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Keyword: Making | Artists, writers, and technologists are expected to create with certain parameters before bending and breaking the rules. With new media art, programming, creative coding, and open source culture seem to be exploring new ways that are redefining contemporary art. The interactive and immersive works prevalent in new media works offer an entirely different experience of art. Yet, what happens when the body performs and serves as the catalyst for the production and creation of an artwork?

Keyword: Inequities | Energy consumption has tripled in the US from 1970-2010; we  have less than 5% of the worlds population but use more than 20% of global energy resources. This unequal usage is well embedded in our glutinous consumption habits which capital markets & strives to replicate world wide.

Keyword: Tactics | Tactics is such a vague concept. When hearing the word, I’d get confused with multiple interpretations because tactics could have a double meaning. I believe that the use of tactics have especially been used in the topic, subversion. Art can be a tool for subversion. Kony 2012 at first glance seemed like an emotionally compelling video that succeeded in getting support from the US citizens. However, it was later revealed that the video was mostly a tactical ploy for the US to occupy the oil-rich land.  

Keyword: Making | I believe that making is an important part of a person’s identity. Whether it’s making coffee in the morning, making art, or making up a story. The act of creating applies an essential part of yourself into the product. This is why I love art — it is the very unique essence of an individual and has life in itself. It validates existence. Whether you think the product turns out horrible or if it’s your best masterpiece yet, just keep creating.

Keyword: Occupations | Occupation is a word whose meaning has changed in many people’s minds this past year. It’s connotation, at least for many people of a certain political persuasion, now suggests a consensual, intentional gathering of people. It now evokes a sense of community-building and collective striving. But we should not forget the historical meaning of the word–and not delude ourselves into thinking that we are really occupiers. Historically, the occupation of land connoted raw force and the despair of the occupied.

Keyword: Inequities | Inequity is a growing problem both here in the United States and abroad at the global level. This trend of a widening gap between the rich and the poor is extremely concerning to me because it belies growing instability in world political systems. We have observed these symptoms in the past and in the present: in the decline of old empires, in troubled countries such as Greece, even in our own United States.

Keyword: Inequities | Associated most frequently with the growing wealth disparity in the US and the world. It’s interesting to see this especially with the spotlight recently on the US presidential elections, with a lot of flak on Mitt Romney for being a ‘disenchanted’ political candidate. It seems as though there are two different types of groups within the wealthy here in America. One group that focuses on continuing the elevated social status of the wealthy, distancing themselves from the rest of society.

Keyword: Translation | As someone rooted in the world of policy rather than art, I am struck by the question, posed in a post below by Dee Hibbert-Jones, of “how exactly do gestures of resistance so powerful and empowering translate into ideas of universal healthcare, social equality, fair-minded tax policies and equitable banking polices”?  The inequitable distribution of wealth, income, and access to public goods like education are (were?) central concerns of the Occupy movement.  Perhaps because of where I am situated, it seems to me that achieving any large-scale and sustainab

Keyword: Inequities | It seems to me that one of the ways inequities stay in place is through our ability to separate ourselves from the Other. Powerful stories erode that ability. I recently watched a video interview with Edward Saïd in which he referred to Gramsci’s “The Prison Notebooks,” specifically the idea that history deposits in us an infinity of traces and that we should try to understand our own history in terms of other people’s histories.