Past

December 15th, 2016 - The Politics of Resistance (at Town Hall Seattle) (Facebook)

This segment of Chat Room, in partnership with Town Hall Seattle, will consider the multifarious and at times thorny relationship between art and technology, the shifting attitudes towards “the creative class”, electronic civil disobedience, and the local and international use of art for social and political resistance. Live and recorded guests include members of Electronic Disturbance Theatre, Digital Activism Research Project, and Portland Immersive Media Group.

Watch a recording of this segment here (courtesy of Seattle Channel.)

October 29th, 2016 - Ownership and Property (Facebook)

What is the relationship between the access to and control of material and immaterial resources? What can the violent history of property tell us about the formation of intellectual property? How do the current structures of ownership and property dictate the distribution of wealth, value and control?

Presenters:

Emily Pothast is a multimedia artist, musician, writer and curator based in Seattle. She is half of the installation/performance duo Hair & Space Museum, co-founder of Translinguistic Other Records and frontwoman of the band Midday Veil.

manuel arturo abreu (b. 1991, Santo Domingo) is a poet and artist from the Bronx, currently living and making in a garage in Southeast Portland. They work with text, ephemeral sculpture, and photography.

Skawennati is a Mohawk artist, writer, and independent curator whose projects have included CyberPowWow, a virtual gallery and chat space, and Imagining Indians in the 25th Century, a web-based paper doll/time-travel journal. In 1994, Skawennati co-founded Nation to Nation, a First Nations artist collective whose goals were to create an outlet to show members’ work, and to foster a safe meeting space for Natives and non-Natives.

May 18, 2016 - Net Art Aesthetics (Facebook)

How has net art complicated the notions of beauty? What can the national creation and circulation of net art tell us about geopolitics and global internet access?

Presenters:

Professor Matthew Sparke, scholar in digital geography, in conversation with Tabita Rezaire's film Afro Cyber Resistance about global internet access’s effect on cultural production;

Professor Caroline Simpson, scholar in politics of visual culture, with a focus on race and gender.

Mario Lemafa, new media artist, on creating online indigenous visual "landscapes."

Also featuring recorded clips from Jennifer Chan, Tabita Rezaire, Terrell Davis, Jeremy Scott and Mike Grabarek, segments of local street interviews, and more.

Watch a recording of this segment here.

February 11, 2016 - Value and Labor (Facebook)

What are the trade-offs for artists, creative freelance workers, and other independent contractors in an economy altered by the internet? How are artists responding to these issues in their practices? How does art and the internet perpetuate the gravely unequal compensation standards across workers of different races, genders, classes, and abilities?

Presenters:

James Coupe, an artist who works with installation, video, internet and public art, exploring themes of surveillance, privacy, and most recently, crowdworking. His work has been exhibited worldwide, including venues such as Camden Arts Centre, ZKM and the Henry Art Gallery.

Dorothy Howard, a researcher and writer on digital and immaterial labor, a former Wikimedia-in-Residence, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Arachne, a webzine about mythology and the internet.

Christopher Paul Jordan, a PNW born digital designer and muralist specializing in large scale public works and co-director of Tacoma based youth organization Fab-5.

Christa Bell and Sienna Shields, members of HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN, a collective of artists, writers, composers, academics, filmmakers and performers from around the world who collaborate across disciplines and cities.

(pre-recorded) Working Artists of the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.), A New York-based activist organization focused on regulating the payment of artist fees by nonprofit art institutions.