Digital stitch

Written by: Pamela Nelson

Sewing is an act of mindfulness. When we embroider or engage in other creative activities like painting or sculpting, our perception of time can become distorted and give the illusion of ‘slowing down’, as discussed in ‘The Restructuring of Temporality During Art Making’ by Ariana van Heerden. In a fast paced, technocentric world, we must not underestimate the power of being able to slow down.

Recently, I have been using stitch as a way of understanding my relationship with technology, while at the same time reflecting on the harmful environmental impact that technology can have. I did this by monitoring my own internet usage and habits and trying to estimate my carbon footprint for certain periods of time. I embroidered diagrams and data onto pieces of whiteboard cloth or old tote bags as a way of visualising this information. I set aside time for myself to embroider that was intended to be ‘tech-free’; no laptop playing Netflix in the background, no podcast streaming from my phone. I was successful for the most part in doing so, but in some cases I gave in to watching a show or listening to a Spotify playlist.

Lockdown

During lockdown, my focus shifted to my changing relationship with technology and growing reliance on it due to Covid-19. I had a ‘worry pillow’ that I would embroider with passing thoughts and changes I was noticing during this time. I found the process of logging and dating these observations useful for keeping track of my ever-changing outlook on technology.  I noted the tension between wanting to be offline but at the same time needing to be online for other work, I thought about ways to allow for a more authentic social experience over Zoom by brainstorming how to ‘make a screen disappear’ and I noted the websites I was visiting most frequently during lockdown, like gov.ie to check for corona virus updates.

I spoke with my tutor at the time who recognised what I was doing as a type of ‘documentary embroidery’, as used by researchers Aviv Kruglanski and Vahida Ramujkic, which uses no previous planning. It encourages the sewer to ‘economise and abstract’ certain information. Consequently they follow a process of encrypting and ‘creating symbolic graphics’ when limiting details. In documentary embroidery, the slowness is considered an opportunity to engage with each other, and share ideas. I wanted to introduce this community aspect into what I was doing too, but it would mean having to compromise the ‘tech-free’ element of my exploration.

The Circles 1

By simply Googling ‘virtual sewing circles’, I discovered that there was an emergence of ‘digital stitch’ communities during lockdown, where many in-person groups from all over the world had gone online for the first time. Sewing circles on Meet-Up, were now adapting and embracing video calls as a way of keeping these communities alive during Covid-19. This opened up opportunities to join dozens of sewing circles all over the globe that would have not been accessible to me otherwise. Of course, there is always a risk involved when opening up to a wider, online audience, so for the Glasgow Virtual Stitch and Knit group, I went through a type of ‘vetting process’ before hand by answering questions to verify who I was and reduce the risk of attacks, like ‘Zoom Bombing’.

First, I was introduced to the members; Rachel*, had been working on a cross stitch piece, but explained that as she was getting older and her eyesight was deteriorating, therefore she would more often knit to wind-down. Emma* had recently suffered from a stroke and as a result had forgotten how to knit. She was taking the time to relearn the basics and was working on a patchwork blanket using an Icelandic wool that her son brought back from a trip last year. I told them a little about my sewing project too, and just by sharing what we were working on, we had already learned so much about each other that was not necessarily directly said. I don’t think any of us were too concerned about producing a ‘finished piece’, the common ‘thread’ here was the act of sewing/knitting had its own set of rewards.

We talked about how they had to adapt to new technologies to keep the circle going, like video calling over Zoom for example, which they had never used before. My general impression was that using this technology was a positive experience for them for the most part as it allowed them to reintroduce structure to their weeks by scheduling these online events. For me, being engaged in conversation and in the act of sewing simultaneously made me less aware of the screen as a barrier. I noticed that I was experiencing less ‘video call fatigue’ as I usually would. I decided to leave after an hour, put my needle and thread down and get some fresh air. I think it is really important to be aware of your own limits and take breaks accordingly when you are online.

The Circles 2

The Fashion Revolution hosted a virtual ‘Stitch and Bitch’ panel event with many fashion/textile revolutionaries from across the globe. This year, all in-person Fashion Revolution Week events were cancelled and held online instead. The main benefit of this was that they reached a far wider audience than possible if the events had taken place locally. Each of the panelists were working away on something; whether it was darning a pair of socks, mending a hole in an old denim jacket or picking lint balls off an Aran sweater. I streamed it and embroidered along with them too. I was beginning to notice how the physical engagement during these calls was counteracting the anxiety I often feel from being on video chats for long periods of time.

It was here that I became aware of the scale of the growing popularity of embroidery and mending during quarantine that was happening all across the globe. Throughout this global crisis, people seem to have turned to sewing as a way of maintaining their mental health. Often times, embroidery is used as a tool in prisons or in refugee centres as a way overcoming trauma. Since the outbreak of Covid-19, refugees in Direct Provision centres in Ireland have also been using sewing as a way of remaining somewhat autonomous during this time by making and selling face masks online. A participant shares words of wisdom passed down from her grandmother, who emphasised the importance of teaching her grandchildren to sew; ‘as a first instinct, we use our hands’.

