emerging practices

I’ve had the pleasure of having a conversation with Mathias Jud via email for the past week or so. We talked about art, activism, the German Democratic Republic, and the People’s Republic of China.

The GDR serves as a kind of point of entry for Jud and Wachter into the broader world of media censorship. They spent some time in the GDR as artists-in-residence, and during that time they noticed the ways in which Western media were still used under the radar. picidae is named after the “Wall woodpeckers,” the first people who tore holes in the Berlin Wall — in some ways, the project is tearing some pretty big holes in the new variety of Iron Curtain.

picidae is a project that takes image grabs of websites that are banned or firewalled. This way, they can avoid the censorship of, say, China’s Golden Shield. In fact, picidae is used by people living in China to get information from beyond the Great Firewall. Mathias also said that it was an experiment in seeing the Internet from a different perspective, considering how our relationship to the medium might be different if we were born on the other side of the world.

Because picidae has been used as an activist tool — and because their other projects have been very politically heavy — I couldn’t help but wonder if Jud and Wachter relate to the activist element in their work. Mathias said that, while their work has a real-world impact, it is art, and they consider themselves artists. He told me, “We are very proud and feel honoured, when our work is used to fight or grant basic human rights.” Mathias also said that their works are works in progress, that require the audience to participate in the experiment. Since it is an experiment, it seems there are many ways individuals can use the tools that Jud and Wachter create.

Interestingly, some internet security companies have contacted them to find out more details about picidae and how it can be used or turned off. Their responses were not those of the enemy, trying to shut down the project, but instead had the tone of peers. Mathias explained that they were mostly curious about how picidae worked. When I asked about this “other side,” Mathias pointed out that maybe it’s the same side — it’s hard to tell in the constantly shifting configurations of power on the internet.

You can catch Mathias Jud and Christoph Wachter talk about picidae as well as their other work tomorrow on campus and at Sugar City.

Wachter / Jud (Honorary Mention ARS 2006, Honorary Mention Transmediale 2008, Winner Cynetart 2008) are in Buffalo as part of their first US tour this week. Wachter / Jud’s work visualizes forces we are subject to, but have no control over. They are the creators of Zone*Interdite, a community project that maps restricted military areas around the globe and unveiled secret prisons such as the children’s prison in Guantanamo or Bagram, Afghanistan as well as Picidae, a message passing system that converts texts into images and makes them illegible to common forms of filtering and censorship.Wachter / Jud will present their work at UB’s Department of Media Study and Sugar City on Tuesday November 17 (3pm and 9pm).

Presentation: Department of Media Study, University at Buffalo, CFA232, Tuesday, November 17, 3pm
Discussions: Sugar City, 19 Wadsworth St., Buffalo, Tuesday, November 17, 9pm

Both events are open to all. Limited seating available. Please arrive early.

Spaces Rubbing Together: De Certeau on a GPS Sound Walk

FRAUKE BEHRENDT
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10th
Time:  3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Room:  CFA 232 (North Campus)

Frauke Behrendt is a researcher, historian and critical theorist interested in the role of sound in the areas of interactive art, locative media and mobile technology. She studies the increasing number of artists experimenting with mobile phones as means of audience participation in their sound/music-focused projects. Frauke is actively involved with the rapidly growing field of mobile music and is on the steering committee of the International Workshop of Mobile Music Technology. Currently she is completing her PhD at the Department of Media and Film Studies at the University of Sussex, England. Frauke has presented her research at various international conferences and published her research both in English and German. Recently she presented a paper on “Sound Art on the Move” at the SoundAsArt Conference in Aberdeen and published the conference paper “Mobile Music Technology: Report on Emerging Community”, presented at the 2006Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME-06) at the IRCAM Center in Paris. Her Master’s thesis was awarded a research prize on Digital Media and published as “Handymusik. Klangkunst und ‘mobile devices’ ” in Germany in 2004.

