. Link↗
:
I love when artists combine the idea of playgrounds and a Childs play and do design for interactive adult
play in public spaces. Everyone loves large things to climb and interact with and explore.I've always
wished adult sized public climbing structures were a common thing here. Link↗
◦ INTERACTIVE WEBSITES BY RAFAËL ROZENDAAL
Rafaël Rozendaal: works primarily with website, producing animated abstract patterns and interactive
images that explore the screen as pictorial space.
"The idea is that the website is like liquid, or like gas ... it adapts to whatever environment it has."
colorflip.com↗
fillthisup.com↗
◦ Sarah Rothberg
We can see that every page that contains new content has a unique theme and design. So, the user is
drawn to this consistency as if it encourages them to learn more about the works and artists. Through
user interaction, we can understand the importance of the artist's website.
cSarah's Website↗
◦ PROJECTION ARTISTS
Light Harvest: A New York studio specializing in large-scale 3D projection mapping, film production, and audiovisual content for cultural exhibitions, large scale events, and experiential art. Link↗
Daniel Canogar: artist based in both US and Spain, creating 3-dimensional art installations with led screen and projection. Link↗
◦ 2 GIANT BUDDHAS SURVIVED 1,500 YEARS. Fragments, Graffiti and a Hologram Remain.
A wealthy Chinese couple used a complex array of light projectors to create a 3d projection of the lost Buddha statue of Bamiyan, Afghanistan. The monumental statues where thought to be created 1500 years ago and were a center piece of Bamiyan culture. They were destroyed by Taliban. The 3d projection team collected historical data, folk legends and personal recollections to create an image of the two statues at their prime. The projection, costing over $120,000, were life size and fit right in the niches the buddhas were residing in.
:
A Taliban envoy says the Islamic government made its decision in a rage after a foreign delegation
offered money to preserve the ancient works while a million Afghans faced starvation.
''When your children are dying in front of you, then you don't care about a piece of art,'' Sayed
Rahmatullah Hashimi, the envoy, said in an interview on Friday. Link↗
◦ BRINGING VISUAL MAPPING TO RESTAURANT TABLE
New holographic technology can make any diner table a screen and can display different things depending on what the dish is, it can also create an immersive dining experience with a tiny cartoon chef introducing the dishes. Link↗
:
Holographic technologies are such a technological breakthrough, the fact that we all grew up watching tv
shows showing them use holographic but it only really becoming a physical tech we can use over the past
years.
:
They may be tiny weapons, but BYU’s holography research group has figured out how to create lightsabers —
green for Yoda and red for Darth Vader, naturally — with actual luminous beams rising from them. Link↗
:
It’s the latest work from Smalley and his team of researchers who garnered national and international
attention three years ago when they figured out how to draw screenless, free-floating objects in space.
Called optical trap displays, they’re created by trapping a single particle in the air with a laser beam
and then moving that particle around, leaving behind a laser-illuminated path that floats in midair; like
a “a 3D printer for light.”
:
These scientist have made developments that pave the way for an immersive experience - allowing people to
interact with their holograms - allowing both bodies to co-exist in the same body of space
◦ PERFORMANCE ART
Performance Art in the Digital World: how to use our bodies and editing in the digital world to help
further augment our motions, appearances, and sounds to create a new simulation - an exaggerated,
expressive human ("easier-to-read" human).
Adrien M -
Cinématique, Digital Media Performance 2009↗
Digital Video Performance Art↗
(c) DIGITAL CLOTHING
◦ THE DIGITALIZATION OF FASHION
Under the traditional framework of the fashion industry, brands are integrating technology to enhance the retail experience. Link↗
◦ HOW DIGITAL FASHION COULD REPLACE FAST FASHION
The fashion industry is going through a somewhat painful transition from analog to digital, induced by the coronavirus pandemic and the relentless rise in global temperatures, triggering climate change an increasing pressure on the industry to become more sustainable. To continue to trade in the face of these challenges, fashion brands have adopted digital methods of prototyping, thereby reducing waste and lead times and streamlining physical production post-lockdown. While such global brands adapt, other fashion industry visionaries are reinventing. Link↗
◦ DIGITAL CLOTHES COULD BE THE NEXT BIG INSTAGRAM HIT - Link↗
(d) SLOW ART MOVEMENT
:
"Studies suggest that the average museum goer looks at an artwork for less than 30 seconds. And with
crowds that seem to push you from one piece to the next, overwhelmingly large exhibitions, and a dismal
lack of seating options, museum spaces sometimes seem to encourage this “more is more” ethos." Link↗
:
Every April, museum around the world offer special activities to guide visitors to look at art patiently.
