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

The latest protest tool: 'texting'


http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/09/02/textmessaging.protest.ap/
index.html

The latest protest tool: 'texting'

Protesters use the technology to find, or avoid, hotspots

NEW YORK (AP) -- "Multiple reports of provocateurs setting trash fires
in midtown," read one text message sent to 400-plus mobile phones this
week through a service called Ruckus RNC 2004 Text Alerts.

For protesters navigating Manhattan during the Republican National
Convention, text-message broadcasting services like this, sent to their
cell phones, provided an up-to-the-minute guide to the action on the
streets.

Texting "tells you where the hot zones are, where people are getting
arrested," said Greg Altman, 31, of New York City. "It tells you which
stuff to avoid." When he got a message Tuesday that protesters were
being beaten near Manhattan's Union Square, he stayed away.

Protesters weren't just employing the message services to look for
trouble and stay out of it.

Frances Anderson, 33, who divides her time between New York and Los
Angeles, picked the protests she would attend each day using text
messaging. "It's like a personal assistant," she said.

The text messages have ranged from an offer of a sewing machine for a
women's anti-war group called Code Pink, to an alert that protesters in
row boats on a lake in Central Park might be arrested, to an update
that protesters were allegedly beaten while handcuffed.

Text messages have called activists to spontaneous protests, including
a Wednesday rally by the downtown pier where arrested protesters were
being held and a rally against oil interests in Central Park. "Teleflip
your friends," the message on the latter protest urged.

"I came here this morning after getting a text message," Gael Murphy,
the 50-year-old co-founder of Code Pink said at the rally near the
pier.

Text messaging is not as prevalent in the United States as it is in
Europe and Asia and a number of protesters Tuesday said they had
trouble sending messages.

Text messages have become an important organizing tool for spontaneous
protests. Texting alerted thousands of people to anti-government
protests in Spain following the Madrid bombings that killed 191 people
in March. Massive protests in the Philippines in 2001, coordinated by
text messaging, were credited with ousting President Joseph Estrada.

Ruckus RNC 2004 was among the text-messaging groups available on the
commercial UPOC.com service, which is best known for text alerts of
celebrity sightings. More popular with protesters was the TxtMob.com
site, developed expressly for activists by techies with the Institute
for Applied Autonomy.

Users register their mobile phone number and e-mail address with the
site and can join many of the 200 groups (some are private), some of
which have hundreds of users. Messages sent by users are "broadcast"
through the TxtMob server.

TxtMob has 4,400 registered users, the site's administrator, who goes
by the pseudonym John Henry, said in a phone interview. Users with
several cell phone companies reported trouble receiving messages
Tuesday and Wednesday. Henry wouldn't say what he thought caused the
problem.

Reporters covering the protests were among TxtMob's more avid users,
and Henry said he assumed police were also keeping up with its
missives.

Tanya Mayo, 36, the national organizer of anti-war group Not in Our
Name, said, "We've made some real advances in technology; so have the
police. We have to assume that anything we have technologically is all
accessible by the police."

The New York Police Department "is utilizing a variety of tools to
monitor the activity of demonstrators in New York City," officer Chris
Filippazzo said, reading from a department statement. "We are not
releasing details of our tactics at this time."

Text messaging was far from the only technology protesters relied on
during the convention.

Activists from Code Pink got nighttime voice mail alerts telling them
where to go the next day. The women also used two-way radios to summon
extra leaders when a rally at Fox News they had expected would attract
200 people attracted more than 1,000.

Ben Meyers, 34, of New York, said he watched the indymedia.org Web site
Tuesday for minute-by-minute updates on what was happening where. The
organization also offered a broadcast of marchers' mobile phone updates
in conjunction with micro-radio station 103.9 in Brooklyn. Protesters
with cable TV service could also watch a public access channel that was
running nightly video of protests.

But texting was the demonstrations' most prevalent technology, and some
protesters who lacked it felt uncool.

"I have to figure out that thing for the next protest, so I can do it,"
said Misha Rappaport, 56, of San Francisco, squinting at her cell phone
across the West Side Highway from the pier where arrested protesters
were being held.

DISCUSSION

Re: RHIZOME_RAW Charles Simic:


Hi again Curt,
and not wanting to get into the point by point debate you're trying to
avoid (not interested myself).
but just to clarify...