The Circles 3: Hosting my own circle

I was eager to discuss these insights further with some of my old textile classmates and thought that a sewing circle would be the best format for that discussion. Looking to the book ’Draw it with your Eyes Closed’ for inspiration, I designed a ‘guided-meditation’ session, where the participants followed simple instructions; sew where you are living now, sew a journey that you frequently make, sew how many hours you average online per day, sew the number of video calls you make a week…etc. There were no strict rules or no pressure to complete every task, instead they could stitch the information or answers that were most important to them, or that resonated the most with their own personal stories and experiences of quarantine.

The end result of this sewing circle resembled a small collection of ‘maps’, each an abstract and symbolic representation of our current lives in relation to the technology we are using and the restrictions that currently in place. They felt like souvenirs or memories of that gathering, like a ticket stub from an event that you might hold onto as a memento. I realised that I was now engaging in the digital world in a way that was deliberate, mindful and had a physicality too. I was becoming more aware of being in two ‘spaces’ at once; conversing in a virtual space, while sewing brought me back into my own physical world.

Conclusion

Traditional methods of crafting, like embroidery, seem to reemerge for a number of reasons during times of crisis; whether that is as a coping mechanism, as a practical resource or as a method of storytelling/documentation. The strange thing about this re-emergence for me is the juxtaposition of the return of this craft through technology. The isolating nature of this crisis has left us all at home, some strongly relying on online communities for comfort and support, meaning that most of these groups, for now, exist virtually. The emergence of the ‘digital stitch’ community during Covid-19 makes me wonder that while we are in lockdown or if we should ever be again, will we ever truly be able to disconnect? Instead of interpreting ‘slowing down’ as being offline, we will just have to find ‘slower’ ways of being online? Could hand sewing and the world of ‘digital stitch’ allow us to stay connected with each other but also to our own minds and bodies?

Selfies Under Quarantine: Students Report Back to Rome (Video Episode)

After the fifth episode of the Selfies Under Quarantine series, here at the Institute of Network Cultures we discussed how such online courses, but also lectures and debates can make more use of the video essay form. If there is such as thing as the ‘visual turn’ in education, away from mere reading (text)books and articles and discussing them in class, how can we use the increased visual literacy among students? Why only passively look at video conferencing session? Over the past months we heard enough about Zoom fatigue… Can we please talk back to the media, change the architectures and get more involved ourselves in order to beat the boredom that comes with one-way top-down interpassivity of webcasting? One possible way is to leave behind the PowerPoint sheet form and start to apply the Snap/TikTok video aesthetics to the world of theory, critique and reflection. No fear to leave behind the Gutenberg Galaxy, let’s explore post-textual forms of thinking, research and critique.

Three students of Donatella Della Ratta’s selfie class (enrolled in the Selfies and Beyond: Exploring Networked Identities’class at John Cabot University/Rome, Spring 2020) were willing to produce small video assignments on the topic of the politics and aesthetics of the online self.  Thanks to Donatella for organizing the video essays and thanks to Briana Di Sisto, Natalia Stanusch and Giulia Villanucci!

In the coming period INC will focus more on video integration of critical content and networks. What does full video integration mean for book production? How can we take video beyond the trope of the archive (such as our own channel on Vimeo)? Can we think through the video? This is an ancient debate, but one is bound to become even more contemporary, and urgent, with the rise of memes, video witnessing (-> George Floyd case), emojis, short videos, data visualization and the tactical uses of drones.

Enjoy!

Selfies in Quarantine by Briana Di Sisto

 

Alienation. A Digital Autoetnography by Natalia Stanusch (see also her related essay on the INC site about emojis, here)

Nine to Five, Quarantine Shift by Giulia Villanucci

Knowledge and equity: analysis of three models

Abstract:

The context of this paper is an analysis of three emerging models for developing a global knowledge commons. The concept of a ‘global knowledge commons’ builds on the vision of the original Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002) for the potential of combining academic tradition and the internet to remove various access barriers to the scholarly literature, thus laying the foundation for an unprecedented public good, uniting humanity in a common quest for knowledge. The global knowledge commons is a universal sharing of the knowledge of humankind, free for all to access (recognizing reasons for limiting sharing in some circumstances such as to protect individual privacy), and free for everyone qualified to contribute to. The three models are Plan S / cOAlition S, an EU-led initiative to transition all of scholarly publishing to an open access model on a short timeline; the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS), a recent initiative that builds on Ostrom’s study of the commons; and PubMedCentral (PMC) International, building on the preservation and access to the medical research literature provided by the U.S. National Institutes of Health to support other national repositories of funded research and exchange of materials between regions. The research will involve analysis of official policy and background briefing documents on the three initiatives and relevant historical projects, such as the Research Council U.K.’s block grants for article processing charges, the EU-led OA2020 initiative, Europe PMC and the short-lived PMC-Canada. Theoretical analysis will draw on Ostrom’s work on the commons, theories of development, under-development, epistemic / knowledge inequity and the concepts of Chan and colleagues (2011) on the importance of moving beyond north-to-south access to knowledge (charity model) to include south-to-south and south-to-north (equity model). This model analysis contributes to build a comparative view of transcontinental efforts for a global knowledge commons building with shared values of open access, sharing and collaboration, in contrast to the growing trend of commodification of scholarly knowledge evident in both traditional subscriptions / purchase-based scholarly publishing and in commercial open access publishing. We anticipate that our findings will indicate that a digital world of inclusiveness and reciprocity is possible, but cannot be taken for granted, and policy support is crucial. Global communication and information policy have much to contribute towards the development of a sustainable global knowledge commons.