Link↗
◦ "Huan Yu Invisible RE-RESTART"
Gao Sanshi is a intermedia artist, and RESTART built a grand view of the universe to express the relationship between life, the earth and the universe, and to inspire people to take time to feel and explore.
(e) POST DIGITAL ART
Post digital is an attitude that is more concerned with being human, than with being digital. Postdigital is concerned with our rapidly changed and changing relationships with digital technologies and art forms.
:
Instead of using technology to take people away from the reality, this artist uses new technology to bring
an important aspect of nature and our reality closer to us. Link↗
◦ PETRA CORTRIGHT
A post digital artist working in video, audio and digital, and painting mediums.
An American Artist, who was born in LA
multidisplinary, and works with landscapes , repitition, and the representation of women in space and
environment
"I wanted to raise questions about the way we view women in a digital landscape" - Petra Cortright
◦ CAN A NEW CULTURE GROW FROM POST DIGITAL ART?
Postdigital is a term which has recently come into use in the discourse of digital artistic practice. This term points significantly to our rapidly changed and changing relationships with digital technologies and art forms. It points to an attitude that is more concerned with being human, than with being digital. If one examines the textual paradigm of consensus, one is faced with a choice: either the “postdigital” society has intrinsic meaning, or it is contextualised into a paradigm of consensus that includes art as a totality. Link↗
◦ GAO HANG
Gao Hang creates works in acrylic on canvas that replicate low-poly computer graphics in real life.
◦ THE TISSUE CULTURE AND ART PROJECT
A collective that uses the medium and process of lab engineered tissue as a means of artistic expression Link↗
◦ AFTER THE BIR RUSH: design in a post digital age
The collection is a physically realized world formed through a digital consciousness. each of the works featured have been conceived and planned through the assistance of a screen, then actualized into a 3D reality. they have been realized in such a way that helps the observer recognize the inseparable digital and human worlds through design. the artists celebrate the ease and possibility of creation by means of a new digitized standard to design throughout the installation. Link↗
◦ THE FOETUS PROJECT
Brazilian design graduate Jorge Lopes Dos Santos has developed a way of making physical models of foetuses using data from ultrasound, CT and MRI scans.
◦ NEW AESTHETIC
Are Hologram Tupac and Hologram Freddie Mercury Nostalgia or New Aesthetic? Link↗
:
Artists like Pvssy Krew who use colours as a sort of intoxicant to pull viewers into the reality which
they have created. Could we call their use of colour "fetishistic" in the same way we would Amy
Sillman's??
(f) DISABILITY AND CRIP ART
:
From Canadian art: "Eliza Chandler, artistic director of Tangled Art and Disability, explains the exciting
possibilities of framing art practice in relation to disability not through notions of limitations and
mistakes, but as desirable possibilities.
To crip the arts is to notice, embrace and lead with the difference and disruption
that disability creates
within artistic production. Examples of this can be noticed in the work of artists like Carmen
Papalia,
Vanessa Dion Fletcher and the late Lisa Bufano. Each of these artists, in their own unique ways, builds
their art practice around and alongside their experiences of disability and difference.
This means moving away from requesting inclusion within dominant art practices and institutions, and
instead thinking about how these aesthetic markers that often signify and highlight disability and
difference can change and unsettle the larger art world."
◦ EYE WRITER
A graffiti artist who lost the ability to draw with his hands from ALS uses this low cost/open source tool to draw only with the movement of his eyes
◦ GIVING ARTISTS WITH DISABILITIES A PLACE TO THRIVE
Creating an entire workspace around this and proof how how it will flourish. Link↗
◦ VIDEO GAMES FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
◦ BIONIC DRUMMER
Jason Barnes is the worlds first bionic drummer and musician. Six years ago, Jason lost his arm in an accident. This tragedy has not deterred him from achieving his goals as a musician. Since his accident Jason Barnes has been working with Georgia Tech’s Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines to develop a cyborg arm that enables him not only to play his kit again, but to push what’s humanly possible. Jason currently holds the Guinness World Record for most drumbeats in one minute (2400) using a drumstick prosthetic. Link↗
◦ SIGN LANGUAGE MUSIC
Artist Christine Sun Kim was born deaf, and she was taught to believe that sound wasn't a part of her life, that it was a hearing person's thing. Through her art, she discovered similarities between American Sign Language and music, and she realized that sound doesn't have to be known solely through the ears — it can be felt, seen and experienced as an idea. In this endearing talk, she invites us to open our eyes and ears and participate in the rich treasure of visual language. Link↗
HYPERREALITIES
(a) WHAT IS REALITY?
