Important p.s Is there any contemporary art (or other stuff) relating to the Moon I should be aware of, you excellent beings!?
On Wed, 10 Jul 2024, 21:41 Jessica May, <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Ruth et al, > > I've been loitering and not reading Netbehavior for a while, and > wondering if I should exit, but as I'm researching the moon (!) and the > current space-race to mine there, and trying to make performance work in > response I got drawn in... And so glad I did! I really value this digest of > books to check, thanks for sharing. And your writing is beautiful, Ruth. > > Did the Larping experiments get documented at all? I love the idea of > Eco-Larping ! I'm studying at Schumacher College, and I'm sure the Engaged > Ecology MA students would be interested. I'm on an MA called the Poetics of > Imagination, it's been a ride! > > May you all get the support and encouragement you need out there! > > Bests > > Jess > > > > > > On Wed, 10 Jul 2024, 17:59 Ruth Catlow, <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> I think this might still be relevant 6 months later ;) >> >> ---------- Forwarded message --------- >> From: Ruth Catlow <[email protected]> >> Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2023 at 22:22 >> Subject: Full moon feelings >> To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity < >> [email protected]> >> >> >> Hello all, from the stormy dark of the year, here in East England. >> >> At dawn, a few mornings back, we saw the fullish moon drop into the arms >> of a tree silhouetted on the horizon. It inspired me to reflect on the >> moiling feelings of the year. Then it inspired me to share these four books >> that produced very different feelings - energising, humbling, interrupting, >> and delightful. >> >> 1. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman. (2019). >> Recommended by our friend Cassie Thornton, artist, debt activist and >> initiator of The Hologram peer to peer feminist healthcare network. >> >> This is a book about black intimate life in New York and Philadelphia at >> the beginning of the twentieth century, 35 years after the abolition of >> slavery. The author brings her literary imagination to historical archive >> materials. It's a total revelation about the myriad modes and flows of >> fierce informal battles against personal and institutional oppression >> across generations. >> >> 2. Hospicing Modernity: Parting with Harmful Ways of Living (2021) by >> Vanessa Machado De Oliveira. Recommended by our friend Dani Admis, >> researcher and curator (of the collective environmental justice project >> Sunlight Doesn't Need a Pipeline). >> >> This book is a manifesto and workbook that shows how profoundly out of >> balance our ecosocial world has become as a result of colonialism, resource >> extraction etc. It also reveals all the psychological moves we make to feel >> OK about how we are each implicated and the limits we feel to our agency. >> It strips away any safe or comfortable perspectives on the terrible harms >> inflicted by the modernist idea of progress and the different parts we >> might play in it. >> >> 3. In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the >> Survival of the Indian Nations,(1991) by Jerry Mander. I read this after >> coming across Mander's Obituary in Marc's subscription to Resurgence >> magazine. >> >> This book blew my mind. It was written before anyone knew what the Web >> would become and is a historic and prophetic analysis of the combined harms >> of unregulated social tech development, and the primacy of profit, >> protected through corporate law. It also demonstrates the role that the >> lying and cheating of so-called civilised states and business has played in >> the devastation of the environment, democracy and indigenous cultures over >> the last 250+ years. Mander was an anti-globalisation activist, known as >> "the Adman for Progressive Causes" so he communicates all this with great >> clarity and verve. >> The argument that interrupted me most profoundly was that since the mid >> 1950s tech conglomerates have sold consumer-citizens on the edge-case >> benefits of technologies (a good recent example is the medical diagnostic >> ability of AI) while the known or predictable hazards to society have been >> suppressed, minimized or defended as an unfortunate sacrifice worth making >> for inevitable "progress". >> >> 4. The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay (2020). >> We (a bunch of us at Furtherfield) have spent the last few years LARPing >> interspecies justice scenarios in Finsbury Park in North London (more to >> follow on this in the new year). We encountered a series of fascinating >> challenges and questions like: what do we actually already know and feel >> about what matters to other living beings? What difference would knowing >> more make?* Is multi-species democracy worth exploring, and if not, why >> not? What actions might be taken by whom to change interspecies relations, >> and ecosystems-care for the better? >> >> McKay's novel is an Aussie black comedy sci-fi that explores what might >> happen to humans if they could be hypnotised by whales, bullied by wild >> dogs, and could hear the glee of midges as they sucked their blood. It is >> an incredible, funny, delightful, impressive work of imagination that did >> what we were trying to do too - exploring what it might feel like to >> acknowledge the sentience of all other beings, with their own experience, >> and to live in relationship with them. >> >> *While our LARP involved a fictitious device that allows all flora and >> fauna to communicate freely with each other I am highly suspicious of all >> the recent AI projects that claim to allow us to communicate with animals >> and plants. That's because I don't see the problem (with mass species >> extinctions and ecosystems collapse and injustice) as a knowledge problem >> but a relating-and-care problem. >> >> Wow! Thank you if you got this far. >> All the feelz, including warm, respectful and well-wishing ones. >> Ruth >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> NetBehaviour mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour >> >
_______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
