ryan griffis
Since 2002
Works in United States of America

ARTBASE (3)
PORTFOLIO (1)
BIO
Ryan Griffis currently teaches new media art at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He often works under the name Temporary Travel Office and collaborates with many other writers, artists, activists and interesting people in the Midwest Radical Culture Corridor.
The Temporary Travel Office produces a variety of services relating to tourism and technology aimed at exploring the non-rational connections existing between public and private spaces. The Travel Office has operated in a variety of locations, including Missouri, Chicago, Southern California and Norway.

Is MySpace a Place?


Networked Performance pointed me toward an interview (download in PDF)with Networked Publics speaker Henry Jenkins and Networked Publics friend danah boyd about Myspace. The site, popular with teenagers, has become increasingly controversial as parents and the press raise concerns about the openness of information on the site and the vulnerability this supposedly poses to predators (Henry points out that only .1% of abductions are by strangers) and the behavior of teens towards each other (certainly nothing new, only now in persistent form). In another essay on Identity Production in Networked Culture, danah suggests that Myspace is popular not only because the technology makes new forms of interaction possible, but because older hang-outs such as the mall and the convenience store are prohibiting teens from congregating and roller rinks and burger joints are disappearing.

This begs the question, is Myspace media or is it space? Architecture theorists have long had this thorn in their side. "This will kill that," wrote Victor Hugo with respect to the book and the building. In the early 1990s, concern about a dwindling public culture and the character of late twentieth century urban space led us to investigate Jürgen Habermas's idea of the public sphere. But the public sphere, for Habermas is a forum, something that, for the most part, emerges in media and in the institutions of the state:

The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor. The medium of this political confrontation was peculiar and without historical precedent: people's ...

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SWITCH: Issue 22



Carlos Castellanos:

HI everyone. Just wanted to announce the new issue of SWITCH:

SWITCH : The online New Media Art Journal of the CADRE Laboratory for
New Media at San Jose State University

http://switch.sjsu.edu switch@cadre.sjsu.edu

SWITCH Journal is proud to announce the launch of Issue 22: A Special
Preview Edition to ISEA 2006/ ZeroOne San Jose.

As San Jose State University and the CADRE Laboratory are serving as
the academic host for the ZeroOne San Jose /ISEA 2006 Symposium,
SWITCH has dedicated itself to serving as an official media
correspondent of the Festival and Symposium. SWITCH has focused the
past three issues of publication prior to ZeroOne San Jose/ISEA2006
on publishing content reflecting on the themes of the symposium. Our
editorial staff has interviewed and reported on artists, theorists,
and practitioners interested in the intersections of Art & Technology
as related to the themes of ZeroOne San Jose/ ISEA 2006. While some
of those featured in SWITCH are part of the festival and symposium,
others provide a complimentary perspective.

Issue 22 focuses on the intersections of CADRE and ZeroOne San Jose/
ISEA 2006. Over the past year, students at the CADRE Laboratory for
New Media have been working intensely with artists on two different
residency projects for the festival – “Social Networking” with Antoni
Muntadas and the City as Interface Residency, “Karaoke Ice” with
Nancy Nowacek, Marina Zurkow & Katie Salen. Carlos Castellanos,
James Morgan, Aaron Siegel, all give us a sneak preview of their
projects which will be featured at the ISEA 2006 exhibition. Alumni
Sheila Malone introduces ex_XX:: post position, an exhibition
celebrating the 20th anniversary of the CADRE Institute that will run
as a parallel exhibition to ZeroOne San Jose/ ISEA 2006. LeE
Montgomery provides a preview of NPR (Neighborhood Public Radio)
presence at ...

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Art & Mapping



The North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) has released a special issue of their journal, Cartographic Perspectives:
Art and Mapping Issue 53, Winter 2006 Edited by Denis Wood and and John Krygier Price: $25
The issue includes articles by kanarinka, Denis Wood, Dalia Varanka and John Krygier, and an extensive catalogue of map artists compiled by Denis Wood.

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[-empyre-] Liquid Narrative for June 2006


Christina McPhee:

hi all, I am not sure we got this message out to Rhizome!

Please join our guests this month, Dene Grigar (US), Jim Barrett
(AU/SE), Lucio Santaella (BR), and Sergio Basbaum (BR) , with
moderator Marcus Bastos (BR), for a spirited discussion of "Liquid
Narratives" ----- digital media story telling with a dash, perhaps,
of 'aura' .