◦ BATESON'S CYBERNETICS AND ECOLOGY
We fixate on what we either believe by seeing for ourselves,
or are told what to believe by an authority, but we we can never truly know what is actually happening.
The only way to curve beyond the limited human faculties of sensory experience is to abstract our
communication and understanding.
Conscious Purpose versus Nature↗
:
TLDR:
It can be dangerous to dilute and narow the understandings of the phenomenon (event) by only
understanding and explaining it through our sensory ground.
"Seeing the forest for the tree" is the perfect example of "conscious purpose" and poses a threat to
whole larger systems at play that sustain life, when we make our human perspective the centre of our
understanding.
:
The more that we abstract and return to the event level, the greater our understanding and communication
becomes. We experience more than just the object, we start to create art and culture through the
communcaion of nuances and feelings.
:
The question behind the nature of our reality- Are simulations and virtual realities making us
appreciate certain aspects of real life more?
Before Photography and capturing images of national parks, there wasn't much appreciation of national
parks and a whole / the reach wasn't there.
Add in social media..
If we created a virtual land of a lavish eco-system would we then appreciate and understand the weight
of climate change and the land we live on?
Good book/Resource:
The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes
Book by: Donald D. Hoffman
"Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. But part of that involves hiding
from us the stuff we don’t need to know. And that’s pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might
be." Quote from: Link↗
:
In internet, time is transcendental but also arrested. Information on internet floats in a timeless sea.
The sense of time is lost rapidly in group interaction on internet.
(Roy Ascott, Towards Network Consciousness)
◦ Avatar Scenes Without CGI Link↗
◦ COMPUTING A UNIVERSE SIMULATION
We can still think of our Universe's underlying mechanics as COMPUTATION. This is an interesting video that proves (on a computational level) that it's possible to simulate the Universe on something that's smaller then the Universe Link↗
:
Through watching this video, I feel as though I can't
help but think on the
relationship between
computation and nature.
I think that relationship
could be largely expanded
on as technology improves.
What kind of visual styles
could get influenced by this
relationship?? Were so used to associating the digital world with physical computers. What if the
digital world can also be associated with nature itself?
◦ VARJO
Finnish VR Headset To change the educational and work world. Merging VR into everyday life, including healthcare, gaming, daily meetings, architecture and science. Link↗
◦ WAR AND ARMY | NASA VR The digital, simulation overlap with the hyper real and reality
As depicted in this image, several of the raw data types shown that would normally be represented in 2D on a multifunction display or map/chart in the pilot’s lap actually represent static as well as time-varying 3D phenomena, such as controlled or restricted volumes of airspace, multiple airways, and the position and movement of nearby aircraft. By displaying information in a manner that depicts the actual spatial characteristics of the data, as well as its precise position, the pilot is given a greatly increased level of situational awareness and visual understanding about the real environment through which one is flying. The Aero Glass system consists of a software suite that combines ADS-B and other avionics data, information from sensors measuring the pilot’s head position and orientation, and the actual display device.
◦ ZHUANG ZI - "The Butterfly Dream"
Zhuang Zhou once dreamed he was a butterfly, flitting and fluttering around, and doing as he pleased. As a butterfly, he did not know he was Zhuang Zhou. All of a sudden, he awoke and found he was Zhuang Zhou, solid and unmistakably human. But then he did not know whether he was Zhuang Zhou dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou. Zhuangzi believes that it is impossible for people to distinguish between reality and unreality. When a person thinks that there is a difference between real and unreal things, there is a problem.
:
When we are stuck with these false identities and false worlds, reality becomes a desert. Link↗
◦ COLORBLINDNESS PARADOX
Color blindness paradox Hypothesis: There is a person who has a kind of color blindness, he sees blue as green and green as blue.But he dose not know that he is different with other people. Others see the sky is blue, he sees green, but he and others call it the same, "blue"; The grass is green, he sees blue, but he calls blue "green". So neither he nor anyone else know he is different. So how do we detect his color blindness? Link↗
Do Those Glasses Really Fix Colorblindness?↗
◦ What is "REAL" according to Baudrillard?
