introduction
Morgenstern
in the topics addressed here, but I will not be able to post a
proposal before deadline. I suppose you can see me as a passive member
for a while, but I hope I will get time to be more active later. I am
working as senior lecturer in film studies at Lund University (Sweden)
and am currently writing an account of Swedish experimental film.
Lars
B. Flis
like Lars, the invite summary seemed appealing, and as it happens, I
had just put down Harvey's Brief History when the invite showed, so my
sensors are up and my feelers are out. Curious in reading more,
hearing others' interests and how they might intersect with my own,
and then to make that matter. I'm phding at Wayne State in Detroit
studying poetics and modern literature, currently finishing up a paper
on Ted Greenwald and Bernadette Mayer and 'neoliberal turn' in early
1980s - so, might submit proposal if it finishes well - i write poetry
- i co-edit mags - i've been getting really into YouTubing over the
last year, categorizing stable or recurring genres (esp. favoriting a
lot of video game music replication, quite a depthful field). Also
found the discussions page to the wikipedia article on neoliberalism
as enjoyable as the article itself, lot's of gory battles/details in
high definition. Maybe these interests will help our exploration and
experiment with subverting neoliberalism and texts and computers. i
hope so, and look fwd to writing with you members...let's do it,
together!
-B.Flis
davin heckman
Hello Lars, Flis (Should I call you that?), and everyone else.
I'll add my introduction here, too.
I'm Davin Heckman, an Associate Professor of English at Siena Heights
University (about an hour and a half away from you Flis, in Adrian
MI). I have been working towards the topic of neoliberalism and new
media for a little while now. I started writing an essay on the
possibility of the carnivalesque and electronic literature, and
proposed this special issue to broaden out the project and meet other
scholars/artists interested in the question of "subversion" in an age
of new media. Like many, I find that I have a love/hate relationship
with new media. On the one hand, I find that I could not function as
a scholar without it. It inspires my imagination and has made many
critical insights possible for me. And, I am staggered by the sheer
volume of creative work that comes to me through my browser window.
On the other hand, I find that I am a bit disillusioned with the
field. I find much of the scholarship in our field a bit too
pollyannaish to realistically account for the surging inequalities of
our world. And I wonder what needs to happen
davin heckman
-------------------------
Thanks, Lori.
Hello Lars, Flis (Should I call you that?), and everyone else. Let's
keep going with the introductions....
I'll add my introduction here, too.
I'm Davin Heckman, an Associate Professor of English at Siena Heights
University (about an hour and a half away from you Flis, in Adrian
MI). I have been working towards the topic of neoliberalism and new
media for a little while now, thanks to my friend and mentor, Hai Ren.
I started writing an essay on the possibility of the carnivalesque
and electronic literature, and proposed this special issue to broaden
out the project and meet other scholars/artists interested in the
question of "subversion" in an age of new media. Like many, I find
that I have a love/hate relationship with new media. On the one hand,
I find that I could not function as a scholar without it. It inspires
my imagination and has made many critical insights possible for me.
And, I am staggered by the sheer volume of creative work that comes to
me through my browser window. On the other hand, I find that I am a
bit disillusioned by the macroscopic view of what is unfolding. I
find much of the scholarship in our field a bit too pollyannaish to
realistically account for the surging inequalities of our world. And
I wonder what the utopian possibilities might actually be. I cannot
answer these questions on my own. Fortunately, Nisar Keshvani and the
editors at LEA were generous enough to provide a venue.... so here we
are.... ready to talk about possibilities and limitations, hope and
anxiety. I am glad that so many have signed on to the group.
More practically, I am teaching a course on electronic literature this
spring. I plan on giving my students a view of the special issue as
it shapes up. I have a book coming out on Smart Houses in January
from Duke UP. Also, an article on posthumanism, neoliberalism, and
the bildungsroman is forthcoming in CTheory. And, if any of you are
going to be at the MLA conference this year, I'll be there, too. I
keep info about me on www.retrotechnics.com, which needs some work...
I look forward to meeting more of you.
Davin Heckman
James
though I don't know that I have a specific project in mind for the
issue.
I'm James Sanders. I'm a member of the Atlanta Poets Group. We're a
writing/performance collective that's been going for several years.
Among our other activities, we've just started a Web-based sound
poetry magazine, aslongasittakes.org. We are currently soliciting work
for its inaugural issue.
By trade I'm a technology attorney (software licenses and that ilk),
though I'm currently on leave, spending my days chasing after my 2
year old.
To add to the bibliography:
Noise Water Meat by Douglas Kahn (MIT Press)
The Cathedral and the Bazaar (http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/
cathedral-bazaar/)
Also just by way of something interesting I recently heard about, here
is a link http://www.incapindia.com/ to a company that produces cell
phone silencers. I'd love to do to a project using about 50 of these
things in Atlanta, but I'm too chicken.
On Dec 18 2007, 1:03 pm, "davin heckman" <davinheck...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Rita Raley
It was nice to read everyone's introductions so far and I look forward
to the ongoing conversation about this topic. Those of you who know me
know that new media & neoliberalism is one of my primary research
topics and I was thrilled to see Davin's call for the LEA issue.
Description of my "tactical media" project below:
My first book, Tactical Media, which will be forthcoming in the
"electronic mediations" series at the University of Minnesota Press,
examines the new media art practices that have specifically emerged
out of, and in direct response to, both the post-industrial society
and neoliberal globalization. Through readings of projects by Critical
Art Ensemble, Future Farmers, Electronic Civil Disobedience and many
others, I seek to articulate the political and aesthetic strategies of
artist-activists who themselves would argue for the need to replace
strategy with tactics. The projects they produce - whether they be
denial-of-service campaigns or net-based art works such as persuasive
games and information visualizations - are not oriented toward the
grand, sweeping Revolutionary event; rather, they engage in a
micropolitics of disruption, intervention, and education with respect
to the war on terror, borders, and finance capital. The models of
resistance, dissent, and "being-against," articulated by tactical
media do not adhere to the ideology of the 'wired' Left, which draws
explicitly on twentieth-century traditions of activism and social
protest. Neither do they adhere to the ideology of the
cyberlibertarians, who have been active in public policy debates about
censorship, privacy, and intellectual property and tend to focus on
individual freedom rather than social justice. Instead, we can locate
in the work of these new media artist-activists a kind of virtuosity
that is also a politics: political activity that would supplement but
not displace other forms, modes, and practices of politico-aesthetic
engagement in the network society, particularly cyberactivism,
hacktivism, and refusal.
------------------
Rita Raley
raley.english.ucsb.edu