MIT Visual Arts Program
Zones of Emergency
Mark Tribe
Networks, Tactics,
Breakdown
with
Benjamin Mako Hill
Mon 03/03/08
7–9pm image: Mark Tribe, The Port Huron Project, 2006
Massachusetts Mark Tribe will present a selection of projects, Benjamin Mako Hill is a technologist,
Institute of Technology such as the Port Huron Project, that explore how programmer, and free software and free
Visual Arts Program tactical practices and public interventions use the culture activist. Hill is the first author of The
Department of Architecture internet and other networks as a means to insti- Official Ubuntu Book (2006) and the Debian GNU/
gate political discourse and public collaboration. Linux 3.x Bible (2005) and worked on several
Joan Jonas This work addresses zones of emergency in a activist art projects including Selectricity, an
Performance Hall broad sense, raising issues related to the psycho- online voting machine for the masses promoting
265 Massachusetts Avenue logical condition of being politically oppressed. understanding of alternative voting methods.
Bldg N51-337 Benjamin Mako Hill will present his work on on- Hill holds leadership positions with the Free
Cambridge, MA 02139 line voting machines for the masses as well as Software Foundation, the Debian GNU/Linux
For information call discuss his involvment as an activist in the free Project, the Ubuntu Foundation, and the
617-253-5229 software movement. Wikimedia Foundation. Hill is a graduate of
the MIT Media Lab where he studied in the
Mark Tribe is an internationally renowned Computing Culture Group.
zonesofemergency.net
artist and curator whose interests include art, Directions
web.mit.edu/vap/
technology, and politics. He is the co-author, The Visual Arts Program at MIT is located at 265
with Reena Jana, of “New Media Art” (Taschen, Massachusetts Avenue (building N51) adjacent
This event is presented in 2006). His art work has been exhibited at the to the MIT Museum. Enter through the grey door
conjunction with courses ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, the on Front Street and take the elevator to the third
4.381/4.366: Introduction to Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, and Gigantic Art floor. Exit the elevator to your left and go down
Online Participatory Media: Space in New York City. He has organized the ramp. The Joan Jonas Performance Hall,
Networks, Tactics, Breakdown curatorial projects for the New Museum of room N51-337, is located through the glass
taught by Amber Frid-Jimenez Contemporary Art, MASS MoCA, and inSite_05. doors on the right.
and 4.370/4.371: Research as As the founder of Rhizome.org (in 1996), an By Public Transportation
Artistic Practice: The FEMA Trailer online resource for new media artists, he now Take the Red Line to Central Square. Walk four
Project taught by Professor Ute chairs the Rhizome.org board of directors. blocks along Massachusetts Avenue towards
Meta Bauer and Jae Rhim Lee. Tribe received his MFA in Visual Art from the Boston and the Charles River. The Visual Arts
Video excerpts of the Zones of University of California, San Diego in 1994 and Program at MIT is located at 265 Massachusetts
Emergency lecture series will be a BA in Visual Art from Brown University in 1990, Avenue (Building N51), adjacent to the MIT
posted on zonesofemergency.net, where he currently serves as Assistant Professor Museum. Or take the #1 bus to the stop on
which will serve as an ongoing of Modern Culture and Media Studies. The Massachusetts Avenue at Pacific Street, across
discussion on a global scale. focus of his teaching is on digital art, curating, from the MIT Museum.
open-source culture, radical media, and Special thanks to
surveillance. He splits his time between A special grant by the Office of the Dean, School
Providence and New York City. of Architecture and Planning.