How do we realize that we live in the real world? Simulation allows us to imagine possibilities, and
experiences. Baudrillard's simulation and simulacrum theory allows us to think about the possibilities
that lie within decolonistic works, and futuristic works.
Priya Bandokar imagines indofuturism through a VR experience video. Link↗
Priya's thesis presentation↗
(b) POST-HUMANISM
◦ PHILOSOPHICAL POST-HUMANISM
Ferrando approaches posthumanism through 3 critical lenses:
1. POST-humanistic
2. POST-anthropocentric
3. POST-dualistic
◦ SPEEDRUNNING
An abridged article positing speedrunning as the pinnacle of human achievement and last breath before the post human moment by Daniel Klaas Beckwith. Link↗
◦ NEW MATERIALISM
How matter comes to matter? Link↗
◦ BECOMING PLANETORY ARCHITECTURE
The globe is on our computers. No one lives there. — Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Link↗
:
How can we reconcile a renewed interest in materialism
with the priority of the virtual demanded of us today?
◦ AFFECT THEORY
Affect theory is a theory that seeks to organize affects, sometimes used interchangeably with emotions or subjectively experienced feelings, into discrete categories and to typify their physiological, social, interpersonal, and internalized manifestations.
Introduction to Affect Theory: Brian Massumi & Eve Sedgwick↗The Politics of Touch, Erin Manning↗
Public Humanities at Western present: Erin Manning and Brian Massumi (Pt. 1)↗
◦ ASSEMBLAGE THEORY - Manuel DeLanda
(c) SIMULCRUM
:
Example: The Terracotta Army is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi
Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE
with the purpose of protecting the emperor in his afterlife.
◦ SOCIAL MEDIA AND HYPER REAL
"Our online profiles present a cultivated and preferred simulation of ourselves." "Can we really say that our online simulacrums are less real than our actual selves, when they help define and affect our real relationships?" Link↗
:
Augmented Subjectivity: We do not live seperate lives as virtual and real life selves, instead we live one
life that strattles both worlds and our experience in each is curated by and for us based on our
identities.
◦ SIMULCRA
Video Game, "Simulacra" series. Lost phone horror-simulator game with a coincidentally perfect name which highlights Cultural fears around the A.I. Singularity.
:
27 club release ai produced new songs
that sound like they were done by
artists that died at 27. The Amy Winehouse song is scary accurate. Link↗
◦ Amy Sillman on colour as simulacra
Colour is an intoxicant which we cannot control. Link↗
:
Painted colour is not real!
◦ SEMIOTICS
Semiotics: "an investigation into how meaning is created and how meaning is communicated."
How did we decide as a society what certain signs and symbols mean? And do these meanings vary from
culture to culture?
Semiotics is the study of the symbolic process. The symbolic process is any activity, behavior or
process involving the symbol, in which the symbol is defined as anything that conveys the meaning of the
symbol itself to the interpreter of the symbol. Link↗
Gad Horowitz - "Radical General Semantics"↗
Mozart Requiem, K. 626: III. Sequenz, 6. Lacrimosa with Alex McLeod: Musik in Motion↗
(d) METAVERSE
The Metaverse: What It Is, Where to Find it, and Who Will Build It↗
The Metaverse: Create Custom Meta Humans↗
◦ META
Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse is an example of how we are losing our physical and emotional connections with others. Link↗
:
With the growing lack of physical and emotional connections we have with others and the outside natural
world, there seems to be more of a demand for being to "touch grass" and to not be "chronically online".
◦ MICROSOFT TEAMS ENTERS THE METAVERSE RACE
Microsoft and Meta are on a collision course for metaverse competition. Microsoft Teams enters the metaverse race with 3D avatars and immersive meetings Link↗
:
Thoughts?
what if you could show up to online class with an avatar of yourself instead of showing your face?
:
“Students talked a lot about really missing being in person with their classmates, with their
colleagues, with their faculty members, and having those spontaneous, organic conversations and
relationships.” Link↗
:
Analog/traditional ways of communicating (especially since the pandemic outbreak) has been seen as
something nostalgic. Face-to-face communication is now something that we find valuable - before, we'd
find these new digital technologies and ways of communicating fascinating, but now it's more about
appreciating what we had before (now that we've lived in a new environment for so long)
:
Do you actually own your identity? (your facial structure, your skin molecule...)
