A Late Update.
I had the honour to be invited to be a panelist at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, by Judy Malloy , poet, e-lit goddess and coder, and lecturer, for a panel called Blueskying a Social Media Platform for the Arts.
Judy has written a full summary on her website. I list the fabulous panelists below. I’m not on FB so there was a loss of direct communication with the students, but other than that soupçon of regret, there were some interesting discussions on google docs, and all in all an illuminating dialogue.
I meant to write something more in depth (and articulate!) but given (the world is on fire) I see that an excerpt from my original statement I posted then still rings true.
“Sometime I think I should delete all my apps, get a dumb phone, and persist in resisting….
When I first began making net-art in early 2000s (hello hand-coded HTML!:) I used to say something like “the point of making art here (that isn’t / wasn’t necessarily seen as art) is to resist and to take up space and to occupy. Is this same true of social media?”
And I would now add that since the tragic deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and many many more, the #blacklivesmatter events have really underscored for me how social media is truly owned by the algorithm. I’ve seen many people leave, or ghost their accounts, or go private, amidst the turblence. I understand and empathize. And yet if all the artists / writers / creatives leave… that surely creates a huge vacuum. ..
PANELISTS
Deanne Achong, Artist and Designer
George Fifield, Founder and Director of Boston Cyberarts
Juana Guzman, National Arts Consultant and Arts Advocate
Isobel Harbison, Art Critic and Lecturer in the Department of Art, Goldsmiths
Adriene Jenik, Artist, Professor of Intermedia in the School of Art, Arizona State University
Dal Yong Jin, Professor, School of Communication at Simon Fraser University
Tom Klinkowstein, President, Media A LLC, Professor, Hofstra University, Adj. Professor, Pratt
Richard Lowenberg, Founding Director of the 1st-Mile Institute, and of NM Broadband for All
Marisa Parham, Professor of English, Amherst College, Director of the Immersive Reality Lab
Tommer Peterson, Theatre Artist and Designer
Ellen Sandor, Founding Director of (art)n, chair of the Gene Siskel Film Center
Wendel A. White, Photographer, Distinguished Professor of Art, Stockton University
Thank you Judy!
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