How can we gain meaningful control over data in an era where instant collaboration and "cloud-based" applications are the norm? Why did the early internet dream of radically distributed networks turn into the centralized architecture of 2025? We will look at the infrastructure of the modern web - from humming server racks to law enforcement surveillance portals - and explore what it takes technically and politically to build autonomous data platforms for the needs of today's social movements.

More info on counterspy.zip/archive and the MIR fedi.

Spend enough time online and you’ll come across a meme that ‘Furries run the internet.’ Some of us build networks, write code or work as sysadmins, but alongside those who build or maintain our spaces are those who shape the world we want to live in – creatives, organisers, educators and other non-technical furs. And yet, although we are stronger together, we rarely look back out into the wider world to compare. At a time of intense real-world uncertainty, what could the wider world learn from the furry community for safety, community and economic resilience? Join a live conversation with Ån (Systems Design Lead at VRChat) and Shibco, (founder of New Design Congress). We will discuss how the social and technical savvy of the furry community offers hope for a more just wider world, and how the tools of furry expression – VRChat, Blender, Unity, OBS, Godot and others – serve as a hybrid “third space” between the digital and the physical, in stark opposition to the doomscrolling mainstream.

Since 2023, New Design Congress has applied a combination digital anthropology cum- adversarial security research methodology to the question of the flawed digital identity -- its definitions, implementations, and implications on the present and future. From FaceID to BankID, from Facebook to the fediverse, from Worldcoin to the world's passports, this is an exhaustive study of the opportunities and risks that emerge from how we represent entities in the information age. At the centre of all this is a core hypothesis: today's digital identities are inherently vulnerable to attack, and this leads to brittle digital societies.

With first findings due just weeks from this seminar, NDC has since January been drip-releasing research notes -- abridged chapters from the forthcoming report. Parts one (Identifying & Defining the Digital Self) and two (Self-(De)termination: The Fatal Ambiguity of Digital Identity) having already been released (initiating discussion in the Metagov Slack). Part three Spheres of Identity" - coauthored by Roel Roscam Abbing - is forthcoming, and will look at the properties of centralized/decentralized/federated identity systems.

From their first research note:

"Despite the popular concepts of digital identity being tied to user self-expression or data-politics, the expression or representation of self is not the intent of the digital identity first principle. Instead, the overarching goal shared by all implementations of digital identity is that of the broader intent of cybernetics: to govern a population in aggregate. This is accomplished by standardising the properties of entities and actors as they are appear within the digital system, eliminating edge cases where possible, and then designing socio-technical touchpoints within the system that allow for the management of these subjects."

Cade and Benjamin will join our seminar to present the broad arc of their research, draw connections between digital governance, cybernetics, and the untenability of digital identity in its current incarnation, opening a discussion around the future of online governance.

Didn't beat my personal best time, but had fun trying!

Eyebeam introduced these artists with a panel on March 15th, 2024, archived here for the future.

This group arrives at Eyebeam with clear-hearted and daring visions of self-determination and interdependence. Their projects counter, bypass, and create fissures in dominant power’s oppressive infrastructures of bias, surveillance, and censorship. Through evocative archives and memory work, through counter-mythologies and community-owned digital networks, Eyebeam’s Democracy Machine Fellows expand the possibilities of contemporary life alongside and against technology and its uses.

Eyebeam is excited to share with you our enthusiasm for this group of artists, and they are thrilled to share their work with you all.

Transcript: https://desk.undersco.re/s/nTLDZaGsfMreCPq
Resources and links shared in chat: https://desk.undersco.re/s/Yz4cx79weQXqjfZ

Audio-only recording: https://cloud.undersco.re/s/fn6ZnrL7FD6Y3RT
Chat log: https://cloud.undersco.re/s/7nwESBrriDQX96J
Closed captions: https://cloud.undersco.re/s/PJfxegjZfcit7Hq
FAQ Sheet: https://cloud.undersco.re/s/cPGfaKNDxiBfM6S

Here’s another sharable link to the recording, in case you have any difficulties opening the links above:
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/WojSfodrDSDYoa-h2ShnnVWEphIO19KWlRtlkenBOaZcVS9i9-EWOAL2DHRuGvkZ.EUDTDsGbllt6VOhm?startTime=1695837660000

Passcode: uZ1Q=MYd

The deadline is October 1 @ 11:59 PM EDT.

