Frictionless: Holding on for Dear Life

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Frictionless: Holding on for Dear Life 

DB AMORIN, TABITHA NIKOLAI, RALPH PUGAY

An Online Research Project Considering the Access and Transparency of Emergent Technologies

The digital systems that increasingly permeate our lives necessitate vast public trust. They advance ideals of transparency, while simultaneously becoming more arcane to an increasingly dependent and precarious user-base. Artists, community organizers and their extended networks find themselves in a unique position: while able to benefit from the adoption of such technologies, and bring accountability to them, they are also populations highly susceptible to the unseen ramifications of tech at scale (blockchain, web 3.0, social media, deep-fakes, AI, gamification). In this way, Amorin, Nikolai, and Pugay see their role as resident non-experts as key to an investigation of emergent technology’s social impacts. Toward that end, they have sourced questions and input from communities they see as particularly interested in, and vulnerable to, this rapidly-shifting technological landscape. Using this insight, their own curiosity and research as artists working with new technologies, they are convening thematic discussions that will be recorded, transcribed, and released, along with their research, in a media-rich web document. 

This project is organized as part of Habits of Denial: A Series of Programs on Access curated by Tiffany Harker and Iris Williamson, CFAR’s 2021-22 Curators in Residence, which is made possible by The Ford Family Foundation.

Image credit: VQGAN+CLIP: escape, virtuality, utopia, 600×600 px, PNG, 2021

➔ Conversation #1: Collapsing & Unravelling

Conversation #2: Spectacle & Illusion

➔ Conversation #3: Acceleration & Slowness

Conversation #4: Precarity & Escape

Conversation #3: Acceleration & Slowness with Emily Martinez
Emily Martinez (they/she) is a 1st generation Cuban immigrant/ refugee, raised by Miami and living in Los Angeles since 2012. They are a new media artist and serial collaborator who believes in the tactical misuse of technology. Their most recent works explore new economies and queer technologies. Long-term projects explore collective trauma, diasporic and transnational identities, archetypal roles, and post-apocalyptic narratives. When Emily is not working, they are learning to love and doing their energy work.

Emily’s art and research has been published in Art in America, Media-N, Leonardo Journal (MIT Press), Temporary Art Review, and Filmmaker Magazine. Their work has been exhibited at international venues, including Drugo More (Rijeka, Croatia), Transmediale (Berlin, DE), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), MoMA PS1 (New York), V2_Lab for the Unstable Media (Rotterdam, NL), The Luminary (St. Louis), The Institute of Network Cultures (Amsterdam, NL), and The Wrong Biennale.

Conversation #4: Precarity & Escape with Stephen McKeon
Stephen McKeon is a managing partner at Collab+Currency and a member of the Finance faculty at University of Oregon.  In both roles, his focus is cryptoasset networks.  He manages a portfolio of web3 venture investments that includes many art related projects such as SuperRare, Async Art, and Rarible.  His work has been published in top finance journals as well as appearing in media outlets such as CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and NY Times.

DB Amorin (Honolulu, Hawai’i) is an artist addressing audio-visual non-linearity as a container for intersectional experience, often focusing on the role error plays as a generative opportunity. His media-centered installations are the result of DIY methodologies, lo-fi translations and persistent, inquisitive experimentation of available materials. His work has been supported with awards from the Oregon Arts Commission, the Ford Family Foundation, Regional Arts & Culture Council, the Precipice Fund grant funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Calligram Foundation and administered by Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA). His visual art and curatorial programming have been exhibited at Luggage Store Gallery, Soundwave ((7)) Biennial (San Francisco,CA USA), PICA, Disjecta, FalseFront (Portland, OR USA), the Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu Biennial 2019, Doris Duke Theatre and CRC Cube Space (Honolulu, HI USA), among others. 

Tabitha Nikolai is a trashgender gutter elf and low-level cybermage raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, and based in Portland, Oregon. She creates the things that would have better sustained her younger self–simulations of a more livable future, and the obstacles that intervene. These look like: fictive text, video games, cosplay, and earnest rites of suburban occult. Currently she teaches for the Portland State University School of Art + Design. Her work has been shown at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Vox Populi in Philadelphia, and has been covered by i-D Magazine, the New York Times, and Art in America. She hopes you’re doing okay. 

Through traditional media and participatory projects, Ralph Pugay (b. Cavite, Philippines) creates absurd fantasy worlds that destabilize how the familiar conjures value and meaning. Questions about value systems, power, dysfunction, and the layered nature of consciousness are what fuels his practice. Pugay studied art at Portland State University where he was recently appointed as Assistant Professor of Art Practice. Notable solo exhibitions of his work have been held at the Seattle Art Museum, Upfor Gallery, Rocksbox, Vox Populi, FAB Gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University, and King School Museum of Contemporary Art. His work has also been included in group exhibitions at the Art Gym, PNCA Center for Art and Culture, Salt Lake Art Center, Marinaro, AA|LA, and Ortega Y Gasset Projects among others. Pugay has been artist-in-residence at Crow’s Shadow Institute for the Arts, PICA’s Creative Exchange Lab, Joan Mitchell Center, Rauschenberg Residency, Vermont Studio Center, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. His work has received support from the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Program, the Ford Family Foundation, New York Foundation for Contemporary Art, the Betty Bowen Award, the International Sculpture Center, Regional Arts and Culture Council, and the Oregon Arts Commission.