Full text: https://ruor.uottawa.ca/handle/10393/40664

Cite as: Morrison, H. & Rahman, R. (2020). Knowledge and equity: analysis of three models. International Association of Communication and Media Researchers (IAMCR) annual conference, July 2020.

‘Thieves’ marks’ and ‘tinder-wolves’: The Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law

‘Thieves’ marks’ and ‘tinder-wolves’: The Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law

The Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law – a project created within the department of Swedish Language and Multilingualism at Stockholm University, and which is part of the wider ‘Medieval Nordic Laws (MNL)’ project based at the University of Aberdeen – is an ambitious, vibrant and indispensable resource for scholars and students of medieval Scandinavia. The dictionary correlates and juxtaposes legal terminologies that span the various languages and geographies of medieval Scandinavia (drawing on material composed in Old Swedish, Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian, Old Danish, Old Gutnish and Old Faroese), thereby offering its reader a fascinating, comprehensive window into the legal milieu of medieval Scandinavia as a unified whole.

Here, we encounter such vivid and idiosyncratic lexical constructions as the ‘slímusetr’ (Old Norse) (literally, a ‘slime-sitter’) – a term found in Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian texts, applied to somebody who overstayed their welcome as a guest in another’s house. This abuse of hospitality could be dealt with through forcible ejection of the slime-sitter, and the ejector would be immune to any legal penalties for the assault. Elsewhere in Iceland, you might be liable to pay a ‘snápsgjald’ (Old Norse) (literally, a ‘snob-fine’) if you were convicted of being a ‘snápr’ – someone who has falsely boasted of having slept with a woman. The negative term ‘snápr’ has no direct English translation, although it is cognate with our term ‘snob’. The term appears to be a distinctly Icelandic concept (with no attestations in texts from the other Scandinavian areas), and features not only in legal texts but also in poetic contexts: it appears in the anonymous collection of Norse-Icelandic mythological and heroic poetry known as the Poetic Edda, where it is listed as a poetic synonym for an ‘unwise man’.

The lexicon also affords us somewhat darker glimpses into the quotidian realities of crime in medieval Scandinavia, as well as the laws which sought to regulate such crime. For example, in medieval Sweden, you would have to pay a ‘torvogæld’ (Old Swedish) (literally, ‘turf payment’) if you had buried someone alive between stone and turf – that is, if they were discovered and rescued alive. Meanwhile, in Denmark, a thief might receive a ‘thjuvsmærke’ (Old Danish) (literally, ‘thief’s mark’) for his theft – the loss of his nose or an ear, or being branded or flogged – a physical marking which would allow for the identification of repeat offenders. While the word is unique to Old Danish, the concept appears in other Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian and Old Swedish laws.

Furthermore, the semantic analysis of certain legal terms in the Lexicon yields insight into not only the practical and social dimensions of legal processes in medieval Scandinavia, but also certain ontological dimensions: the term ‘vargher’ (Old Swedish) or ‘vargr’ (Old Norse) – etymologically ‘strangler’ – is used of both wolves and humans in Old Swedish legal texts, while in Old Icelandic it applies specifically to outlawed criminals. This double valency suggests how a human’s violent actions might compromise their status as a human being, moving them out of the category of the human and into that of the animal, at least lexically. This potential correlation between animality and crime in the medieval Scandinavian mentality is further supported by the appearance of ‘vargr’ in a number of other compounded legal terms: an arsonist might be dubbed a ‘brennuvargr’ (Old Norse) (literally, ‘fire-wolf’) in Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian, a ‘kasnavargher’ in Old Swedish (literally, ‘tinder-wolf’) or the cognate ‘kasnavargr’ in Old Gutnish. A murderer might be called a ‘morðvargr’ (Old Norse) (literally, ‘murder-wolf’) in Old Norwegian and Old Icelandic, while in Iceland, ‘vargdropi’ (Old Norse) (literally, ‘wolf-droppings’) constituted a derogatory term for a child conceived during the father’s outlawry. Such children would be excluded from any inheritance. This is striking, since it suggests that the legacy of outlawry – which at times frames an outlaw in bestial terms – could be passed on to such children congenitally.

