Hello it's September
we're too tired to be clever, but we get to play with a barbed wire fence telephone
Hi Friends! The fall semester has begun and we’re already ready for a nap…
August turned out to be a momentous month for the MAL as libi striegl and Lori Emerson continued on with their work on Other Networks by inviting artists David Rueter and Phil Peters to install their work “Barbed Wire Fence Telephone II” in CASE W250 on the CU Boulder campus.
After many, many meetings and a lot of enthusiasm and support from staff and administrators in the College of Media, Communication, and Information, Phil arrived in person (while David assisted virtually from Amsterdam) on Monday August 26th to begin work on installing a functioning barbed wire fence phone in a university classroom. Even though we had complete confidence the fence phone was going to work, it was no less astonishing when, on Friday August 30th Phil staged a hands-on demo of a 1915 Bell telephone communicating via barbed wire to a 1980s-era touchtone phone.
You can find out more about the history of barbed wire fence phones here and, of course, stop by CASE W250 throughout the month of September to try it for yourself!
We have a set of incredible talks coming up in the space featuring scholars talking about radiotelephone and civil rights, the history of heliographs, and democratic design for online life. You can find a complete calendar of events here. If you were unable to make it to the artist talk with Phil and David, it’s available here on our Vimeo.
For the next talk, we are very excited to host Professor Cheryl Higashida on Friday September 13th at 12:00pm in the installation space.
Prof. Higashida will be giving a talk titled “Radiotelephony, Race, and Rights.” In the 1960s, as Black, Brown, and white Americans fought for civil, labor, and community rights, the mundane matter of telephone service was vital to coordinating actions, publicizing demands, and keeping activists and strikers alive. If you can’t attend in person, we are also streaming her talk on our Twitch channel – just go to https://www.twitch.tv/mediaarchaeology.
We will also be hosting what we’re calling a “Snail Mail Party” on Wednesday, Sept. 11th from 1-4 PM in CASE W250.
We'll bring mailing supplies & writing and crafting materials - you bring the address of someone you'd like to send some mail! This is a drop-in event, so feel free to come for as much time as works for you.
We’ll be back in a month with more news!
cheers - MAL 🌈