Monday, October 8, 2012

CREATIVE TIME: Michael Ball

On October 12, the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley and the Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts are partnering to host a live-streaming of the Creative Time Summit, an annual conference in New York that brings together cultural producers--including artists, critics, writers, and curators--to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, attendees have been asked to submit a paragraph on a keyword associated with one of the summit themes: Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactics. This posting is by Michael Ball, American Cyberculture student at UC Berkeley.

Keyword: Tactics

Tactics are like algorithms–processes for making things, ultimately everything, happen. Tactics are sometimes visible or the may just as easily be hidden from sight, operating without knowledge. Yet, still, they influence everything we do. Some are conscious, like our techniques for finding a good parking spot, and others we barely realize exist, like what Google results show up first. These tactics may be simple, but they can just as easily be responsible for transferring billions of dollars per second around the world. We’re taught them in class and told to memorize specific ones for forming chemical equations, and others we learn subconsciously which guide our many ways of networking with others. They can influence art, science, food, and anything else--for good or bad. Think about some of the tactics you follow every day, what do they say about you?

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