[NetBehaviour] Monsters of the Machine and Children of Prometheus, Reading Materials.

[marc garrett]

Hi Alan,

>This is interesting; I've read many of these books, not so
>much of the commentaries. Science magazine, by the way, had a
>whole special issue devoted to the book - the first time, as
>far as I know, that they've done this with any cultural artifact.
>It was a few years ago; I think I have the issue here somewhere
>(I've gone to virtual with them since).

That would be nice to read. What I like about most of these books is
that they are dealing with historical, cultural and contextual
elements of Mary Shelley's life, peers, lover, friends and family.
There are so many movies about her Frankenstein book and yet not many
successfully explore her life adequately, the 1800s and contemporary
influences. These selected books unearth a rich tapestry beyond the
surface of it all and bring up some amazing political discourse
happening at that time, which are pivotal to what we're discussing and
experience in life today. This includes the Constitution of the United
States of America, which was adopted in 1788. Thomas Paine, was one of
the many key influences to Mary Shelley, and was also a peer, critical
writing friend of Mary Shelley's mother, Mary Wolstonecraft. Paine
migrated to the British American colonies in 1774 with the help of
Benjamin Franklin, arriving just in time to participate in the
American Revolution.

>As you know, my own work has been dealing with extremis, although
>it predates the pandemic; semantic ghosting is the body at the vertex
>of the machine, the biologic mush at the beginning and end of
>representations and receptions before and during the rise and plateau
>of machine consciousness.

For me, this is why your art fits into the connected, strands/themes
of all three exhibitions. As you acutely mention, "semantic ghosting"
is present in these particular pieces shown, where there is a spirit
of dysfunction, not only human but also machine, it's combined. It
breaks through the pretense of 'the rise and plateau of machine
consciousness', it's messy, a mutation and broken.

I've always found art interesting when it challenges not only the:
stability, purities, and expectations of a medium, or a canon,
technology being used. I think Annie Abrahams showed us insightful
contradictions in regard to real-time collaboration, and how assumed
and or expected perfection can get in the way of a deeper art
relation.

>I loved among other things seeing the covers. I still tend to read my
>theory/work offline; I find the ability to quickly move back and forth
>through a book is faster for me than parsing a file. There's something
>about the body of a book that I've thought about, but others have
>probably written far better than I could on that, and I'm always aware
>of being taken for an antiquarian.

Even though I do have a large collection of digital books as I'm sure
others do on here. I really enjoy the physicality of books. And yes,
the covers are always a pleasure to view, an important part of the
book experience. When I was compiling this list of books that were
used for research, I was repeatedly looking at the covers and smiling
to myself. For instance Eric Hobsbawm's The Age of Revolution. I'm not
necessarily concerned with collecting rare books, although I am
obsessed with collecting knowledge. Which can crossover sometimes.

> Looking forward to the book!

Same here, it's been a lot of hard work getting it all together. Can't wait :-)

On Wed, 2 Sep 2020 at 17:58, Alan Sondheim via NetBehaviour
<netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Marc,
>
> This is interesting; I've read many of these books, not so much of the commentaries. Science magazine, by the way, had a whole special issue devoted to the book - the first time, as far as I know, that they've done this with any cultural artifact. It was a few years ago; I think I have the issue here somewhere (I've gone to virtual with them since). As you know, my own work has been dealing with extremis, although it predates the pandemic; semantic ghosting is the body at the vertex of the machine, the biologic mush at the beginning and end of representations and receptions before and during the rise and plateau of machine consciousness. I loved among other things seeing the covers. I still tend to read my theory/work offline; I find the ability to quickly move back and forth through a book is faster for me than parsing a file. There's something about the body of a book that I've thought about, but others have probably written far better than I could on that, and I'm always aware of being taken for an antiquarian. Looking forward to the book!
>
> Best, Alan
>
> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020 at 7:39 AM marc garrett via NetBehaviour <netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:
>>
>> Monsters of the Machine and Children of Prometheus, Reading Materials.
>>
>> During the last 8 months or so, I have been working on a new book with
>> co-editor Yiannis Colakides. It's called Frankenstein Reanimated:
>> Conversations with Artists in Dystopian Times.
>>
>> However, before compiling the materials for this book I had already
>> been in deep research, discovering numerous: emotional, historical,
>> social, psychological, technological, feminist, and political
>> contexts, which influenced Mary Shelley's ideas. Reading these
>> materials has been a joy and immensely valuable, offering much
>> knowledge and insight. Shelley’s classic, Gothic horror and science
>> fiction novel, has inspired millions since it was written over 200
>> years ago in 1816, and its first anonymously published release, in
>> London in 1818.
>>
>> I just wanted to share these books with you, because even though many
>> of them were written years ago, they still matter and we still have a
>> hell of a lot to learn from them - in fact, more than ever now.
>>
>> https://marcgarrett.org/2020/09/02/monsters-of-the-machine-and-children-of-prometheus-reading-materials/
>>
>> Wishing you well.
>>
>> Marc
>> _______________________________________________
>> NetBehaviour mailing list
>> NetBehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org
>> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
>
>
>
> --
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-- 
Wishing you well.

Marc

-------------------------------------------------------

Marc Garrett

Co-founder & Artistic director of Furtherfield & DECAL Decentralised Arts Lab

Furtherfield disrupts & democratises art and technology through
exhibitions, labs & debate, for deep exploration, open tools & free
thinking. http://www.furtherfield.org

DECAL Decentralised Arts Lab is an arts, blockchain & web 3.0
technologies research hub for fairer, more dynamic & connected
cultural ecologies & economies now. http://decal.is/

Recent publications:

State Machines: Reflections & Actions at the Edge of Digital
Citizenship, Finance, & Art. Edited by Yiannis Colakides, Marc
Garrett, Inte Gloerich. Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2019
http://bit.do/eQgg3

Artists Re:thinking the Blockchain. Eds, Ruth Catlow, Marc Garrett,
Nathan Jones, & Sam Skinner. Liverpool Press - http://bit.ly/2x8XlMK