Panel 1: Closed Source: Platform Futures
Channel: Aesthetics and Politics
Date: 2023-02-16

If Twitter is the canary in the coal mine, then the era of social media may soon be over. Or is it? This daylong conference organized by the CalArts MA in Aesthetics and Politics program and the School of Critical Studies brings together community groups, artists, and researchers to discuss the future of the digital. Thinking about what it means to “stay on the grid,” participants will discuss the current state of internet platforms, the mental states that come from being on the web, and creative alternatives for envisioning alternatives.

Providing an off-ramp to the macho planetary land grab that currently drives the internet, the conference aims to join the exodus from mainstream platforms. Discussions will look for aesthetic avenues that offer a glimpse into a new digital future worth inhabiting through three panels.

Closed Source: Platform Futures
(10 a.m.—12 p.m.) ”Closed Source: Platform Futures” critiques mainstream platforms. Panelists include a community group dedicated to a safer intersectional internet: Sarah Roberts, the feminist researcher who broke the story of the exploitative labor of online content moderators working in former colonies; Tom Leeser, digital media artist, educator, curator, and writer behind the CalArts Center for Integrated Media; and Olivia Snow, a writer, dominatrix, and research fellow at UCLA’s Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2).

Staying on the Grid: Platforms, Psyches, and Paths is hosted by the CalArts MA in Aesthetics and Politics program and the School of Critical Studies, with curation by Interim Program Director Andrew Culp and MA student Maisa Imamović.

This event was held on the 21st of January, 2023.