Legal texts constitute an unparalleled – and often untapped – source of information for those studying Old Norse literature and linguistics, and medieval and Viking Age Scandinavian history, society and culture. This polyglot dictionary makes accessible a wealth of historical documents for an English-speaking audience. It contains over 6000 Nordic headwords, and, for around a quarter of these, provides detailed information and analysis on the textual and/or historical contexts within which a term might appear (including common expressions and idioms), often providing cross-references to aid readers in locating synonyms or cognate terms within the lexicon.

It is thus designed to provide its readers not only with succinct single definitions of Norse legal terms and the concepts underlying these terms, but with a sense of the wider Scandinavian legal landscape and worldview within which these concepts were used and developed. It is in this respect that the Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law differs from the other major lexica that came before it (e.g. the Norse-English dictionaries produced by Geir Zoega; and Richard Cleasby and Gúðbrandur Vigfússon): where relevant, it gathers closely related terms from multiple languages beneath single headwords within single entries. This approach illuminates the differences (and similarities) in usage of specific lexical items and legal concepts across geographic areas and through time.

The Lexicon is laid out as a standard reference work, and is easily navigable, with a clear and consistent structure to each entry that provides headword forms across the relevant languages; explanatory text describing and defining terms and their contexts (where relevant); English equivalents; textual references (divided by language grouping); phrases in which headwords frequently appear; a ‘See also’ section in which cross-references are provided; and references to published works discussing the headword. The print version of the lexicon also has a digital counterpart , developed as a collaboration between the lexicon’s editors and the ‘Digital Humanities Institute’ at the University of Sheffield. This digital version is searchable by Nordic headword and through an English > Nordic section, which enables readers to peruse the range of medieval terms encompassed by an individual English equivalent.

This dictionary constitutes an important contribution to the study of medieval Scandinavia, not only as a user-friendly reference book which makes medieval Nordic legal terminology accessible to a wider English-speaking audience, but in the further academic research and discussion it will no doubt stimulate and inform.

A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law is a new open access title available to read and download for free here.

On ‘Liminal Spaces: Migration and Women of the Guyanese Diaspora’ by Grace Aneiza Ali (ed.).

Written by Domenic Rotundo

On 'Liminal Spaces: Migration and Women of the Guyanese Diaspora' by Grace Aneiza Ali (ed.).

Liminal Spaces: Migration and Women of the Guyanese Diaspora, offers the reader an intimate and insightful experience. In the Introduction to her edited volume, Grace Aneiza Ali asks, “when we have more Guyanese living outside the country than within its borders, what becomes of our homeland?” This question and much more is addressed in this selection of thought-provoking essays, poems, photography, and artwork from fifteen women of Guyanese ethnicity. This book examines the implications and experiences of migration: from the separation of family (and friends), and the great hardships faced in a different country (including anti-immigrant hate), to the mindset of those women that left Guyana (as well as the impact their movements had on their children). Personal narratives are explored against the backdrop of wider issues—Guyana's poverty, corruption, racial violence, and the potential impacts of offshore oil. The age-range of the contributors is wide, and the stories cover seven decades (1950s to present) of Guyana's history; as Ali states in the Introduction, “Liminal Spaces centers the narratives of grandmothers, mothers and daughters, immigrants, and citizens—women who have labored for their country, women who are in service to a vision of what Guyanese women can and ought to be in the world.” Their emotional journeys are explored, and their relationships with Guyana dissected: as Ali puts it, “remaining connected to a homeland is at once beautiful, fraught, disruptive, and evolving.”

On 'Liminal Spaces: Migration and Women of the Guyanese Diaspora' by Grace Aneiza Ali (ed.).
Erika DeFreitas’s grandmother in Georgetown, Guyana poses with a wedding cake she made and decorated, circa late 1960s. © DeFreitas Family Collection, Courtesy of Erika DeFreitas. CC BY-NC-ND.

Beginning with affecting epigraphs and informative “curatorial notes,” the four parts of this book are all-encompassing: (I) Mothering Lands, (II) The Ones Who Leave. . . The Ones Who Are Left, (III) Transitions, and (IV) Returns, Reunions, and Rituals. In Part I, Ali states:

Mothering Lands engages the tensions between our place of birth (motherland) and the space of othering (otherland). For artists Keisha Scarville (United States), Erika DeFreitas (Canada), and journalist Natalie Hopkinson (Canada/United States), all first-generation daughters, their relationships with their Guyanese-born mothers serve as a metaphor for their relationship with Guyana—a space frequently wrestled with as a mythical motherland.

The importance of photography, documentation, and memory is clear, as is the pain of loss: as DeFreitas notes, “when I look at that photograph, I see my grandmother as my mother as myself.” In “Surrogate Skin: Portrait of Mother (Land),” Keisha Scarville states, “the death of my mother left me with a sense of displacement and an internal fracturing.” By photographing herself in her mother's clothes (from the series: Mama's Clothes, 2015), Scarville pays homage to her and eases “the anxiety of separation by conjuring her presence within the photographic realm.” Along with the moving photographs, Scarville brings powerful description: “beneath the weight of her clothes, I exist as beneath a veil. I breathe my mother into me and feel her presence in my body.” This first part of the book also includes engrossing letters between Natalie and her mother Serena Hopkinson.

