Lines of Resistance: A Symposium on 'Media, Arts & Activism': Keynote Speaker, Dr Safdar Ahmed & Panel One

An international virtual symposium

hosted by the Centre for Media History,

Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

2 November 2021 via zoom

Convenors: Can Yalcinkaya and Justine Lloyd

Supported by Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University &

Macquarie University Art Gallery

“The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible” said Toni Cade Bambara. As conservative and neoliberal governments across the globe continue to undermine principles of social equality, exercise violent/nationalistic border policies, hinder climate justice in the name of financial and political power, how do graphic and media artists utilise the power of their visual communication skills to bring about social change for the common good, e.g. stopping mass extinction, adopting clean, sustainable energy options, promoting a more just distribution of wealth?

This panel will profile the recent research on the role of media and visual arts in activist movements.

The panel be preceded by Dr Safdar Ahmed’s keynote: “The Problem of Witnessing: Graphic Journalism as Social Engagement".

The symposium will be held virtually, in partnership with the exhibition ‘Panels that Transform’ hosted by Macquarie University Art Gallery. See below for information about this exhibition.

Queries about the symposium can be directed to Justine Lloyd: Justine.Lloyd@mq.edu.au

Morning panel: ‘Media Arts and Activism: Visualising Moments and Movements’

Morning keynote: Dr Safdar Ahmed                                       11.00-11.50am (incl. 15mins Q&A)

Chair: Dr Can Yalcinkaya

Break:                                                                                 11.50-12.00pm

Morning Panel 1:                                                                  12.00-1.30pm

(3 speakers x 20mins each + 15mins Q&A)

Chair: Dr Justine Lloyd

Speakers and Topics

Stitching to resist: Pussyhats, knitting nannas and social justice craftivism

Associate Professor Alyce McGovern

UNSW Sydney

The contemporary practice of ‘craftivism’ – which uses crafts such as knitting, sewing, and embroidery to draw attention to ‘issues of social, political and environmental justice’ (Fitzpatrick 2018:3) – has its origins in centuries of radical craft work, where women and marginalised peoples in particular have employed crafts to protest, take a stand, or comment on issues that concern them. While some are sceptical about the connection between craft and activism, Carpenter (2010) argues that each generation has produced its own ‘radical crafters’ who have engaged in projects involving ‘collective production’ and ‘experiential and durational performance’ to focus public discourse on an issue.

Drawing on findings from an ethnographic study of yarn bombing, an urban craft movement that melds the skills of knitting or crochet with the act of graffiti, and highlighting key examples of social justice craftivism specifically, this paper will explore how crafts are being used to highlight concerns around the missing and murdered, state violence, increased surveillance, mass incarceration, and sexual and domestic violence, amongst others. It will also consider the opportunities for us as scholars to reflect not only on the sorts of subject areas we engage with, but also the ways that we present and communicate our work, including what Close (2018: 867) terms ‘participatory politics’ and intersectional activism.

Bio

Alyce is an Associate Professor in Criminology at UNSW Sydney. She researches in the area of crime, media and culture, including police-media relations, police use of social media, sexting, and craftivism. She is the author of Craftivism and Yarn Bombing: A Criminological Exploration (2019, Palgrave), and co-author of Policing and Media: Public Relations, Simulations and Communications (2013, Routledge) and Sexting and Young People (2015, Palgrave). Email: a.mcgovern@unsw.edu.au

“In that Tyrant’s pow’r”: Artbots andcollisions with social crisis

Dr Cameron Edmond EPICentre, UNSW Art & Design

&

A/Prof Tomasz Bendarz

EPICentre, UNSW Art & Design CSIRO Data61

In the post-truth era, the term “bot” is used to describe automated social media accounts spreading misinformation, as well as humans acting behind “dummy” accounts. However, the ways that bots intersect with political and social discourse on social media is far more textured. Bots that generate flash fictions, text art or other pieces often intersect with the political and social discourses on Twitter in both uncomfortable and triumphant fashion.

These “artbots”, unlike misinformation bots, are inherently hypermedial, always reminding the audience of their automatic nature. The ideal artbot is sincere, and the generative patterns they follow are often transparent. Consequently, these bots occupy a different space in the post-truth social media discourse. They are not malicious automations to be shut-down, nor are they human posters engaging intelligently in conversation. Artbots post indiscriminatorily: they innocently follow their patterns of generative art, resulting in poetic timings and uncomfortable collisions with Twitter’s discourse. Examples include the “Emote! at the location” Twitterbot stating “Calm down! At the protest” amid #BlackLivesMatter protests this year, igniting a discourse around emotion and social justice within the tweet’s comments.

To interrogate the functions and meanings that emerge when an automation’s pattern collides with social discourses, this paper presents a visualisation of #BlackLivesMatter tweets, contrasted against artbot posts. By mapping the collisions between moments in the movement with artbot postings, our analysis explores the ethics of botmaking as creative practice, and the role of automated entities in constructing and framing post-truth political discourse as dialogue creators, rather than propogandists.

Bios

Dr Cameron Edmond is a postdoctoral research fellow at UNSW’s School of Art and Design, working in the Enhanced Perception and Interaction Centre (EPICentre). His research investigates the way literary forms influence and change in digital contexts such as videogames, narrative visualization and AI. His PhD thesis “Poetics of the machine: Machine writing and the AI literature frontier” analyzed the unique poetics of literature constructed by computational methods and how they forecast the future of AI literature. He has convened, lectured and co-developed units on videogames, digital writing and media. He keeps a creative practice as a game designer, botmaker and experimental writer. His latest efforts include the poetry platformer Platforms Don’t Float and the generated novel Citizens[]. Email: c.edmond@unsw.edu.au.

