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title: Char Stiles
Char Stiles
I am an artist working with computational systems and algorithms. Currently, I am a creative-in-residence at the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry researching the implications and the potential of live coding GLSL as a tool for activism and collaboration in live performance and dance, where I founded the live code Pittsburgh meetup. During October I will be at the Recurse Center researching email. I am an abled-bodied, cis, queer, white woman. I work to leverage my privilege and help democratize low-level systems in my work.
Meetup
In this lunchtime meetup we are going to talk about EMAIL! Yes, email! Not to complain about email, but the good parts about email like the cool stuff that we can do with it: maintain a git repo, display html, run your own email server, use a CLI inbox, and make art. Email is an extremely popular method of communication that only relies on a protocol from the 70s and it's not going anywhere. For me, and many others, it is the most used form of digital communication that doesn't necessarily need to rely on big tech companies. I will guide the conversation to be about the future of email, and how it can liberate people. I will start the meetup by giving a survey of unconventional/unexpected uses of email (did you know that git is maintained through an email list?) including art projects that utilize email. This conversation will be very loosely guided, I will have a lot of content on deck (like explaining email protocol), but I would like to let the conversation progress naturally, even if that includes some venting about email etiquette.
Email is a social tool, and being around other artists, activists, hackers and any Radical-Network-goer to thoughtfully engage in challenging email's role in our lives sounds like a great and fun way to meet new people. Since email is so familiar to all of us it will be a great way to chill out between all the new learning that is going to happen at Radical Networks. Hopefully at the end of this lunchtime meetup everyone can appreciate email a little more, and perhaps some will agree with me that email is totally metal.
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