On 'Liminal Spaces: Migration and Women of the Guyanese Diaspora' by Grace Aneiza Ali (ed.).
Anastacia Winters (b. 1947), lives in Lethem, Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo (Region Nine), Guyana. Khadija Benn, Anastacia Winters from the series Those Who Remain: Portraits of Amerindian Women,2017, digital photography. © Khadija Benn. Courtesy of the artist. CC BY-NC-ND.

Part II deals with those leaving (including their feelings of guilt)—and especially those left behind. Ali's “The Geography of Separation” is a travelogue of four vignettes, each focused on a woman or girl encountered in distinct geographic spaces, and as Ali notes, “I find myself weaving the stories of these places and the people I’ve encountered with those of Guyana.” The generations-old karahi is special; it carries memories of Ali's grandmother, as we see in Ali's description of her mother's packing: “in her suitcase bound for America, there was no prized jewelry, no priceless antiques, no precious silk saris. There was only the karahi—the sole possession she had after her mother died. It was not going to be left behind.” Objects like the karahi connect the past with the present, homeland with new land. Dominique Hunter speaks of each of us [immigrants] as being, “a body and a tree, flexible and fixed,” shapeshifting, uprooting and transplanting, and, in this vein, provides an insightful, “guide to surviving transplantation and other traumas.” Khadija Benn provides impressive black-and-white photography of elder Amerindian women living in Guyana's remote villages; in interviewing these women, Benn shows that they are essential to Guyana's history and its migration stories. In their stories we hear the negative consequences of migration: loss of traditional cultures, languages, and communal ways of life; we also see the important role of matriarchs, as well as the pride and resilience of those who stay. Ingrid Griffith reveals the pain for those leaving: “my mother tilted her head up at us; tears filled her eyes. ‘Mammy loves you,’ she said.” We are shown the feelings of a child left behind, including Ingrid's heartbreaking letter to her parents, that was never sent.

On 'Liminal Spaces: Migration and Women of the Guyanese Diaspora' by Grace Aneiza Ali (ed.).
Christie Neptune, Memories From Yonder, 2015, diptych of archival inkjet prints. © Christie Neptune. Courtesy of the artist. CC BY-NC-ND.

Part III focuses on the space between departure and arrival—the acts of processing life in a past land and constructing life in a new land. We see how women leaving their homeland is a matter of necessity, not desire—as expressed by poet Grace Nichols. Artist Suchitra Mattai targets colonial power and its consequences, producing artistic acts of “appropriation.” Landscapes and symbolism are also central to her work; as Ali observes, “Mattai’s landscapes, used to explore her relationship to the idea of homelands in transition, teem with texture, materiality and laborious detail.” Christie Neptune's art essay deals with memories of her mother and crocheting (popular among Guyanese women): as Ali points out, “for Neptune, the art of crocheting becomes a metaphor for the necessary acts of unfurling a life in a past land to construct a new life in a new land.” We see the heartbreaking impact of migration for Ebora Calder, an elder who, like Neptune's mother, migrated to New York in the late 1950s. Artist Sandra Brewster brings to the forefront the voices of the matriarchs in her family, with memories, telling photographs, key questions, and stories: Brewster observes, “they want us to experience what they experienced by flying us there, on the backs of their words.” Brewster records the process of migration and shows, as Ali states, “it takes the driving force of women to get to a place of not merely surviving and adapting but thriving.”

On 'Liminal Spaces: Migration and Women of the Guyanese Diaspora' by Grace Aneiza Ali (ed.).
Maya Mackrandilal,Keeping Wake I, 2014, mixed media with found images on artboard. © Maya Mackrandilal. Courtesy of the artist. CC BY-NC-ND.

Part IV deals with returning to Guyana, reuniting with relatives, and learning deeply about their homeland—as well as keeping a strong connection to it. As Ali explains, “collectively, the essays in Returns, Reunions, and Rituals explore how daughters of immigrants like Michelle Joan Wilkinson, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen, and Maya Mackrandilal have rekindled, restored, and repaired frayed bonds. They illuminate, for those in the diaspora still estranged from Guyana, how to rediscover a place once lost.” Michelle Joan Wilkinson's curatorial essay discusses the objects bound up in migration; she explores two very personal, contrasting objects (a concrete house; and filigree jewelry), one left behind and one taken. Wilkinson also speaks of lost language and lost space. In her memoir-essay, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen focuses on the relationship between father and daughter, and unpacks the complexities surrounding cultural identity and migration: “this was a time when every institution that carried authority attempted to convince immigrant parents that a sense of cultural identity was an obstacle, rather than a lifeline and a necessity.” Maya Mackrandilal deals with loss and death in her art essay, “Keeping Wake.” Here, water is an important symbol; as Ali notes, “Mackrandilal connects generations of those who ventured into the kal pani two centuries ago with those who embark on symbolic crossings of their own twenty-first century dark waters.” This book concludes with, “A Brief History of Migration from Guyana.”