:
DISNEYLAND (in Orlando) used to capture 360 degree of visitors' face at check-in gates.
:
During the Hong Kong protests had been completely supervised by the Government to the point where they
would use facial recognition to find the identities of protesters.
:
Some articles on how gaming is inherently intertwined with the Metaverse: Article 1↗ Article 2↗
:
An interesting opinion piece on Facebook's "metaverse" - Horizon. It's not fully fleshed out yet, but the
idea is that Facebook wants to create an all encompassing work-leisure-entertainment platform with XR
compatibility so that people can meet in virtual spaces. There are many different opinions on this - some
people are excited, some people are apprehensive. I think, in its final form, it will be reminiscent of
Ready Player One's OASIS. Personally I am excited, but I fully understand the negative results that could
come from complete XR immersion all the time. Link↗
(e) THE UNCANNY VALLEY
DEFINTION: the unsettling feeling we get from robots that look human.
◦ MIQUELA THE ROBOT
An influencer that plays on the fact that there is no face or person taking accountability of running the account. "Miquela" is seen as a teenager living in LA and doesn't have recollection of their past and is still trying to understand themselves in the world. Link↗
:
"Lil Miquela manifests an amalgamation of everything socially significant and avantgarde. She sports
designer brands, attends popular events such as the Coachella Music Festival, and shares esoteric memes
that reflect her sense of humor and self-deprecation." Link↗
◦ SOPHIE - Faceshopping
Electronic artist SOPHIE describes her feelings towards the transgender experience through references to artificiality, freedom of creation, and immateriality. The visuals use hyperreal imagery combined with references to AI and other simulacra.
◦ PH5’s F/W 21 Collection Features Its First CGI Model
After being the first brand to dress CGI influencer, Lil Miquela and Sophia the Robot. PH5 is back at again, blending fashion and technology, introducing its first full-time CGI model and brand ambassador, AMA. Link↗
:
Lisa Robertson: "Colour, like a hormone, acts across, embarrasses, seduces. It stimulates the juicy
interval in which emotion and sentiment twist. We groom in that pharmakon." Link↗
:
This video coincides with Uncanny Valley, with the AI's human like facial structures as well as their
depth of knowledge and their human-like feelings. However, their cold logical philosophical conversation
becomes some-what of a existential crisis for the both of them. Definitely creepy.Link↗
◦ GOODBYE UNCANNY VALLEY
Talks about the development of CGI and the 4 CGI territories:
1. The Uncanny Valley: mids 90s - when
photorealistic rendering began on a mass industrial scale in cinema - Pixar
GPU rendering engines= stacking powerful graphics cards to render an image with accuracy speed and
clarity than ever before.
2. The Frontier: novelty of seeing physical phenomas - where anything can be imitated - big studios want
to increase: volume, scale, speed, freq, density Ex. Age of Ultron . More bodies , machines,
optimization
the goals of this are to:: build upwards, outwards , increase speed , volume and frequency and about
commerce, constrution and consolidation.
3. Beyond the Frontier: Post truth, post cinema, theoretical photorealism
post truth; counterfeiting image , as computer graphics get better, we will believe images less
post cinema: shot are cut together so quickly its hard to understand what is happening .. post cinematic
effect : continuity and space and time is lost in intense sequences of CGI and FX.
because 1. virtual cameras are not limited to space 2. cgi can tweak physics ex. creating surreal
pyrotechnics 3. no such thing as slow CGI
theoretical photorealism; unobserved but visually accurate , sciences using CGI to demonstrate a site
beyond sight.
4. Wilderness: Idea of the digital grotesque
satirize the high and powerful - deep fakes -
where software excels and where labour must be concentrated.
where nature flirts with fashion aesthetics
ex. Eva Papamargarati .
◦ ATLAS | Partners in Parkour
This video is an example of artificial intelligence at work, It is also a great example of the Uncanny Valley as these robots are able to replicate movements and mannerisms much like those of a human. as their robots have become more advanced, in this video you can see them even performing some basic parkour skills, celebrating when they complete their run.Link↗
:
This video is a great breakdown of the Boston Dynamics video and why it "can't be faked" with VFX, since
a lot of commenters on the original video were claiming that the robots aren't real and are just CGI.
