Elevators

After Yesterday’s discussion about spaces and in particular elevators, I felt inclined to post these two works I did that focused on elevators and space.

Spaces Of Our Times – Times Of Our Spaces

Spaces of Our Times – Times of our Spaces from Michael Tauschinger-Dempsey on Vimeo.

Elevator Dreams

Elevator Dreams documentation from Michael Tauschinger-Dempsey on Vimeo.

Elevators are fascinating machines. Without them, highrise buildings would not have been possible. Just imagine, climbing 126 flights with your groceries. Their mechanical doors are like giant vertical eyelids. They open and close, open and close, open and close, day in and day out, at daytime, at nighttime. They transport unsuspected cargo, reveal unexpected spaces; when you enter them it is as if you are entering another dimension.

Co-operation Corp project

There are many public “good cause walks” available out there: charity walks, kidney walks, cancer walks etc. I propose a walk to support my corporation: Co-operation Corp’s mission is to transcend money as the primary exchange value. Let’s walk and think about new models for exchange, new incentives for the individual and society as a whole to get things done.

http://co-operation-corp.tumblr.com/

LINKS: 090220/NYU Student Occupation & Protest

LINKS: 090220/NYU Student Occupation & Protest

Texts, reports, and images by students at:
http://politicalpoet.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/student-occupation-and-protest-at-nyu-411-photos-editorial/

LINKS: Ethical Boundaries for questioning originality

I took a course in undergrad from Kenneth Goldsmith called “Uncreative Writing”. Our major project for the semester was to fabricate a person and create (in this case) her existence on facebook. This project is, in theory, on-going, but was begun in September 2006.

Here is a link to her facebook profile if you would like to see it. Hopefully there aren’t any viewing issues. I’m posting a pdf of the page regardless: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=627663.

One of our classmates enlisted a friend to be the photograph version of Ms. Scullion, so that is who appears in the profile picture, as well as photos around town. Everyone else in the class has contributed / does still contribute to her interests. Her friends are real individuals walking around, living and breathing.

The question of ethics first came up when we saw one of the earlier posts. A guy pretending to have met Michelle started flirting with her on facebook, sending personal messages (nothing explicit, but seemingly heartfelt and certainly meant to be private) that, of course, our entire class was able to view. It turned out, one of my classmates knew this guy from high school, and then proceeded to tell embarassing stories about him while we were reading his personal messages to a fictitious individual.

For me, this crossed the line, so I stopped working on the project at that point and asked to pursue something different.

What are the class’s thoughts?

LINKS: The New Eco-Feminism & The Politics of Food Film Series

LINKS: The New Eco-Feminism & The Politics of Food Film Series

http://www.duke.edu/womstud/ecofeminsm.html

As many may know, a discourse emerged in the mid-1970′s that aimed to investigate the connection between feminism and earth and animals. These women called themselves Eco-Feminists and generated many ideas about the nature of women, the plight of animals, and the need for conservation. Due to a whole host of theoretical and practical conflicts, this project was never seriously embraced by academic feminists. Duke Women’s Studies New Eco-feminism project hopes to revisit these questions, and develop theories and methodologies that will resonate within academic feminism today. We learned from E2T that there is a great need for further study of conservation, land use, and animal advocacy, not just from the perspective of science but from the humanities and interpretive sciences as well. We believe that contemporary feminist theory has much to offer such an engagement. Despite the fact that our eco-feminist foremothers may have been entrenched in essentialist ideology in their formulations, we believe their questions were the right ones. What can feminist thinking offer in response to the many global crises we face today including massive development, deforestation, animal torture, extinction, habitat loss, pollution, and global warming? A lot, we think. Won’t you join us in forging a new approach to earth and animals and an updated agenda for a New Eco-feminism?

For more information contact Kathy Rudy (krudy@duke.edu ) or Ranjana Khanna (rkhanna@duke.edu ).

THE POLITICS OF FOOD FILM SERIES – Sponsored by the Women’s Studies Program and the Film/Video/Digital Program. Presented as part of the Screen/Society film exhibition program.

LINKS: The Corporation (film)

Provoking, witty, stylish and sweepingly informative, THE CORPORATION explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time. Part film and part movement, The Corporation is transforming audiences and dazzling critics with its insightful and compelling analysis. Taking its status as a legal “person” to the logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist’s couch to ask “What kind of person is it?”

Taken from: http://www.thecorporation.com/index.cfm?page_id=2

This film concludes that many of a corporation’s profit-driven actions are parallel to that of a diagnosed psychopath.