Frauke works on several commercial and governmental advisory committees to help steer progress in mobile and locative media. She has been appointed as Management Committee Member for Germany and is Chair of the Working Group “Interactive Art and Music”. Her work in Sonic Interaction Design is funded by COST (European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research). Frauke is also a Member of the Centre for Material Digital Culture at Sussex, which aims to re-connect media studies with forms of thinking that have traditionally been marginal to the discipline, but which have been more centrally concerned with thinking through early techno-culture: in particular medium theory, cultural geography, and science and technology studies (STS). Frauke is also a Member of the Steering Committee of the International Workshop on Mobile Music Technology

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to what it means to be a part of this program. I guess it’s starting to come clear to me what it means to me to be involved with Emerging Practices. Here are my thoughts about why I’m here.

I have spent a lot of time in advocate/ally activist communities, and the common refrain these days is that nobody cares. I guess it’s kind of true — people really don’t care about the old forms of social engagement, or are jaded about them, whether we’re talking about general strikes and unionizing or student sit-ins to demand University administrative actions. I did my undergraduate work at the University of Michigan, which has a storied history of student activism. Other students there were often very annoyed with the kind of activist work my friends and I were involved in. And, given the U’s history of student activism, the rhetoric surrounding the work that we did was often steeped in the politics — and technological capabilities — of students in the 60s and 70s. Granted, we used Facebook to organize rallies, and texted each other when we were late for meetings, but new forms didn’t follow from this kind of communication power. It’s hard to care when the politics haven’t caught up with the society.

So I spent a lot of time casting around and thinking. What could possibly harness these kinds of technologies, empower activists, and make a mark? Sure, there are flash mobs. But flash mobs are largely apolitical and not designed to create a sustained movement. Facebook is generally used just as an augmentation of work that people do normally. Video games are historically apolitical and averse even to critical analysis of their contents.

I started playing alternate reality games (ARG) because I’m the kind of person who can’t resist a riddle. When I started reading Jane McGonigal’s writing and following her work, it dawned on me that ARG — or at least a model of organizing based on ARG — has the potential to be a form that follows the function of our new technological capabilities. It’s not that ARG uses the most high-tech of tools, it’s that ARG uses the tools we have that are ubiquitous — social networking, cell phones, GPS — to create playful, engaging environments that connect people. And, the fact that play is something that has always connected people is certainly a plus.

To me, ARG is a paradigm of Emerging Practices. It’s about re-appropriating technology for something innovative. It’s unrestricted in medium and unrestricted in message. That the question that faces game designers where to go from the commercial advertising-type games of the past now makes it even more prime for investigation. I’ve also been thinking lately about how ARG fits into a Freirean model of praxis — the marriage of theory and practice. What are your thoughts about the future of political engagement?

While I love getting packages in the mail, it also is a little disheartening that the best place to find electronic parts is online. I hear Radio Shack is getting out of the components business and they’re even changing their name to just “The Shack,” which is probably one of the dumber names for a store that sells electronics. The wonderful Tim Scaffidi gave me the business card of a local Buffalo business that sells electronic parts, and has pretty much anything you might need.

I dropped by Radio Equipment Corp.’s Tonawanda showroom (196 Vulcan Street) yesterday morning and wandered around for about a half hour. I only ended up buying a couple LEDs and some coin cell holders, but needless to say, I’m convinced. I promised the (friendly, helpful) cashier to mention their store to my friends. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. I knew a place like this had to be hiding somewhere in Buffalo!

FEEDFORWARD: ANGEL OF HISTORY
October 22 – April 5, 2010
LABORAL Centro de Arte, Gijon, Spain
http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org/exhibitions/show/108

“Invisible Threads – A Virtual Sweatshop” a collaboration between Stephanie Rothenberg and Senior Eyebeam Fellow Jeff Crouse, is featured in this new exhibition curated by Steve Dietz and Christiane Paul. The show addresses the current moment in history where the wreckage of political conflict and economic inequality is piling up, while globalized forces—largely enabled by the “progress” of digital information technologies—inexorably feed us forward. The show features 27 amazing artists and artist teams including Christopher Baker, Paul Chan, Nonny de la Peña and Peggy Weil, Hasan Elahi, Cao Fei, Daniel García Andújar, Goldin + Senneby, Harwood, Wright, Yokokoji, Knowbotic Research, Langlands + Bell, Jennifer + Kevin McCoy, Margot Lovejoy, Naeem Mohaiemen, Ali Momeni, Carlos Motta, Trevor Paglen, System77 Consortium, Piotr Szyhalski, Tamiko Thiel.

