panel with micha cárdenas and Elle Mehrmand

Moderator(s): Zach Blas

The in­ten­si­fi­ca­tion and pro­lif­er­a­tion of global con­nec­tiv­ity has opened dig­i­tal net­worked cul­ture to uni­ver­sal con­ta­gion. In­deed, it has been ar­gued we now live in a viral ecol­ogy under the sign of viral cap­i­tal­ism. As vi­ral­i­ties spread into var­i­ous realms of cul­ture, new media artists ex­plore the viral as that which has the abil­ity to con­trol and re­strict as well as dis­trib­ute and lib­er­ate. Our cur­rent viral ecol­ogy has opened up new tac­tics of re­sis­tance for var­i­ous artists, ac­tivists, and cul­tural pro­duc­ers. In this panel, we will focus on queer new media art and phi­los­o­phy that uses and in­ter­venes into the viral to form a rad­i­cal pol­i­tics of re­volt and utopia. The viral will be en­gaged with tech­ni­cally, philo­soph­i­cally, ar­tis­ti­cally, bi­o­log­i­cally, and af­fec­tively. Our aim is to show that while viral rhetoric and dis­courses have mar­gin­al­ized and con­trolled queer pop­u­la­tions, the viral re­mains an al­lu­sive, volatile po­ten­tial that can be ex­per­i­mented with to­ward cre­at­ing new queer pol­i­tics … [READ MORE]

Title: I Want to Touch You: Tran­sreal Aes­thet­ics in Virus.Circus — Presenter(s): Elle MehrmandMicha Cardenas
Title: Untitled — Presenter(s): Zach Blas
Title: Virus, Viral, Queer — Presenter(s): Zach Blas: https://www.isea-symposium-archives.org/presentation/virus-viral-queer/