Thanks everyone for your lovely responses :) Jessica I wonder if you have met the wonderful Kate Genevieve? She was at Shumacher for a while. Last year she helped to curate the Lunar imaginaries event in Greenwich. You can dig in here <https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/small-is-beautiful-lunar-imaginaries-tickets-654713253967>
On Thu, 11 Jul 2024 at 08:03, IJAD Dance <[email protected]> wrote: > Thank you Ruth this is great, I was looking at reading books about tech, > human, all that we are not able to witness in our ever sooo busy life. > Hope you are all well! > Kindness to all > > On 10 Jul 2024, at 17:58, 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 >
_______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