The rich variety of contributors, methods, and styles that coalesces in this book brings a powerful experience for the reader. These fifteen talented women of Guyanese ethnicity express themselves in their own unique and authentic ways, giving us a genuine look at their stories. In Liminal Spaces, we encounter visual storytelling and multimodal creativity in the photography; great depth and symbolism in the artwork; and stimulating essays and poems. In addition, there are telling official documents, expressive memoirs, as well as family letters and snatches of dialogue. This deeply personal and sensitive look at the full migratory experience of generations of women from Guyana is truly revealing. For those interested in the migration of women, Guyanese diaspora, or diaspora in general, this creative and informative book is a must-read.

Works Cited

Ali, Grace A., editor. Liminal Spaces: Migration and Women of the Guyanese Diaspora. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2020.

Baddour, Dylan. "Massive Guyana Oil Find Continues to Grow with Fresh Exxon Discovery." Forbes, Jan 27, 2020, forbes.com/sites/dylanbaddour/2020/01/27/massive-guyana-oil-find-continues-to-grow-with-fresh-exxon-discovery/#54d2ba272781. Accessed 11 June 2020.

* Cover image:  Grace Aneiza Ali, The SeaWall, Georgetown, Guyana (2014). Digital photo by Candace Ali-Lindsay. Courtesy of the artist, CC BY-NC-ND. Cover design: Anna Gatti

About the Editor

On 'Liminal Spaces: Migration and Women of the Guyanese Diaspora' by Grace Aneiza Ali (ed.).

Grace Aneiza Ali is Curator and an Assistant Professor and Provost Fellow in the Department of Art & Public Policy at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in New York City. Ali’s curatorial research practice centers on socially engaged art practices, global contemporary art, and art of the Caribbean Diaspora, with a focus on her homeland Guyana. She serves as Curator-at-Large for the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute in New York. She is Founder and Curator of Guyana Modern, an online platform for contemporary arts and culture of Guyana and founder and editorial director of OF NOTE Magazine—an award-winning nonprofit arts journalism initiative reporting on the intersection of art and activism. Her awards and fellowships include NYU Provost Faculty Fellow, Andy Warhol Foundation Curatorial Fellow, and Fulbright Scholar. She has been named a World Economic Forum ‘Global Shaper.’ Ali was born in Guyana and migrated to the Unites States with her family when she was fourteen years old.

Out Now: TOD#33 Algorithmic Anxiety in Contemporary Art

PDF of Listening into OthersePub of Listening into Othersinc_icon_lulu_@2x

Over the past decade, a growing number of artists and critical practitioners have become engaged with algorithms. This artistic engagement has resulted in algorithmic theatre, bot art, and algorithmic media and performance art of various kinds that thematise the dissemination and deployment of algorithms in everyday life. Especially striking is the high volume of artistic engagements with facial recognition algorithms, trading algorithms and search engine algorithms over the past few years.

The fact that these three types of algorithms have garnered more responses than other types of algorithms suggests that they form a popular subject of artistic critique. This critique addresses several significant, supra-individual anxieties of our decade: socio- political uncertainty and polarisation, the global economic crisis and cycles of recession, and the centralisation and corporatisation of access to online information. However, the constituents of these anxieties — which seem to be central to our experience of algorithmic culture — are rarely interrogated. They, therefore, merit closer attention.

This book uses prominent artistic representations of facial recognition algorithms, trading algorithms, and search algorithms as the entry point into an exploration of the constituents of the anxieties braided around these algorithms. It proposes that the work of Søren Kierkegaard—one of the first theorists of anxiety—helps us to investigate and critically analyse the constituents of ‘algorithmic anxiety’.


Author:
Patricia de Vries

Cover design: Katja van Stiphout
Production: Sepp Eckenhaussen

Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2020
ISBN: 978-94-92302-52-6

This publication is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.

Get the book here

Order a print copy here

Download .PDF here

Download .ePub here

++just out++ Video Vortex Reader III: Inside the YouTube Decad

Edited by Geert Lovink and Andreas Treske

INC Reader #14

Download it here, as e-pub, pdf or print-on-demand (via Lulu):

Video Vortex Reader III: Inside the YouTube Decade

What is online video today, fifteen years into its exponential growth? What started with amateur work of YouTube prosumers has spread to virtually all communication apps: an explosion in the culture of mobile sound and vision. Now, in the age of the smart phone, video accompanies, informs, moves, and distracts us. Are you addicted yet? Look into that tiny camera, talk, move the phone, show us around — prove to others that you exist!

Founded in 2007, Video Vortex is a lively network of artists, activists, coders, curators, critics, and researchers linked by the exchange of ideas, materials, and discussions both online and offline. Video Vortex has produced two anthologies, a website, a mailing list, 12 international conferences, several art exhibitions, and more to come as the internet and video continue to merge and miniaturize.