Assoc/Prof. Tomasz Bednarz is an Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales and Director of its Expanded Perception and Interaction Centre (EPICentre). He is also a Team Leader (Visual Analytics) at the CSIRO Data61 - Computational Platforms group and Software and Computational Systems program. He is Artist-Scientist, and Old-School Demoscener, in 90s coder in Demoscene groups such as Amnesty, Absence, and now Defame. Actively involved in promoting demoscene culture at SIGGRAPH and FMX conferences (https://www.slideshare.net/TomaszBednarz1/201505-demoscenefmx2015shared). As Conference Chair of SIGGRAPH Asia 2019, made a history of making Demoscene as part of his official conference program.  Email: t.bednarz@unsw.edu.au

Using Hybridised Digital Comics to Address Issues of Social Justice

Queenie Chan

Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University

Comics may be an established part of internet culture, but digital comics remain an understudied part of comics theory in academia. One reason is that while the reach and malleability of digital comics surpasses that of its material counterpart, most digital comics still adhere to the skeuomorphic image of the printed page. While technological barriers to entry may prevent some comics producers from experimentation in this realm, the possibilities inherent to the digital frontier can also provide new and interesting ways to address issues of social justice. One of these possibilities include hybridised digital comics, where design concepts are borrowed from video games to further explore topics such as neoliberalism and intersectionality.

As a case study, this paper will analyse a short animated webcomic called “On a Plate” (2015) by Toby Morris, which effectively tackles the problem of class privilege. By examining this webcomic, I hope to identify key narrative, visual, and panelling choices that bolsters the theme of the strip, while also identifying its limitations by suggesting how the addition of certain interactive elements from game design may broaden its scope. Apart from this strip, I will also examine how independent game creators has borrowed from comics to address ideas of sexuality/identity, surveillance, and technocratic corporatism—and how that process can be applied in the opposite direction. Ideally, this may also precipitate a wider set of digital tools for comic producers to tackle themes of social justice through more streamlined distribution channels and wider audiences.

Bio

Queenie Chan is a PhD candidate at Macquarie University, having just recently completed her Masters of Research in Arts degree in 2020. Her areas of research include comics studies, gaming studies, feminism, intersectionality, post-structuralism and various areas in media studies. Most recently, she contributed a chapter to “Women's Manga in Asia and Beyond: Uniting Different Cultures and Identities”, which was published by Palgrave McMillan in 2019.

Outside of her academic studies, Queenie is also Australia’s first internationally-published manga-style comic book writer-artist, with her earliest work being “The Dreaming” with LA-based publisher TOKYOPOP. She has had more than 15 publications since then, including with publishers Yen Press (Hachette), Voyager (Harper Collins), Del Rey (Randomhouse Penguin), and Walker Books. Her work has been published by the ABC, Cordite Poetry Review, KOOKIE magazine, and “The Dreaming” is featured in the Australian education curriculum for English via the “English Is...” textbook for Years 7-8.

She was originally born in Hong Kong, and came to Australia when she was six years old. She is currently creating a series of biographical children's comics on famous historical queens, which can be ordered from Scholastic Australia for schools. Please visit www.queeniechan.com for more information. Email: queenie.chan@hdr.mq.edu.au

Information about the linked exhibition at the Macquarie University Art Gallery:

Title: Panels that Transform

Curators: Can Yalcinkaya and Justine Lloyd

Exhibition dates: TBC (Subject to NSW Public Health recommendations, check here for updates)

Exhibition Brief:

Comics and Graphic Novels with activist agendas are often creative non-fiction texts which aim to inform and educate the public on issues of social justice in engaging and entertaining ways. The exhibition “Panels that Transform” will feature old and new original works by three Australian artists/activists – Sam Wallman, Safdar Ahmed and Nicky Minus, who are internationally recognised through their graphic narratives on issues that demand our attention such as the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers, gender equality, climate justice and the trade union movement. Having been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, SBS, ABC, Overland, the Lifted Brow, as well as in limited edition zines, brochures and pamphlets, their works capture the vibrancy and vitality of activist causes and invite their readers to take part in positive societal transformation.

Brief biographies of artists

Sam Wallman

Sam Wallman is a cartoonist, comics-journalist and union organiser based in Melbourne, Australia. His work has been published in The Guardian, The New York Times, the ABC and SBS. He has exhibited work at Dark Mofo, the Sydney Opera House, the National Gallery of Victoria and Italy's Internazionale Journalism Festival. He is currently developing large-scale murals and banners for the trade union movement, alongside his first book-length comic, forthcoming from Scribe Publications.

Safdar Ahmed

Safdar Ahmed is a Sydney-based artist and academic in the field of Islamic studies. He is the author of Reform and Modernity in Islam and the graphic memoir The Good Son. His drawings and comics have appeared in such publications as The Guardian, Overland, Meanjin and The Lifted Brow. Ahmed is a founding member of the community art organisation Refugee Art Project, for which he conducts regular art workshops with asylum seekers and refugees in Western Sydney. In 2015 Safdar won a Walkley Award in the Artwork category for his documentary webcomic, Villawood: Notes from an Immigration Detention Centre.

Nicky Minus

Nicky Minus is currently a recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts grant for their debut graphic novel Capitalism Makes Me Sick, which is forthcoming from Brow Books. They are active within the union movement collaborating on graphics, banners and workshops to support workers.