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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>
<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>
<br>
</p>
<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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