Here's the intro from Marcus:

The topic of June at the - empyre - mailing list will be Liquid Narratives. The concept of 'liquid narrative' is interesting in that it allows to think about the unfoldings of contemporary languages beyond tech achievements, by relating user controlled applications with formats such as the essay (as described by Adorno in "Der Essay als Form", The essay as a form) and procedures related to the figure of the narrator (as described by Benjamin in his writings about Nikolai Leskov). Both authors are accute critics of modern culture, but a lot of his ideas can be expanded towards contemporary culture. As a matter of fact, one of the main concerns in Benjamin's essay is a description of how the rise of modernism happens on account of an increasing nprivilege of information over knowledge, which is even more intense nowadays. To understand this proposal, it is important to remember how Benjamin distinguishes between an oral oriented knowledge, that results from 'an experience that goes from person to person' and is sometimes anonymous, from the information and authoritative oriented print culture. One of the aspects of this discussion is how contemporary networked culture rescues this 'person to person' dimension, given the distributed and non-authoritative procedures that technologies such as the GPS, mobile phones and others stimulate.

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state of the planet infographics


stateoftheplanet.jpg
a small collection of beautiful information graphics documenting the current state of the planet.
see also gapminder & 3d data globe.
[seedmagazine.com]

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Discussions (909) Opportunities (8) Events (16) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

Fwd: move to fire Prof. Ilan Pappe from Haifa University


Sorry for the lame (lack of) formatting...

Begin forwarded message:

> Date:Tue, 8 Feb 2005 00:00:21 -0500
> To:"Undercurrents" <undercurrents@bbs.thing.net>
>>>

>>> This is Ilan Pappe's summary:
>
>>> The charge was lodged by the dean of
>>> social sciences at the University of Haifa. My
> dismissal was urged on
>>> account of my position in the Katz affair. I
> criticized the conduct
> of
>>> the university which disqualified our student
> Theodor Katz in 2000
>>> because of his Master's thesis. In his thesis, Katz
> documented a
>>> massacre of the Israeli army with the help of oral
> history. A Zionist
>>> military band, the "Alexandroni" brigade,
> slaughtered more than 200
> Arab
>>> civilians in the village of Tantura in 1948 when the
> Israeli state
> was
>>> founded. Unlike the university authorities and the
> media, I did not find
>>> that the study was "dangerous" or "purely invented".
> I took a stand for
>>> Katz and for academic freedom, published excerpts on
> a web site from
>>> interviews conducted by Katz with Israeli soldiers
> and Palestinian
>>> survivors and wrote a public letter.
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>
>>>> Please find the letter herewith from Ilan Pappe
> of Haifa
> University
>>>> and the link to the petition in his defense at
> the end of the
> letter.
>>>>
>>>> Dear Friends,
>>>>
>>>> I have received today an invitation to stand for
> a trial in my
>>>> university, the university of Haifa. The
> prosecution, represented by
>>>> Haifa's Dean of Humanities demands my expulsion
> from the university
>>>> due to the positions I have taken on the Katz
> affair. It calls upon
>>>> the court "to judge Dr.Pappe on the offences he
> has committed and to
>>>> use to the full the court's legal authority to
> expel him from the
>>>> university." These offences are, in a nutshell,
> my past critique
> of
>>>> the university's conduct in the Katz affair, the
> MA student who
>>>> discovered the Tantura massacre in 1948 and was
> disqualified for
> that.
>>>
>>>> The reason the university waited so long is that
> now the time is ripe
>>> in Israel for any act of silencing academic freedom.
>>>>
>>>> My intent to teach a course on the Nakbah next
> year and my support for a
>
>>>> boycott on Israel has led the university to the
> conclusion that I can only be stopped by expulsion.
>>>>
>>>> Judging by past procedures this is not a request,
> but already a
>>>> verdict, given the position of the person in
> question in the
>>>> university and the way things had been done in
> the past. The
>>>> ostensible procedure of a 'fair trial' does not
> exist and hence I
> do
>>>> not even intend to participate in a McCarthyist
> charade.
>>>>
>>> I do not appeal to you for my own sake. I ask you
> at this stage before
>>>> a final decision has been taken to voice your
> opinion in whatever
> form
>>>> you can and to whatever stage you have access to,
> not in order to
>>>> prevent my expulsion (in many ways in the present
> atmosphere in
> Israel
>>>> it will come now, and if not now later on, as the
> Israeli academia
> has
>>>> decided almost unanimously to support the
> government and to help
>>> silence any criticism).
>>>>
>>>> I ask those who are willing to do so, to take
> this case as part of
>>> your overall appreciation of, and attitude to, the
> present
> situation in
>>>> Israel. This should shed light also on the debate
> whether or not to boycott Israeli academia.
>>>>
>>>> This is not, I stress, an appeal for personal
> help - my situation
>>>> is far better than that of my colleagues in the
> occupied
> territories
>>>> living under the daily harassment and brutal
> abuses of the Israeli
>>>> army. It is an opening gambit and many of
> colleagues, especially
> my
>>>> Palestinian Israeli colleagues, can be next. A
> testimony to the
> tragic
>>>> circumstances of my own university is that I know
> there is no use
> in
>>>> distributing this letter on its internal
> web-site, as all of my
>>>> colleagues in the past when it came to the
> crucial moment - for
>>>> understandable reasons - felt they could do very
> little to help
> me,
>>> without risking their own position in the
> university.
>>>>
>>>> I know many of you have access to world media and
> can help to
> expose
>>>> the already dismal picture and false pretense of
> Israel being the
>>>> 'only democracy in the Middle East.'
>>>>
>>>> Yours Ilan Pappe
>>>>
>>>>
> http://www.petitiononline.com/pappe/petition.html
>>>>
>>>> Visit http://academicsforjustice.org

OPPORTUNITY

Memefest 2005 competition outlines on-line!


