Happy Frankenstein Day

I’m thinking about our relationship to technology, in this modern time of communication in a blink.

Humans as Christian Ervin, an interaction designer and architect,  reminds me have always manipulated their worlds.  He has just finished an advanced degree looking into the role of digital technologies in contemporary society.

I’m wondering how to pose questions and continue our conversation. My minder stutters, as I grasp for the language to use. While I have trouble thinking about how to talk about malleable realities, encoded information and action potentials, I did discover, today is Mary Shelley’s birthday.  The author of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” (1818), was born 216 years ago today in 1797.

What’s the connection? And why do we still think about Shelley’s work almost 200 years after it was published? An article in Washington Post article, quoting Ronald Levao, editor of the ” Annotated Frankenstein”  (Harvard Univ. Press),  reminds us Shelley “articulated our desire for, and fear about, the transgression of fundamental boundaries…. between vitality and dead matter, the human and the inhuman, ideal aspiration and monstrous consequence.”  So, I’m not digging up graves, but I am thinking,  about consequences and boundaries. Plus isn’t it time to use the name “Frankenstein” in something I manipulate and create?

The project the works is  called “Frankentweet” and will turn into a documentary film. It will also take on other forms and ways of involving interaction.  This is post by E. Frankenstein, but there will be other authors on the Artchange, Inc. blog.  Stay tuned.

Want to learn a bit more about Ervin’s work and “The Digitally Mediated Body? Watch Ervin’s TEDxSitka talk.

Tracing Roots and Sharing Knowledge

We’re excited to jump back into production on a film we’re currently calling, “Tracing Roots,” a documentary with and about Delores Churchill.

Master Haida Weavers, Delores and her daughter, Evelyn Vanderhoop are ferrying their way to Sitka.

Evelyn,  Granddaughter of Selina Peratrovich, will give a presentation on the history of Northwest Coast wool textile weaving at 3:00 p.m. Tuesday, August 13th at the Sheldon Jackson Museum in Sitka, Alaska.  Following the presentation, Vanderhoop will weave in the galleries and discuss her work with visitors until around 5:00 p.m.

We will also be meeting up with molecular anthropologist, Dr. Brian Kemp.  As part of making the film, “Tracing Roots.” we’ll be talking about DNA and the journey Delores is on to replicate and understand the spruce root hat found in a melting glacier in the Yukon along with the remains of Kwaday Dan Tsinch, also known at the Long Ago Person Found.  Brian is coming to town for the Paths Across the Pacific Conference and it is an awesome opportunity to cross some new paths too.

Thanks to Delores and her family, the University of Alaska, SE, the Alaska Humanities Forum and the National Humanities Forum, and Rasmuson Foundation for helping to make this project possible.

Downloading Guns, Saving Newspapers & Frankentweet

Downloadable guns. Once one of the hubs of the way we shared information, major newspapers collected by billionaires.

What do these two headlines and heavily tweeted topics have in common:

Change? The impact of technology? The human ability to manipulate tools, weapons and the way we communicate?

Check this out. What else can we print?

From the New York Times, a video called “Who Just Bought The Washington Post.” Bezos, according to the news, loves a challenge. He’s about new media and the printed word. Bezo’s started Amazon with $300,000 borrowed from his parents, working in a garage and now he’s taken over a newspaper with dropping revenues.  What will happen?

Why this blog and these comments?
We’re jumping into a project called “Frankentweet.”

Frankentweet will involve collection, provocation and dissemination. One end point is a documentary film. On the way we will involve artists, inventors, researchers, texting teens and self proclaimed Luddites, creating art, talking technology, playing, and contemplating ethics, culture, what’s changing and what’s not.