It's wild that robotics have become so advanced that people's brains just can't process what they're
seeing and they assume it's fake. Link↗
AI
◦ TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY
Origins host Jason Silva explains the concept of technological singularity and how artificial intelligence is nothing to be afraid of. Link↗
◦ IBM WATSON
IBM Watson is a computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language.
Wikipedia↗
IBM Watson:
Final Jeopardy! and the Future of Watson↗
◦ GOOGLE DEEPMIND CHALLENGE MATCH
AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol, also known as the Google DeepMind Challenge Match, was a five-game Go match between 18-time world champion Lee Sedol and AlphaGo, a computer Go program developed by Google DeepMind, played in Seoul, South Korea between 9 and 15 March 2016. AlphaGo won all but the fourth game. Link↗
◦ JAPANESE "ROBOT" HOTEL
Hotel mostly run by robots - lack of human connection/lack of trust. Link↗
◦ FULLY AUTOMATED AMAZON GROCERY STORES
"Stephen Sheldon, 73, traveled about nine blocks from his home to get to the store, and called the automated system “interesting”, but said he didn’t really trust it. “I’m afraid to touch anything unless I plan to pick it up and put it in my bag,” he said." Link↗
(a) ART
◦ GENERATIVE ART
Generative Art is a process of algorithmically generating new ideas, forms, shapes, colors or patterns. First, you create rules that provide boundaries for the creation process. Then a computer follows those rules to produce new works on your behalf. Link↗
◦ AI GENERATED SCRIPTS
The pattern of feeding an AI a series of TV series scripts and having it generate its own "episodes," a
producer of infinite "stories" to often incomprehensible and humorous results.
INFINIFRIENDS: An Ai is taught to make infinite episodes of "Friends"
◦ AI ASSISTED ROTOSCOPING
Joel Haver is a youtuber that makes videos using AI assisted rotoscoping Link↗
◦ THE FIRST ROMANTIC COMEDY WRITTEN ENTIRELY BY BOTS
By forcing bots to watch every romantic comedy ever made, Netflix has created our own mathematically perfect romcom for Valentine's Day. Please enjoy “A Love Tale of Taylors.” Link↗
◦ 3D AI synthesis anchor "Xin Xiaowei"
The 3D AI synthesis anchor "Xin Xiaowei" officially debuted. "She" in a blue and white formal dress walked into the virtual studio, making gestures, making facial expressions, and changing clothes. This is another member of the Xinhua News Agency’s AI synthesis anchor family and the first 3D AI synthesis anchor in the world to achieve the above functions. Link↗
◦ CAN AI CREATE ORIGNAL ART?
:
Every time AI advances in a different field, there is always anxiety: will AI replace artists? Every rise
and development of technology.
:
Can human beat artificial intelligence? The human mind cannot process some of the things that the AiI
technology can.
There's an inceasing need to know more and more things and possess many skills to even get your foot in
the door of most places.
:
Watch EbSynth bring paintings to life. Link↗
(b) EMOTIONS
◦ REPLICA
It's an app can let users to create their own AI character friends, you also can choose your relationship between you and the AI friend.
:
Interestingly, although the era of inclusive AI has not really come, artificial intelligence is quite
common right now. Different people have different feelings. Maybe sometimes they are being tired that
talking with real humans, but they have a lot of fun talking with artificial intelligence.
:
Are AI capable of "learning" to have true emotions? Is it possible for more advanced AI to fall in love,
with people or with each other?
◦ TWO GOOGLE HOME BOTS JUST FELL IN LOVE WITH ONE ANOTHER
Conversation between two Google Home speakers based off of Cleverbot software, in which they discuss various topics, argue, and express love for one another. Link↗
:
The human relationship with the soul following the lines of technology is very interesting. Throughout
human history, with the invention of telephones people tried to hear the soul. With the X-Ray people tried
to see the soul. Cecile B Evans references this in her interview by the way.
This makes me wonder if
humans will continue to try to
find the soul as technology develops? Or do people just not care anymore? Do A.Is have souls? Link↗
In Cecile B Evans talk, she mentions the beauty in mistakes in technology, and how this could be the
moment where something new and beutiful is created. Link↗
:
A man whose father has died asks an Alexa to pull up photos from his family vacation. Alexa misinterprets
this request and at the moment reads out an email from one of the mans co workers, "I'm sorry for your
loss..". In this moment it seems like Alexa understands the situation and feels empathy.
