Escaping Digital Feudalism - Michael J. Masucci (PF24)
Michael J. Massuci joins NFTuesdayLA to share a special program on escaping "Digital Feudalism.”
As the integration of digital culture in all aspects of human life intensifies, there are tendencies to become sequestered within certain small and isolated communities, silos if you will, at the detriment of inclusiveness and cross-cultural accessibility. What opportunities for awareness of each other’s explorations and activities are thwarted through an over-focused emphasis on insulated micro-communities? How do we break free of the normalization of ever-increasing ‘cyber segregation,’ that organically develops by over saturation of social media subgroups?
Michael J. Masucci calls this tendency towards siloing: “Digital Feudalism” and cautions that its subtle and yet addictive character may undermine the ability to wander through the rich culture landscape that is the human condition. Yet the promise and potential for breaking out of these silos is real and ever-present. Using the power and broad communicative abilities of our ever-evolving electronic/digital toolkit, we can find more communities, rather than stay walled into ever shrinking ones.
The EZTV Online Museum project seeks both to chronicle and advocate for LA’s rich and diverse media art history, that along with its allied art movements of performance art and experimental music and theater communities, has built a multicultural, and multi-genre pastiche for the creation, proliferation and distribution of media that stands as not oppositional, but certainly as alternative to the mainstream media establishment. By preserving the rich history of local digital art communities, it introduces younger audiences of past achievements, while seeking new connections with the multigenerational diversity that is our collective birthright. The project seeks collaborative and exhibition possibilities within the local region as well as potential for international participation.
ABOUT MICHAEL J. MASUCCI
Michael J. Masucci is an award-winning artist/producer/musician/curator and activist who has been at the intersection between art and the digital revolution since the 1970s. He is Commissioner and Chair Emeritus of the Santa Monica Arts Commission and Chair of its Media Arts Committee and a member of the Arts Commission’s Bergamot Station Art Center committee.
He is a founding member of the seminal LA media arts group EZTV (www.eztvmuseum.com), whose early archives are in the permanent collection of USC. Recognition of the work of EZTV has been featured at events at the American Film Institute, UCLA, USC, and in the Getty’s region-wide initiative Pacific Standard Time.
Next year, he will be spearheading the creation of a new digital arts festival at Santa Monica College, that will in addition to presenting a diverse selection of international artists, will focus its first year on the 45 years of history of EZTV and its 40 years of collaborating with LA-SIGGRAPH.