The first Video Vortex reader came out in 2008, followed by a second in 2011. This third anthology covers the turbulent period from Video Vortex #7 (2013) in Yogyakarta, across the meetings that followed in Zagreb, Lüneburg, Istanbul, Kochi, and finally Malta in 2019, where the foundations for this publication where laid before its production began in the midst of the corona crisis.

The contributions herein respond to a broad range of emerging and urgent topics, from bias in YouTube’s algorithms, to the use of video in messaging, image theory, the rise of deepfakes, a reconsideration of the history of video art, a reflection on the continuing role and influence of music video, indy servers, synthetic intimacies, love and sadness, artist videos, online video theory in the age of platform capitalism, video as online activism, and the rise of streaming. Click, browse, swipe, like, share, save, and enjoy!

Contributors: Annie Abrahams, Ina Blom, Natalie Bookchin, Pablo deSoto, Ben Grosser, Adnan Hadzi, Judit Kis, Patricia G. Lange, Hang Li, Patrick Lichty, Geert Lovink, Gabriel Menotti, Sabine Niederer, Dan Oki, Aras Ozgun, Daniel Pinheiro, Rahee Punyashloka, Oliver Lerone Schultz, Alberto Figurt, Ana Peraica, Peter Snowdon, Andreas Treske, Colette Tron, Florian Schneider, Jack Wilson, Dino Ge Zhang.

We hope to be able to offer a (free) printed edition soon!

“It’s Time to End the Publishing Gatekeeping!”: SO! stands with RaceB4Race

Sounding Out! stands with the RaceB4Race Executive Board and their recent public statement published via the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University regarding racism and the institutional structures of peer review in academia. Here is an excerpt of their clarion call for deep, systemic change but please read their entire statement here.

All academic journals and presses need to think about what structures are limiting access and hindering the full participation of scholars of color. After all, how academic journals structure their practices reflects their values. Here are a few outdated structures and systems that deserve to be interrogated:

  • Editorial boards: How diverse is the journal/press’s editorial board? How inclusive is the journal/press’s editorial structure? How are board members selected? Are the qualifications for serving on the board made public? Can people apply to serve on the board? Can people be nominated to serve on the board? Are board members used equally (i.e., do they all review the same amount of submissions)? Who determines when they are used, and what is the criteria for that decision? In other words, how can the journal/press ward against tokenistic practices?
  • Double-blind review: Who or what is the journal/press protecting in the process of review? Why are the reviewers’ identities concealed? Who does this benefit? Why? What might be gained if reviewers had to reveal their identities? Can reviewers see each other’s reviews? Are reviewers notified of the final outcome of the review? In other words, how can the journal/press create a more ethical and informed review process?
  • Evaluative criteria: How does the journal/press articulate for its reviewers the qualities of “strong” scholarship for emerging fields? What assumptions underlie the definitions in that respect? And what politics inform those assumptions? In other words, how can the journal/press actively promote paradigm shifts?

We know that an overwhelming majority enthusiastically supports the development of premodern critical race studies. We know first-hand that our colleagues want to engage with more resources, more insights, and more cutting-edge scholarship from our field in their own research and teaching. But the current editorial practices of most academic journals hinder the production of the intellectual resources that are needed now more than ever: the publishing gatekeeping is hurting us all. —“It’s Time to End the Publishing Gatekeeping!,” Letter from RaceB4Race Executive Board, 2020.

SpringerOpen 2019 – 2020

By Anqi Shi & Heather Morrison

Abstract

307 SpringerOpen titles for which we have data on journals that were fully open at some point from 2010 to the present were studied, with a primary focus on pricing and status changes from 2019 – 2020 and a secondary focus on longitudinal status changes. Of the 307 titles, 226 are active, fully open access and are still published by SpringerOpen, 40 have ceased publication, 19 were transferred to another publisher, and 18 formerly open access journals are now hybrid. 6 of these journals transitioned from free to hybrid in the past year. An additional 2 journals were not found. An additional 2 journals were not found. Of the 226 active journals published by SpringerOpen, 51% charge APCs. The average APC is 1,233 EUR, an increase of 3% over the 2019 average. 46.5% of the 101 journals for which we have 2019 and 2020 data did not change in price; 13.9% decreased in price; and 39.6% increased in price. The extent of change in price was substantial, ranging from a 50% price drop to a 94% price increase.

Detail – download the PDF: springer open 2019-2020

Data (for DOAJ 2016 – 2019 data for journals that are now hybrid see columns BV – ): Springeropen_2019_2020

Photography and Protest

Photography and Protest
Photographs (banner and image above) courtesy of Eric Hart Jr., all rights reserved. Click here to visit Love Hart.
I find it difficult to look at these photographs without flinching from the memories and from the anger they invoke. But I must look. I must remember, as you must. For this was history in the making. Like it or not, you cannot hide from the camera’s eye. - Myrlie Evers-Williams                            
Photography and Protest

As I reflect on photography and protest, I see it as my life in America from a lived experience to an act of memory. I am troubled by the images I’ve seen this week, and I have been asked—by various people—what these images mean to me. Black death has been photographed, broadcasted, painted, recorded, tweeted, and exhibited for the past 90 days. It has been one week since a teenager posted footage of George Floyd’s murder. It has been one week of collectively watching George Floyd’s last moments of life, seeing a man struggling and crying while a white police officer digs his knee deeper into Floyd’s neck, the officer’s left hand slipped casually into his pocket. I watched in horror as the other police officer stood guard protecting his fellow officer while the person behind the camera screamed and pleaded with the officers to stop. I heard others begging for his life as George Floyd pleaded “I can’t breathe” over and over again.