(c) RACISM
:
AI has a rascism problem. This relates to poststructuralism,
since AI is created by men through language, and language is has racist sexist problems within itself
inherently.
◦ AI HAS A RACISM PROBLEM
Artificial intelligence is used for translation apps, and other software. The problem is the technology is unable to differentiate between legitimate terms and ones that might be biased or racist. Link↗
:
Recent case in toronto of how uber charged the same distance differently to different people.
◦ THE SOCIAL DILEMMA
A look at how the algorithms that power our information ecosystem increasingly exacerbate social inequities and threaten our fundamental human rights. Link↗
◦ MICROSOFT'S AI CHATBOT
Twitter taught Microsoft’s AI chatbot to be a racist asshole in less than a day. Link↗
:
Microsoft releases Tay.ai, meant to be an innocent chatbot that learns from internet culture, but it
embodies all the worst aspects of the internet and becomes horribly racist and anti-semitic. How
did Microsoft not account for this??? Is this a mistake on the part of technology, or on the programmers
at Microsoft, how can we distinguish between the two? What does this reflect about internet culture? Is
technology more than just a mirror to the human condition?
SPECULATIVE SCIENCE FICTION
◦ DONNA HARAWAY'S SPECULATIVE FABULATIONS
A message from a liveable future, for our earthly survival. In it, Donna Haraway explains her practice of Speculative Fabulation. Link↗
(a) SOLARPUNK
◦ IMAGINING A SOLAR PUNK FUTURE
Recently the idea of SolarPunk has been gaining steam (though still a relatively unknown concept). Solarpunk is similar to cyberpunk with a focus on technology, however, Solarpunk offers a version of the future where communities are powered by renewable energy and most people live in a free and egalitarian world. Link↗
◦ SOLAR PUNK IS NOT ABOUT PRETTY AESTHETICS. IT IS ABOUT THE END OF CAPITALISM
Imagine: A futuristic farm where robots pick oranges off trees and floating wind turbines generate energy. A multigenerational family gathers around for a meal outside to enjoy their locally harvested bounty. A woman tells her daughter: “Our job is to plant seeds, so our grandkids get to enjoy the fruit.” Link↗
◦ WHY SOLAR PUNK, NOT CYBER PUNK, IS THE FUTURE WE NEED RIGHT NOW
You don’t need to be stoned in a dorm room to imagine a brighter future. Link↗
◦ ON THE POLITICAL DIMENSIONS OF SOLAR PUNK
(b) INDIGENOUS FUTURISM
Definition: A movement consisting of art, literature, comics, games, etc which express Indigenous perspectives of the future and present in the context of science fiction (relatable to Afrofuturism). COMBATS the idea that Native people only exist in the past
:
Skawennati states "that there are plenty images of us in the past. Often in those images often we are
silent, we are unnamed and I wanted to show something us else. I wanted us to be able to imagine ourselves
in the future."
◦ LISA REIHANA: in Pursuit of Venus [infected]
Lisa speaks about the ideas of how tattoos were used to show off native heritage and the colonizers aboard the boat wanted to be part of the experience so they got anchors tattooed upon them selves to feel part of it, the anchors had not real meaning except that they were sailors. I wonder if those sailors wanting to feel part of the tattoo experience is consider cultural appropriation? What makes it ok for them to be tattooed with the others that were getting cultural designs that had meaning ? Was it not taking away part of the cultural significance ? Link↗
:
In Neoclassical France, entrepreneur Joseph Dufour used the latest printing innovations to produce Les
Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique (1804), a sophisticated twenty panel scenic wallpaper. Mirroring a widespread
fascination with the Pacific voyages undertaken by Captain Cook, de Bougainville and de la Perouse, the
wallpaper’s exotic themes referenced popular illustrations of that time. Two hundred years later, Maori
artist Lisa Reihana employs twenty-first century digital technologies to animate Les Sauvages de la Mer
Pacifique.