I’m not kidding. Something about the month of November at this latitude resonates with me — the bright leaves have more or less fallen from the trees and everything is wrapping itself up for a long winter. I’m a rust belt native, so the move from the greater Detroit area to Buffalo wasn’t that much of a jump, weatherwise. Today is a perfect example of what I love about this time of year — the sun is out, and it’s crisp, but not cold. I stayed the night at Jordan’s apartment last night after eating some great late night apple pie (thanks, Katy!), and I rode my bike back this morning feeling invigorated. This blog is my job for the heady month of November. Like Jordan I’m also a first year, but our interest differ.

I’m not a typical game scholar, but then, who is? While I play — and think about — my fair share of video games, I’m really interested in the places where game environments intersect with the real world, whether this takes the form of augmented reality play environments or alternate reality future forecasting. For someone who’s seen a lot of friendships pulled apart by well-designed realities like World of Warcraft, these kinds of engaging play environments are a perfect response.

I also think that play is one of the most audacious acts we can partake of in our current political climate. Play is earnest, innocent, exuberant, fun, and intellectually demanding. As a tool for education, organization, and community building, play is a great answer to the cynicism and disengagement I’ve been frustrated by in my history of activist work. The kinds of tools that are available to us now have the potential to make play localized but scalable, and allows us to share our play with people near and remote. (Think globally, play locally?)

I also like to think of myself as a practitioner of radical pedagogy — which, to me, means the validation of different ways of knowing and experiences of privilege and oppression. I cut my teeth with the Program on Intergroup Relations, where I facilitated dialogues on topics such as race and religion, and developed curriculum for the gender dialogue. “Education,” wrote Paulo Friere, “is an act of love, and thus, an act of courage.” I think that the public education system has enormous potential but has failed a generation of students. I’m interested in what we do as a response — edupunk, maker culture, hacker spaces, the Public School — and how to bring my experience and expertise to the table to make education more available, equitable, and conscientious.

I hope I can share some interesting ideas and projects this month, so keep an eye on this blog. Also, get out and play — Scrabble, tag, Mass Effect, Cryptozoo, or whatever. If you need a partner, opponent or collaborator, I’m always game!

It’s been a pleasure to occasionally write here, and I’m currently handing the reins off to Cayden, who’ll certainly write more. But before I go, let me talk a little bit about the installation I just had as part of the &Now Festival.

Meat Out of the Eater was a sort of multimedia sculpture/installation, done in collaboration with a poet and a media artist who previously lived in Athens, GA with me. Lara Glenum is an excellent poet whose work centers around the grotesque as a tool for exploring gender and sexuality (and who provided the text for the work), and Josef Horáček is an artist and translator who took the words and made animation and sound. I, with a great deal of help from my partner Katy, built the sculpture that became the physical (and conceptual) frame for the work. The title (and text) of the piece comes from the second half of Lara’s most recent book, Maximum Gaga. It’s a sort of hybrid poem-play, retelling the story of the conception and birth of the Minotaur.

This work represents, in a way, a conceptual changing-of-the-guards in my personal practice — the end of a language-centric framework and movement towards a more socially and environmentally engaged way of thinking. Which is not to say that I wouldn’t love to see this work travel around and have a life of its own — that would be ideal. In fact, the work was installed last week as part of the Media Study Graduate Open Studio Opening, and thus placed in a completely different context. If you’re interested in this sort of work (or in my work in general), feel free to comment here or shoot me an e-mail at jordanda[at]buffalo.edu

The above photos were taken by the author and editor John Dermot Woods. More are available here. Below is the video/sound stream from the installation.

Meat Out of the Eater from Josef Horáček on Vimeo.

Hey all –

More posts to come this week before I hand the reins over to the next victim, but for now, a quick announcement!

The second EP meeting of the year will be at Sugar City (map) on Tuesday, October 27th at 9pm.

And I quote:

“This second meeting is an opportunity for you to meet with EP faculty. Loss Pequeño Glazier, Josephine Anstey, Paul Vanouse, Steve Kurtz, and Teri Rueb will describe the areas they work in, projects they are involved with and show you just how wide and deep Emerging Practices are. Bring your friends. Spread the word.”

So do it! What’re you waiting for?

Image of a recent installation. More to come on that.

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