Blog posting written by Shawn Steiner, Film, Photography, and Visual Arts '13, FLEFF Blogger, Elkridge, MD

Welcome to FLEFF's opening day and the first of many live blogs of the week. 

We have concluded our discussion, but at 10:00AM-10:50AM in Park 220 Ulises Mejias will lead a discussion about Augmented Reality Games

ULISES MEJIAS: OFF THE NETWORK

"Networks increase participation, but also increase inequality."

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"It's not if we shape our tools or if our tools shape us, but how."

Mejias' agenda includes "thinking the network" and then how we are to then "unthinking the network" to get us to move beyond network logic through many strategies, like intensification.

First, what is a network?

1. Nodes (each one of us)

2. Links (similar interests)

The problem with this type of "nodocentrism" is that a node cannot connect to anything except other nodes. Take your friend who refuses to make a Facebook page, you may realize the trouble they have getting party and event invitations since people only invite people currently on Facebook. This is an issue with social networking.

And, while those with few connections still grow (the poor), those with large networks (the rich) will rapidly gain more connections. This is a preferential system where Mejias says "the rich get richer."

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"[Networks] are shaping the way we think about friends."

A network in Facebook or media terms is something very specific. It is a template created that is altering the way we think about things like friends and likes. It is software and programming that is reprogramming our mind based on algorithms.

It has moved from a network as a metaphor to a network as a template.

Mejias also explains the change from old media as a "one-to-many" monopoly to a new media "many-to-many" perfect competition.

However, monopsony is the economics of new media, it is a "many-to-one" approach.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Can these metrics help us catch terrorists? How?

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"The sacrifices in privacy may not be worth the gains."

Inequality through participation takes many forms. This includes surveillance, filtering, blocking, psyops, spambots, and the loss of freedom of speech.

This is done by organizations and companies that run social media networks. Using fake accounts to spread propaganda, deleting so-called "problematic" accounts, and simply shutting off the network are all possibilities that can limit the people utilizing the network.

QUESTION: What are the power dynamics between activists, hackers, and the media?

SHORT SCREENING: Virtual Revolution, a BBC documentary.

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"Dissent will only become possible in the spaces outside of the social networks."

We need to look into the spaces between the nodes. We must see the paranodes are the resisters, the rejecters, the expelled, and the excluded.

Paranodality: the outside of the network is not empty but inhabited by multitudes that do not conform to the organizing logic of the network.

And once we reach these paranodes and maintain a MOBILITY between being in a network to being outside of it we can find power (intensification).

QUESTION: Is it easier to express dissent inside or outside the network?

Blog posting written by Shawn Steiner, Film, Photography, and Visual Arts ’13, FLEFF Intern, Elkridge, Maryland

Have you ever geotagged a photograph?

I do it all the time! 

Some artists even do the opposite. Nate Larson and Marin Shindelman took photos to go with the location of the tweets that caption the photographs. Geolocation is an incredible “tribute to the data stream,” as they call it.

It calls into question the idea of place and movement.

Movement today is different. Smoother. Less physical. In one second we can receive a message from the other side of the world. We can actually be in another place in real time.

But, what does all this mean?

It means that we can go wherever we want at any time. We can go to Flickr and travel to a beach in Costa Rica. All from the comfort of our bedrooms. And, if you close the curtains, you may be able to forget that it is snowing here in Ithaca, NY.

Mobilities explores this idea. FLEFF brings people and ideas from all around the world to transport the attendees to all around the world. The Distributed Microtopias Exhibition brings together work from India, Ethiopia, the United States, Iraq, and plenty others. And that’s just one thing.

I hope I can make it to Latin America with a little help from FLEFF.

Where do you want to travel?