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            <h1>
              Histories of Now: Art, Digital Media + Contemporary Social
              Movements Symposium Schedule</h1>
            <h2>March 9, 2012, 1–7 pm Alfond Auditorium, Museum of Fine
              Arts, Boston (MFA)</h2>
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            <p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:11.0px Helvetica"><big><font
                  color="#ff0000"><big><b>Attendees must obtain free
                      tickets from a kiosk/ticket desk at an MFA
                      entrance to gain admittance.</b></big></font></big><br>
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            <p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:11.0px Helvetica"><b>1
                pm<span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Welcome,
                overview, logistics 1:15–2:30 pm<span
                  style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>i. The Contested
                Present</b><br>
              It is widely acknowledged that we are in a moment of
              global social transformation. This is a moment in which
              experiences of the world and modes of representing that
              world are changing. From actual physical libraries in
              places of protest and mobile citizen journalism to
              architecturally-scaled imaging projections and
              remote-controlled quadcopter drones, participants and
              allies of social movements are finding new ways to gather,
              relay and interpret information about the transformations
              underway. Often, these strategies are produced under
              urgent and temporary conditions with no centralized
              message or medium. There are multiple and contested
              experiences and representations. What currents of meaning
              are flowing through global audio-visual circuits? What
              cultural visions are embodied through emergent social
              protest movements? How do contemporary art and digital
              media makers work variously to negate, sharpen, or resolve
              contradictions?<br>
              <br>
            </p>
            <p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:11.0px Helvetica"><b>2:45–4
                pm<span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>ii.
                Condense/Disperse</b></p>
            <p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:11.0px Helvetica">In
              February 2011, protesters dispersed word across their
              networks in Cairo and beyond—by friend, family,
              neighborhood and through globally-connected electronic
              media—to take the uprising to the president’s door. On the
              11th, people made their way in twos and threes to the
              Heliopolis Palace, condensing by the thousands at the
              palace—an instance of a pattern of condensation and
              dispersal through which recent protest movements have
              expressed themselves in space and in network effects. What
              are people condensing around, in digital and non-digital
              spaces? How are these condensations being evoked? What are
              the forms of dispersal, strategic or reactive? How are
              individual artists and mediamakers negotiating these
              movements? What new condensations and dispersals do
              artists and mediamakers initiate? How does the work of
              artists and digital media makers reflect, produce or
              problematize the claims of contemporary social movements
              in Cairo, Boston, and in between?<br>
              <br>
            </p>
            <p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:11.0px Helvetica"><b>4:15–5:30
                pm<span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>iii.
                Future Tellings</b></p>
            <p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:11.0px Helvetica">Social
              movements both attract and produce storytellers: ordinary
              people, bloggers, tweeters, Occupy librarians, independent
              filmmakers and witness-participants, all breaking into
              storytelling in their own distinctive ways. What kinds of
              storytelling practices are emerging from movements to
              critique the present and project equitable futures? What
              are their new forms and routes of exchange? How do they
              embody new theories of justice and provoke visions of
              thriving, connected communities and societies? To what
              extent do they help justice, community, and global
              awareness to take root? How do stories travel from place
              to place, and what new forms does connected global culture
              take as a result?<br>
              <br>
            </p>
            <p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:11.0px Helvetica"><b>5:30
                pm<span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span>Closing
                comments </b><br>
              <b>5:45–7 pm</b><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span><b>Reception
                at “Histories of Now:</b> Six Artists from Cairo”
              (SMFA’s Grossman Gallery) In conjunction with the
              “Histories of Now: Six Artists from Cairo” exhibition at
              the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA),
              co-organized by metaLAB(at)Harvard.</p>
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