Deadline:
Tue Feb 08, 2005 14:59

Begin forwarded message:
>
> Dear Friends,
>
> First of all, we, the organizers of Memefest 2005, ask you to forward
> this e-mail to as many people as possible. The media usually make it
> difficult for us to get publicity by censoring, or ignoring, Memefest
> so please help us as an 'alternative


DISCUSSION

YOUgenics3.0 panel discussion


Rounding Up the Unusual Suspects: Art in the Age of Biotechnology and
the Patriot Act"
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Thursday, February 17, 6:00 p.m.
School auditorium
280 S. Columbus Drive
(free admission)

Panelists include:
Lori Andrews, Distinguished Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College of
Law and Director of the Institute for Science, Law and Technology and
author of Future Perfect: Confronting Decisions About Genetics;
Dr. Tod Chambers, Associate Professor of Bioethics and Medical
Humanities and of Medicine at Northwestern University 's Feinberg
School of Medicine and author of The Fiction of Bioethics (Routledge);
Ryan Griffis (moderator), curator of the Betty Rymer Gallery exhibition
"YOUgenics";
Terri Kapsalis, author of Public Privates: Performing Gynecology from
Both Ends of the Speculum (Duke University Press), founding member of
Theater Oobleck and a longstanding educator at a women's health
collective in Chicago;
Faith Wilding, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of
Performance at SAIC and founding member of the performance collective
subRosa.

YOUgenics: art interrogating genetic technologies
http://www.yougenics.net

DISCUSSION

Journal of Aesthetics & Protest: Call for art


> Culture War Now!!
> \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
> The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest is looking to promote actions,
> images, projects, and ideas that thrive in spaces of refusal by
> embodying alternative ways of being.
>
> A function of art is to shape consciousness- a truth embodied demands
> reality structure itself around it. The Fascists' Agenda will not win
> because it cannot erase all un-conforming bodies. Images of refusal
> expand collective ideas of truth and possibility.
>
> O' heretic- what discoveries have you made? Perform your difference,
> our otherness. You experience the sublime in places other than death.
> We want your living gay agenda. Show us how you don't need their
> foreign oil. Illustrate your day-to-day diet for a new america. We
> want to see the means by which you live otherwise.
>
> The truths we live refute the notion that George Bush''s own God
> created the universe for him to run. While they believe....
> -endless war creates freedom
> -the goals of global capitalsm should dictate social policy
> -love is only between a man and a woman
> -resource depletion and waste are the driving forces of a functioning
> economy
> ... we know otherwise.
>
> If it is a culture war they want then shall we fight!
> \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
>
> SPECIFICATIONS.
>
> All media, actions and performances will be considered.
>
> Contributions will be published online or in our pocket sized book
> (ideally fitting on one or two pages). Please consider these formats
> with your submission.
>
> Questions/problems: contact(at)journalfofaestheticsandprotest.org
>
> Submissions must be received by 3/15/05
>
> Email to contact(at)journalofaestheticsandprotest.org
> or
> self-addressed, stamped envelope to JoAP 3424 Council Street LA, CA
> 90004.
> Please enclose your contact information.
>
> The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest is a site for critical and
> creative inquiry and, now, incitement.
> In print it is distributed internationally and online it is available
> at www.journalofaestheticsandprotest.org

DISCUSSION

Re: Fwd: [news] Iraq vote unfaq


> People who live in countries where liberal democracy is far too
> easily taken for granted - and even, appallingly, sneered at by the
> converging elitists of the right and the pseudo-left, who imagine that
> they could do much better if only the masses would turn to them - are
> in no position to carp at the courage and determination of those who
> voted in Iraq on Sunday, a day that will be right up there in the
> history of political progress with Christmas Day 1989, when Romanians
> risked their lives to get rid of their own Stalinist dictatorship.
> It?s one more nail in the coffin of dictatorship, and, for the
> deranged apologists of fascism and terrorism, who have read too little
> Marx and not understood even what they have read, one more kick up the
> backside (where their brains appear to be located).

If only our elections could prove so effective a nail...
but perhaps i'm reading Marx from the wrong end.