thingist December 2011

thingist@mailman.thing.net

2 participants
3 discussions

What about a subjective, evolving, archive?
by Justin Berry 18 Feb '12

18 Feb '12

I am new to THE THING, having only become involved in the last year or so, working with W and Christoph on The.Thing.Net and the White Slab screenings. I became involved almost by accident--I was recently out of graduate school and making non-salable and non-exhibitable work, mostly web stuff, and feeling a bit chagrined about the art world and its various camps of ideology. I was randomly surfing the web and sending out feeler emails to every organization I could find that was involved in New Media. Wolfgang was the one who answered back. I had no idea what THE THING actually was. I went to look it up online and struggled to find information, only coming up with numerous references to someTHING but never an actual history or a literal description. The most glaring example of THE THING online was the Post, and I think enough has been said about that. It took a long time of being involved, listening in conversation, and attending talks by Wolfgang, etc. in order to really arrive at a sense of what THE THING was and what it represented. If it were not so tragic it would be humorously ironic that an organization that did so much to galvanize thinking about the internet as an artistic and political medium has no functioning legacy online. I think that a proper and academic archive could potentially happen, but it will take a long time and a great deal of work. The nature of academia is to quest after a kind of perfection, to create a source of objective authority. Great! That would be awesome. In a few years it will be something we can all be proud of. I think something different needs to be planned in the interim. What about creating a subjective archive? What about creating a nexus for the stories and narratives of THE THING. It could be a relatively simple interface, something like a data or tag cloud full of links to various stories, where the only hierarchy might be determined by font size. People with a story to tell or an event to document could create their own HTML page, with the only standard requirement being a ‘back to home’ button of some kind. The advantage is that this would allow each person’s ‘history’ to be acknowledged without necessarily privileging one or the other. One link might be called ‘eToy war’ and could be an account of those events while another might be called ‘Justin Berry’ and include simply my own experiences. These pages don’t even have to share styling, though we could certainly provide a CSS sheet for people to use if they chose. One person’s page might be a video, while another person could choose to simply write an essay; an event might be documented with only a series of contextless pictures. Something like this embraces the history of THE THING as a forum and a platform. This does not have to exist in opposition to a formal archive; it can be an accompaniment to that project. It also requires less energy to happen. Once a stable and functioning interface is set up it can be left to individuals to create pages as they wish. Each contribution can be considered on its own terms. It does not have to be ‘finished’, it can be an ever evolving project as new pages are added. Perhaps this is only a selfish wish. I would like to hear the stories and see the history and I would like to have that kind of experience sooner than later. There should be an online presence of THE THING’s legacy. In my experience every time people attempt to create an authoritative history of something there are a whole lot of histories on the table and it takes a long time to negotiate which ones stick around. Justin Berry -- Justin Berry (713) 302 9599 www.waymakergallery.com JustinBerryArt(a)gmail.com Waymaker(a)WaymakerGallery.com

15 29

attention - last minute notice
by w 20 Dec '11

20 Dec '11

Tonights screening will take plavce NOT be at Pink Pony but at White Box! http://www.whiteboxny.org/info/info_index.html Jon Rafman (Montréal, CAN) will introduce his video work in person. "In this series of narrative shorts, the real confronts the ideal, the ironic challenges the romantic as the line between celebration and critique is blurred. Each film explores the relationship between identity and memory, both historical and personal; yet memory is unreliable and so anonymous narrators have difficulty distinguishing memories of dreams from memories of reality." - J.R. Ad-Vice for a Prophet DU3L City Girls News from the Madhatter You the World and I + A SURPRISE FILM

1 0

CFP for Occupations: new conference dates and deadline
by Erika Biddle 20 Dec '11

20 Dec '11

FYI: The date for “Occupations,” the 11th Annual Graduate Conference in Communication and Culture at York University and Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario has been changed from March 23-25, 2012 to April 27-29, 2012. Please see information on the revised deadline for submissions in the CFP below. Also of note, Edu-Factory’s “Our University! A Conference on Struggles Within and Beyond the Neoliberal University” will be held in Toronto the same weekend. We will be working in collaboration with the Edu- Factory organizers on some events over this weekend; stay posted for details. For more information on the Edu-Factory conference, see http://www.edu-factory.org/wp/the-university-is-ours/ + + + INTERSECTIONS / CROSS SECTIONS 2012: OCCUPATIONS 11th Annual Graduate Conference in Communication and Culture at York University and Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada April 27-29, 2012 (new date!) http://thecomcult.wordpress.com Abstracts due: February 1, 2012 (revised deadline) Email submissions and questions to: intersections.occupations(a)gmail.com Occupy but better yet, self manage…. The former option is basically passive—the latter is active and yields tasks and opportunities to contribute.… To occupy buildings, especially institutions like universities or media, isn’t just a matter of call it, or tweet it, and they will come. It is a matter of go get them, inform them, inspire them, enlist them, empower them, and they will come. – Michael Albert, “Occupy to Self Manage” (http://interactivist.autonomedia.org/node/33609 ) The unfolding events at Occupy Wall Street and elsewhere present possibilities for new politics, and new forms of learning from, living with and engaging each other. Occupations are attempts to build the social compositions that are the precondition for action. They are the working through of a problem that politics-as-usual works to suppress— the massive exploitation that is capitalism and the emergence of politics adequate to address it. At this stage, occupations are the connection of people, ideas and machines—the cumulation of assemblages that might build something. What happens next depends on what is being built now. We invite graduate students from all related disciplines to submit proposals for academic, artistic and activist presentations and workshops that explore and otherwise critically engage occupations. Please send a 250-word abstract to occupations.intersections(a)gmail.com. Proposals should list paper/panel title, name, institutional affiliation and contact details. Workshop facilitators: Please provide a timeline indicating the duration and one or two general learning objectives of your session, along with space and technical requirements. Artists: If sending creative works by email, please limit attachment size to 5 MB or less, or direct us to a URL. Include viewing instructions, comments and titles if applicable. If submitting creative works by post, please mail the proposal, a copy of the work and viewing instructions to the following address: Intersections / Cross Sections 2012 Conference c/o Graduate Program in Communication and Culture 3013 TEL Building, York University 4700 Keele Street Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Occupations is presented by and for graduate student scholars, artists and activists through the organizing efforts of the Communication and Culture Graduate Students Association (GSA). For more information about the Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at York and Ryerson Universities: http://comcult.yorku.ca & http://www.ryerson.ca/graduate/programs/comcult/

1 0

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

thingist December 2011