The video went viral! Each time I watched the news my heart cried — it is recorded thanks to cell phone imaging and surveillance cameras; and, because of the camera we see history repeating itself. Just this past March Breonna Taylor was killed in Kentucky; in February Ahmaud Arbery’s death was recorded in Georgia and not until weeks later did the national news media report his tragic death. Covid 19 killed 100,000 Americans and their names appeared on the local news and some of their portraits were published in the newspapers. Activists, community members, students, first responders, essential workers, government and city officials, family members and others have used the images to make change happen because of a history of injustices.

I started thinking about Black death well before the global pandemic and global lockdowns and measures of combating and coping that have become our everyday reality. I will never forget the photograph of the brutally beaten and swollen body of the young Emmett Till published in Jet magazine in 1955. Many young people experienced episodes of hostile confrontation with the police that intensified over the years because of social protests. Blacks were being killed, hosed, jailed, and subjected to unjust laws throughout the American landscape. Photographers witnessing both brutal and social assaults created a new visual consciousness for the American public, establishing a visual language of ‘testifying’ about their individual and collective experience. On April 27, 1962, there was a shootout between the Los Angeles police and members of the Nation of Islam; Ronald Stokes, a member of the Nation of Islam, was killed. Fourteen  Muslims were arrested; one was charged with assault with intent to kill and the others with assault and interference with police officers. A year later, Malcolm X investigated the incident and the trial. Noted photographer Gordon Parks remembered his photograph of Malcolm X holding the brutally beaten NOI member in this way:

I recall the night Malcolm spoke after this brother Stokes was killed in Los Angeles, and he was holding up a huge photo showing the autopsy with a bullet hole at [the] back of the head. He was angry then; he was dead angry. It was a huge rally. But he was never out of control. The press tried to project his militancy as wild, unthoughtful, and out of control. But Malcolm was always controlled, always thinking what to do in political arenas.

I share this history as I am always mindful of the past because of visual culture. I value, even though distressed by this history and even more so because the Gordon Parks High School was destroyed by fire in St. Paul this week. History!!

James Baldwin said, "One's past, one's history is not the same thing as value. It's learning how to use it." The last few months have confounded me for a variety of reasons but perhaps most because Baldwin was meticulous as a writer, and did not spare words, thus his use of the verbs "learn" and "use" in the above are clear iterations of this, of functionality. Learn to use art (image). And make history right. In 1989, Toni Morrison wrote in Beloved “. . . And O my people, out yonder, hear me they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up.”

Collectively we must continue to remember that photography and images can be both empowering and ominous; and they can help us make changes to the laws as we struggle to find words for this painful moment. I am encouraged by our students’ activism as they photograph this charged moment and at the same time make photographs of the causes of inequities. I urge everyone to use this incredible energy to vote; to document injustices and be encouraged by the voices of the people around this country telling this story globally and depicting the faces of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd on their face masks, t-shirts, signs and murals to ensure that this will be the last time.

Further Recommendations:

An Antiracist Reading List by Joan Wong.

Blackout Tuesday sees Instagram users not posting in solidarity with Black Lives Matter by ITV Report.

The Story Behind the Photograph of Protesters Outside of Trump Tower That Resonated Around the World by Mark Clennon.

ASK YOURSELF: When did my baby become a threat to you? by Lauryn Whitney

Check in on Your Black Employees, Now by Tonya Russell.

Make America Safe Again, film directed by Caran Hartsfield and Rosa White.

Some Stuff To Do and Some Stuff to Share

Your Black Colleagues May Look Like They’re Okay — Chances Are They’re Not by Danielle Cadet

Gordon Parks’s 1960s Protest Photos Reflect the Long History of Police Brutality in the U.S. by Daria Harper.

About the Author:

Deborah Willis is Chair of Photography & Imaging, Tisch New York University. Her research examines photography’s multifaceted histories, visual culture, the photographic history of Slavery and Emancipation, contemporary women photographers and beauty. She received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship and was a Richard D. Cohen Fellow in African and African American Art, Hutchins Center, Harvard University and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. Professor Willis received the NAACP Image Award in 2014 for her co-authored book Envisioning Emancipation. Other notable projects include Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers – 1840 to the Present, Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present, Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs, an NAACP Image Award Literature Winner. Deborah Willis is co-editor of Women and Migration: Responses in Art and History, an Open Access title published by Open Book Publishers which is available to read and download for free here.