> You are arguing with point 19: Abortion is an issue that takes
> precedence and primacy over all other issues.
> You're suggesting that thousands of dead Iraqis should take precedence.

i'm not arguing that anything should take precedence... if the point
for "pro lifers" is indeed "life," is it not a valid tactic to get them
to define what "life" is in terms understandable to those not sharing
their perspective? Many would say that current policy does (and
historically has) value(d) some life over others. i'm interested in
why, because i think that religious beliefs (in isolation) don't
sufficiently explain this. what makes one life a valued sacrifice?
>
> And with point 3: The Bible is God-approved.
> You're suggestion that the intention of the Bible got lost in
> translation and subjective interpretation.

i don't get this... and seems besides the point. we're not arguing
about the word of god, but what people use it for.
>
> And you're throwing in the slippery slope fallacy (
> http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/distract/ss.htm ) -- if I have
> religious convictions it could lead me to start a religious war. You
> seem to be saying that religious convictions are dangerous, suspect,
> and not to be acted on; but convictions arrived at otherwise are safe.
> Yet religious convictions can be arrived at through a great deal of
> intellectual rigor, experiential rigor, or whatever "safe" criteria
> you might happen to condone. If I discover a topographical map that
> proves accurate test after test after test ad infinitum, I'm hardly
> superstitious or illogical to trust that map.

again, not saying that religious convictions lead to religious war,
it's the material results of those convictions that have to be
scrutinized, not their source.

> The fact that your faith is based on something other than the Bible
> makes you no more or less de facto "right." You're either right or
> you're not. The point I hope to make is that her conclusions are
> perfectly !
> reasonable given her ethical assumptions. You disagree with her
> foundational ethics, but that doesn't make her illogical or ignorant
> of practical, material issues.

i guess this is my point: perhaps her conclusions are not reasonable
given her beliefs (not implying ignorance or illogical - it's not about
critical facility). i don't think convictions necessarily remove
contradictions.

> It's the political implementation of those ethics that's often the rub.

i think this statement is what i was trying to say, perhaps.
take care.

DISCUSSION

Re: RHIZOME_RAW Charles Simic:


interesting discussion... and at least Curt attempts to position an
antagonistic position.
but as a christian, the "logic" that Curt lays out is what scares me.
it's not logic - it's a logical analysis of someone's (hypothetical)
motives. and materialism is not mutually exclusive to religious
convictions. if you want to talk about policy that effects people based
on a totally contrived shared political system (what else are borders?)
- not on shared religious convictions, you have to talk about the
material effects of that policy, not how it does or doesn't conform to
some particular interpretation of a book that's been translated
numerous times. you can't argue with conviction/faith... that's
dangerous. You can talk about someone taking action based on religious
beliefs all day, but when it comes down to it, their actions have an
impact on others that may disagree - violently. A religious war still
kills people, many innocent (and mostly poor on both sides). Where's
the right to lifers carrying signs of dead Iraqi children (or the one's
dying of preventable illnesses here)? Apparently the US christian right
is way ahead of pomo theory when it comes to relativity. Legal steps to
control something like abortion based on the belief that the fetus'
life is more important than the person carrying it is a huge thing. the
issue with life support and the state in Jeb's florida is similar. if
you can't argue the logical contradictions with the policies and their
effects, your left with what? Why can't we talk about the
contradictions of a state's rights platform that endorses extreme
control of reproductive rights and marriage law through centralized
intervention? We can tax for a war that is saving no one's life (long
or short term), yet a substantial, national health care program that
would save thousands-millions is "communist!"
i don't believe christianity is about ignoring the material effects of
our actions, and i don't believe that the majority of that diverse
group Curt mentioned do either. the leaders of the religious right
certainly aren't ignoring them - just watch the 700 Club financial
advice for preparing for the rapture!

DISCUSSION

Re: Charles Simic: "The South: Down There on a Visit" (nyrb)


Hi Jim, et al,
>
> i am interested to read you say that "the South is no more "religious"
> than
> any other part of the country." I heard on pbs a while ago that 2/5 of
> the
> adults in the USA consider themselves "evangelicals" and that, of
> those, 2/3
> are Bush/Republican supporters. that's 2/5*2/3=4/15 > 25% of the voting
> population.

evangelicals... republican supporters... that may explain some things.
faith-based politics - don't believe your eyes and ears, follow your
heart!
that couldn't do anything but help Bush.
>
> i myself remain rather curious about how bush and cronies might get
> enough
> votes to even be in the race. tis a puzzlement to me. where are all
> these
> people? as you say, southern california is extremely conservative.
> they may
> well be highly conservative christian, as you say; i gather the area
> is also
> deeply involved in military industry (which is another strong
> republican
> area, is it not?).

yeah, the military is a big influence in both So Cal and the South East
US.
>
>> the historical opposition to union organizing is
>> a more important/oppressive distinction for me in the South - just
>> find
>> a strong union in North Carolina - and one i don't think is based on
>> religious foundations.
>
> What is the basis of that opposition to union organizing?

i have never really looked into it... i'm sure there are some good
writings on this somewhere. Missouri actually has a long history with
union activity with mining and manufacturing. maybe that has something
to do with it - the SE lacked real industrial centers that were
conducive to organizing. But why it's continued...
ryan

DISCUSSION

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