Syndicate: Fw: Conference on Race in Digital Space

[Melentie Pandilovski <mpandil@soros.org.mk>]

Forwarded by Melentie Pandilovski <mpandil@soros.org.mk>
----------------------- Original Message -----------------------
 From:    "Cynthia B. Rubin" <cbrubin@brainiac.com>
 To:      Cultural Diversity Committee <cdc@isea.qc.ca>
 Cc:      Liste de discussions sur la isea-forum <isea-forum@uqam.ca>
 Date:    Thu, 29 Mar 2001 18:24:56 -0500 (EST)
 Subject: Conference on Race in Digital Space
----


		============================================
             USC-MIT conference addresses rhetoric around "digital
divide" and expands perceptions of minorities' use of technology
             ============================================

             Conference on Race in Digital Space

             Friday, 27 April, 12:00-7:00 p.m.
             Saturday, 28 April, 9:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m.
             Sunday, 29 April, 8:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

             MIT Campus, Wong Auditorium, Building E51

             Full Schedule: http://cms.mit.edu/race

             Registration: http://cms.mit.edu/race/register.html

             Most discussions of the "digital divide" erase the numerous
contributions of minority artists, activists, entrepreneurs, journalists,
and scholars. Researchers in MIT's Program in Comparative Media Studies
and USC's Annenberg Center for Communication will host a three-day
conference, "Race in Digital Space," to explore current issues and
celebrate the accomplishments of minorities using digital technologies,
Friday, 27 April through Sunday, 29 April 2001 on the MIT campus. The
conference is free and open to the public.

             "Cyberspace has been represented as a race-blind environment,
yet we don't shed our racial identities or escape racism just because we
go on-line," said Henry Jenkins, professor, director of Comparative Media
Studies at MIT, and co-organizer of the event. "The concept of 'digital
divide,' however, is inadequate to describe a moment when minority use of
digital technologies is dramatically increasing. The time has come to
focus on the success stories, to identify examples of work that has
increased minority access to information technologies and visibility in
digital spaces."

             Conference organizers hope the event will serve as a
touchstone for thinking critically about race in a wide variety of digital
spaces. "We need to think beyond the screen and the mouse," said Tara
McPherson, professor at USC's School of Cinema-TV and conference
 co-organizer. "Digital spaces extend to a whole range of
'tote-able' street technologies from cell phones and beepers to Gameboys,
music equipment and more. We're interested in the way these forms
constitute new publics."

             Plenary panels will explore such issues as: E-Race-ing the
Digital; How Wide is the Digital Divide; Authenticating Digital Art,
Expression and Cultural Hybridity; and Speculative Fictions/Imaging the
Future. Breakout sessions, designed for focused conversations with smaller
groups of conference participants, will address: Art and
Hactivism; Funding the Arts-Creative Capital; Digital Business-From
Netrepreneurs to Corporations; Hactivist Workshop-Organizing the Million
Women March; Hate Speech; Job Opportunities and Training; and Community
Best Practices. A keynote will be presented by Walter Massey,
president of Morehouse College.

             "The ways in which we represent ourselves and use digital
media raises significant issues," said Anna Everett, professor at the
University of California at Santa Barbara and conference co-organizer. "We
domain?' and 'How have minority communities deployed digital tools to
commen on digital culture, to reconfigure the history of racism, and
to claim a more powerful voice in shaping the future?'"

             SPEAKERS

             While the event is being planned within the academy,
organizers have invited a diverse group of speakers to address an equally
diverse audience, which will include scholars and teachers,
professionals, artists, writers, policy makers, social and cultural
commentators, community leaders, and young people. Confirmed speakers
include:

	     Vivik Bald, (aka DJ Siraiki), Co-founder, Mutiny

 	     Nolan Bowie, Senior Fellow, JFK School of Government, Harvard
		University

	     Karen Radney Buller, President, National Indian
		Telecommunications Institute (NITI)