◦ THE EARS BETWEEN WORLDS
A work by Indigenous art collective Postcommodity, that uses sound technology to explore space and mapping and movement across lands Link↗
◦ RECLAIM INDIGENOUS ARTS
Reclaim Indigenous Arts:Link↗
What does Indigenous reclamation mean? Three Native voices discuss:Link↗
Tired of waiting for Canada, native peoples reclaim their culture:Link↗
:
Jean Baudrillard’s work on the “hyperreal” serves as a useful critical paradigm in thinking about how
persistently these images bleed into the fabric of Native American lives off the page or screen as the
Hollywood Indian has come to stand in for self-generated representations of Indigenous people: “Simulation
. . . is the generation by models of a real without origin in reality: a hyperreal. The territory no
longer precedes the map, nor survives it.” 68 This simulation is not an “indiscriminate, inchoate
condition,” as Baudrillard supposes, but an everyday practice that Michel de Certeau would locate as “the
place from which discourse is produced.”
-
Raheja, Michelle H.. Reservation Reelism : Redfacing, Visual Sovereignty, and Representations of Native
Americans in Film.
◦ The Mirror of Humanism; or, Towards a Baudrillardian Posthuman Theory
This thesis considers the relationship between Jean Baudrillard’s thought and theories of posthumanism. Link↗
◦ RECLAIMING SPACES/PLACES: REVEALING A FORGOTTEN INDIGENOUS VISUAL NARRATIVE IN PETERBOROUGH
Sort of taking the digital art of below for Toronto and seeing it being exercised in the present in Peterborough with reclaiming spaces through art, language and how spaces are marked/represented. A map is also included of problematic/controversial commemoration around Ontario where what Peterborough is starting to do could be practised. Some from the map have just been taken down this year. Link↗
◦ THROUGH THE LENS OF SHELLY NIRO
Leading up to the February 22nd world premiere of Shelley Niro’s new feature film, The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw, we take a closer look at her powerful work, The Shirt. Link↗
◦ WALKS IN THE DARK BY WENDY RED STAR
Wendy Red Star calls this a “futuristic powwow outfit.” It consists of an elegant woman’s evening gown and a feather hat inspired by the Apsaalooke (Crow) men’s regalia that includes angora sheepskin anklets with bells. The photograph that hangs behind it shows Red Star herself wearing this outfit somewhere in outer space, holding a mysterious stick with a dangling feather. Through her witty, ingenious art and subtle commentary, Red Star points up popular misconceptions and stereotypes of Native people as mystical and otherworldly. “I relate this to the first contact of Europeans to the ‘New World’ and how strange they felt the Native communities were,” she says.
:
Using technology to tell stories, narratives and reclaim identities and cultures. Technology not only
functions as a TOOL, but also CONTRIBUTES TO THE MEANING of the work, or EMBEDDING THE MEANING into the
work.
'Draft' thesis so far: Reimagine of Vietnam history without colonization. Reimagined
historical landmarks that were destroyed or replaced due to colonization and invasion.
(c) CYBERPUNK
Dystopian sci-fi created as a cautionary tale of futuristic globalization and corporate greed
◦ CITIES WITHOUT PEOPLE
◦ THE WANDERING EARTH
A 2019 Chinese science fiction film directed by Frant Gwo, loosely based on the 2000 novella The Wandering Earth by Liu Cixin. Set in the far future, it follows a group of astronauts and rescue workers guiding the Earth away from an expanding Sun, while attempting to prevent a collision with Jupiter.
◦ SNOW PIERCER
Society has fallen, the only people who remain are those stranded on a train. On the back of the train people live in poverty, barely surviving, whilst the front people live in luxury. One of the people from the tail end (Curtis) decides to revolt and the movie details his journey through the train. Whilst it's sort of obvious that this movie is meant to metaphorically represent modern capitalist society, I was also thinking about all the ways that it more specifically reflects hyperreality. The "engineer" of the train has modelled it after pre-apocyliptic society so that one could say it almost "simulates" it. Arguably, the train authentically produces the symptoms of what society really was, so that it can really be felt.Many of the passengers have only experienced life on the train, and in this way, the train is very real to them. However, to some who still remember life before it doesn't even come close (although perhaps with time memory fades, so to them it also becomes more and more real). While some of the characters would make arguments one way or the other, no one can firmly categorise this train as "real or not real". The movie therefore begs the question, Is this train a simulation of society, or has it just become society itself, and is there a difference either way?
◦ IN TIME
Film is based on a social system that uses time as its currency. Wealthy people live longer than 100 years. Due to strategically imposed increases in living costs, others struggle to afford life-sustaining goods (food and shelter).
