The Operating System

NEW SERIES ANNOUCEMENT :: [RE:CON]VERSATIONS

conversation 
reconnaissance (n.) 1810, from French reconnaissance “act of surveying,” literally “recognition,” from Old French reconoissance (see recognizance). U.S. military abbreviation recon is attested from 1918.
conversation (n.) mid-14c., “living together, having dealings with others,” also “manner of conducting oneself in the world;” from Old French conversation, from Latin conversationem(nominative conversatio) “act of living with,” noun of action from pp. stem of conversari “to live with, keep company with,” literally “turn about with,” from Latin com-“with” (see com-) + vertare, frequentative of vertere (see versus).  Specific sense of “talk” is 1570s.  
Here at The Operating System, our online identity in both form and function continues to evolve as a responsive organism, so that it may best serve as both a resource hub as well as a platform for dialogue — and then in turn remain always an archive of the creative history these actions are at all times becoming.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about value, and this has led over the past few months to the development of a series I call [RE:CON]VERSATIONS, which I hope can become a model for the type of structural, intentional, collective hack that may be most essential in shifting us into a resilient, empowered, and efficient system.
In particular, I think a lot about the value of our creative cultural production, and how we can make the most of the energy expended in that production. I believe that we – and you – have access to vast cultural capital that is going to waste, and [RE:CON]VERSATIONS is an effort to reduce redundancy — to reuse, recycle, and use as fuel the energy and effort that is expended in what can appear to be mere ephemera. It is archival, aggregate, perspective, curation: it is RECON of our CONVERSATIONS.
To shake that jargon off a bit, that is to say — I think a lot about this problem: creative people are fucking exhausted, and overwhelmed, and finding themselves faced with the pressure of new media, many either run in fear or pile on what are ultimately unsustainable new responsibilities, requiring even more energy and time expenditure. We’re all constantly going to and producing events and participating in dialogue all of which are of potentially massive value to the community, but much of this is lost, limited in value to random acts of feedback and the wily ways of our calendars.
When we examine the patterns, habits, and resources known/available to our community, we conclude that some of this is the result of working hard instead of smart, and then we ask how can we/you use these tools and resources more effectively? a question that certainly has been brought into high relief as we collectively mourn the panels at AWP and SXSW we were physically unable to attend and have no real way of benefitting from…that after the fact, it turns out, few if anyone will be able to benefit from.
And yet, each panel, each one-night event, each online argument in a facebook chain, each email correspondence, each… (do you see where I’m going with this?) is already rife with mineable resources that can quickly be reframed for public consumption and benefit. Sure, it’s impossible to go to everything. But there are ways of using the technology available to use to increase the capital of our efforts.
What [RE:CON]VERSATIONS offers and seeks to do is to increase the impact of these efforts both before and after the ephemeral fact in order to provide lasting, archival value to events and dialogues that would otherwise be limited to a geographically, temporally, or personally bound time, place, or space.
The OS offers a place to repost conversations that are taking place in other communities and within other contexts, understanding the mandelbrot chaos patterns of our publication-audience relationships, a place for event organizers and participants to post multimedia content and/or transcripts and/or feedback/follow-up, and you will also see us engaging with individuals, communities, and groups to open up CONVERSATIONS in response to their cultural capital/production.
More than anything, this series offers bang for your…work. We say, don’t let all that work you did over the last few years that resulted in a one-week show and a 2-hour panel vanish, or live only within the virtual CV of your webportfolio. Share it here, and strengthen yourself and your community by so doing. It is the resource we have in spades. We are, in fact, rich.
Perhaps the most exciting thing about this series is… that it’s been in the works in secret for some time now, so we’re all ready to bring you the first cultural nutrition rich RE:CON in the pretty damn immediate future.
Your first RE:CONVERSATIONS will feature:
MYCELIUM / TALK PURPOSE / MATTHEW ABRAMS
MAD LIBrary / LEGACY RUSSELL / STINA PUOTINEN / SARAH GIOVANNIELLO
WOMEN LOVE THE WORLD / CAITS MEISSNER / LEHNA HUIE / KARLA RODRIGUEZ 
VIDA / HERKIND / JP HOWARD / ANASTASIA TOLBERT / QIANA TOWNS
MATT LONGABUCCO / BOLAÑO FOR POETS
coming soon to an os near you!
[LEVEL UP]
 

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