	     Farai Chideya, Editor, PopandPolitics.com

             Mel Chin, Artist

             Beth Coleman (aka DJ Singe), Co-director, SoundLab Cultural
		Alchemy

             Ricardo Dominguez, Co-founder, The Electronic Disturbance
		Theater (EDT)

             Coco Fusco, Associate Professor, Tyler School of Art, Temple
		University

             Jack Gravely, Office of Workplace Diversity, Federal
		Communications Commission

             Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky), Artist, Musician, Writer

             Lisa Nakamura, Assistant Professor of English, Sonoma State
		University

             Alondra Nelson, Ph.D. Candidate, American Studies, NYU

             Mimi Nguyen, Ph.D. candidate, Comparative Ethnic Studies,
		U.C.-Berkeley

             Elizabeth Nunez, Distinguished Professor of English, Medgar
		Evers College, CUNY

             Alex Rivera, Digital Media Artist and Filmmaker

             Kalamu ya Salaam, Poet and Community Activist

             Ana Sisnett, Executive Director, Austin Free-Net

             Thuy Linh Tu, Ph.D. Candidate, American Studies Program, NYU

             Jamille Watkins-Barnes, Business Consultant, Classic Business
		Development




             ART EXHIBITION, DIGITAL SALON, AND DANCE PERFORMANCE

             In coordination with the conference, a concurrent video show
and digital salon is being be curated at the List Center for the Visual
Arts.
             "The exhibition will feature the work of innovators and
visionary film, video, new media, and website designers whose work deals
specifically with the intersection of race and technology," said Erika
Muhammad, Ph.D. candidate in Cinema Studies at NYU, co-organizer of the
conference, and curator of the exhibition at LIST Visual Arts Center.

             "In the ever-changing terrain of new media productivity,
issues of race and ethnicity ferment in digital space. Artists who tackle
issues of race in their work are faced with fresh challenges and
opportunities as they build and define what will be the most powerful
networks on earth," Muhammad said.

             Included in this digital salon, video program and soundscape
are works by artists who are building digital habitats and laying
political foundations through the use of hi-tech documents. Spanning the
past 20 years, the program will include experimental film and
video,net.art, CD-ROMS, websites and aural mixes.

             A performance event featuring DJs and live video mixing by
Vivek Bald (DJ Siraiki), Beth Coleman (aka DJ Singe), and Paul D. Miller
(aka  DJ Spooky) will be held for conference participants and
students on the evening of Saturday, 28 April 2001. MIT Assistant
Professor Tommy DeFrantz will also perform "My Digital Body," an
original dance piece developed for the event.

             PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP

             A pre-conference workshop for Boston metropolitan and New
England regional educators, artists, and technology center directors will
be held on Wednesday, 11 April 2001, 11:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m., Bartos Theater,
MIT Campus. "We want to spotlight community 'best practices' and encourage
conversations among the dozens of Boston-area technology centers that
support minority communities," said Pau Robinson, founder of the Institute
for the Integration of Technology and Education and conference
co-organizer.

             All events are free and open to the public. To learn more and
register, visit:

             http://cms.mit.edu/race

             ORGANIZERS AND SPONSORS 

             The Race in Digital Space Project is organized by the
University of Southern California and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in conjunction with New York University and University of
California at Santa Barbara. The conference is sponsored by USC Annenberg
Center for Communication, USC School of Cinema-Television, MIT School of
Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, MIT Program in Comparative Media
Studies, MIT Communications Forum, MIT Council for the Arts, MIT LIST
Visual Arts Center, MIT Program in Women's Studies, and the NYU Department
of Cinema Studies. Major financial support has been provided by the Ford
Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation Microsoft is an in-kind sponsor.


--------------------- Original Message Ends --------------------

-------------------------------------------------------
Melentie Pandilovski
Director
Contemporary Arts Center  - Skopje
Orce Nikolov 109, 1000 Skopje
Republic of Macedonia
Tel/Fax: +389.2.133.541
Tel/Fax: +389.2.214.495
Mobile: +389.70.217.075
http://www.scca.org.mk
-------------------------------------------------------


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