11/29: Building Our Media: Beyond Authenticity

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Submitted by Knight0440 on Tue, 2012-11-20 07:13
Date/Time: 
Thu, 11/29 - 7:00pm to 9:00pm
  • Building Our Media: Beyond Authenticity
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    Fourth Week (Nov. 29):

    The piece "Beyond Authenticity, Aesthetic Strategies and Anarchist Media," by Kyle Harris, takes a critical view of the tendency in some Anarchist media (including Indymedia) in which traditional narrative and technical quality take a back seat to hastily edited pieces that favor a grainy low quality aesthetic. The essay argues that with no extra expense, but more attention to what needed to tell an important story, Anarchist media makers could have a much wider audience.

    November 29th, 7-9PM

    Flying Squirrel Community Space
    285 Clarissa St.
    Rochester, NY

    "We can have a cynical attitude in the face of the media to say nothing can be done about the dollar power that creates itself in images, words, digital communication, and computer systems that invades not just with an invasion of power, but with a way of seeing that world, of how they think the world should look. We could say, well, 'that's the way it is' and do nothing. Or we can simply assume incredulity: we can say that any communication by the media monopolies is a total lie. We can ignore it and go about our lives. But there is a third option that is neither conformity, nor skepticism, nor distrust: that is to construct a different way—to show the world what is really happening—to have a critical world view and to become interested in the truth if what happens to people who inhabit every corner of this world."

    The above words were read aloud in a statement by Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico. And it is with those words that the independent media center movement began to germinate, eventually springing from the ground in Seattle of 1999 during the World Trade Organization summit. The Rochester Indymedia collective, just past our 10th year of operation, felt inspired to critically reflect on what we've produced, how we've produced it, and what we hope the next 10 years will bring. With that spirit of critical engagement, we invite you, our communities, our readership, and the public, to join us for Building Our Media: a critical discussion series on independent media.