Searching for the center in the radical outside

February 23, 2016
7:00 – 8:30 PM
Southern Exposure
RSVP to Eventbrite, limited to 15 participants THIS EVENT IS AT CAPACITY, email Claire LaRose at [email protected] to be added to the waitlist and be eligible for pre-registration for future R.A.T.T. nights

When we think of something, no matter how unique we think it is, the Internet possesses an untold amount of iterations and the original becomes lost in this sea of reproduction and manipulation. In Too Much World: Is the Internet Dead?, Hito Steyerl explores what our visual and physical world may look like after the Internet has seemingly covered what is possible.

From generative large-scale installation to augmented reality to virtual reality, the Internet is ever-present in the way we receive information – it has become a canvas, a connector, a platform, a teacher, and a lover. Programmers and engineers continue to create integrations that make the Internet seamless, boundless, and singular. In terms of practices, artists are constantly using the Internet as a medium and conveyor in the most strategic ways they can fathom. We will discuss the relationship of Steyerl’s article to Internet-based practices, which are changing and shifting with platforms such as New Hive, Genius, and touch upon the non-Western web and differences in art practice around the world.

Required reading:

• Hito Steyerl, “Too Much World: Is the Internet Dead?,” in e-flux #49 (November 2013)

Additional readings/resources:

• Hito Steyerl | Politics of Post Representation: in conversation with Marvin Jordan, DIS Magazine
• Vito Campanelli, Web Aesthetics: How Digital Media Affect Culture and Society, NAi Publishers, Rotterdam (2010)
• Christoph Cox, “The Alien Voice: Alvin Lucier’s North American Time Capsule 1967,” in Mainframe Experimentalism: Early Computing and the Foundations of the Digital Arts, edited by Hannah B. Higgins and Douglas Kahn, University of California Press (2012)
• Seth Price, Dispersion (2016)
• Joichi Ito, “Aesthetics of the Internet: Context as Medium” (1997)
• A List Apart
• Rhizome
• The Civic Beat
• New York Times Research & Development Group

Dorothy R. Santos is a Bay Area-based writer, editor, curator, and educator. She serves as executive staff for the Bay Area Society for Art & Activism, board member for SOMArts Cultural Center, and teaches in the Digital Art and New Media department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Radical Art Theory Nights are conversations about art theory, art history, or research-based art practices that reflect on narratives of the historically marginalized. Visiting writers, curators, and artists contend with both current and canonized concerns, critically engage with texts, and lead open community discussions.

Radical Art Theory Nights are facilitated and organized by C.A. Greenlee in partnership with Southern Exposure’s Artists in Education program.