Apply here: https://bit.ly/2024OpenCall

BUFU is a collaborative living archive centered around (pan)Black and (pan)Asian cultural and political relationships. We, the founders of this project, are a collective of queer, femme and non-binary, Black and East-Asian artists and organizers. Our goal is to facilitate a global conversation on the cultural contact between Black & Asian diasporas, with an emphasis on building solidarity, de-centering whiteness, and resurfacing our deeply interconnected and complicated histories. We attempt to achieve this through our collaborative programming, visual archives, and through building long-term partnerships with collectives, organizations, and individuals.

American is an interdisciplinary artist thinking about blackness, being, and resistance in the context of networked virtual life. They use video, installation, new media, and writing to reveal how the history of power is embedded in our daily lives. They spend a lot of my time thinking about how we create equality for those left out of history, and what that might visually look like. Due to their legal name change they’ve only very recently become googleable… though still not recognized by many systems (technological or societal).

Kink Out brings intersecting communities together. As an ever-evolving container, Kink Out is a performance space, screening room, art collaboration, panel discussion, S&M club, call to action, tattoo studio, art auction, and fundraiser for communities most affected by the injustice of censorship, criminalization, and demonization of our lives and livelihoods.

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From the Rupture: Ideas & Actions for the Future coincides with special project launches that were supported by Eyebeam’s Rapid Response for a Better Digital Future – a fully-digital artist fellowship that was launched in response to the onset of Covid-19 crisis, marking the beginning of a new kind of artist support at Eyebeam.

This talk was recorded on February 20, 2021, the fourth (and final) day of the festival celebrating Veil Machine in collaboration with Kink Out Events and Dillon Sung in collaboration with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition with talks by Sasha Costanza-Chock, Vincent Southerland, Laurie Jo Reynolds and the Chicago 400, conversations with Juno Mac & Ze Royale, and hosted by nash sheard.

This talk was recorded on February 20, 2021, the fourth (and final) day of the festival celebrating Veil Machine in collaboration with Kink Out Events and Dillon Sung in collaboration with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition with talks by Sasha Costanza-Chock, Vincent Southerland, Laurie Jo Reynolds and the Chicago 400, conversations with Juno Mac & Ze Royale, and hosted by nash sheard.

This video was presented on February 20, 2021, the fourth (and final) day of the festival celebrating Veil Machine in collaboration with Kink Out Events and Dillon Sung in collaboration with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition with talks by Sasha Costanza-Chock, Vincent Southerland, Laurie Jo Reynolds and the Chicago 400, conversations with Juno Mac & Ze Royale, and hosted by nash sheard.

Roderick Schrock is an arts organizer and curator. As a non-profit executive, he leads the functional capacities of Eyebeam’s direct artist support and guides its focus to realign societal relationships with emergent technologies. He builds institutional capacity in order for artists to gain roles as cultural leaders and conceives and implements programs that elevate their work in society.

He currently teaches in the Curatorial Practice MA Program at the School of Visual Arts and has taught at the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM), California College of the Arts, and New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. He is a member of the Guild of Future Architects, sits on the Netherlands America Foundation Cultural Committee, and is a founding board member of Art+Feminism.

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From the Rupture: Ideas & Actions for the Future coincides with special project launches that were supported by Eyebeam’s Rapid Response for a Better Digital Future – a fully-digital artist fellowship that was launched in response to the onset of Covid-19 crisis, marking the beginning of a new kind of artist support at Eyebeam.

This talk was recorded on February 20, 2021, the fourth (and final) day of the festival celebrating Veil Machine in collaboration with Kink Out Events and Dillon Sung in collaboration with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition with talks by Sasha Costanza-Chock, Vincent Southerland, Laurie Jo Reynolds and the Chicago 400, conversations with Juno Mac & Ze Royale, and hosted by nash sheard.