[Early weeks of COVID 19]
Resisting the separation
of humans from “nature”,
while also resisting the essentializing
of the “return” or “past utopia”
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I notice that the ensembles are best able to respond in this moment.
My dreams of ensemble are scattered
to the winds of individual artists
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Artfu.ly and its shutdown is an example of the difficulty of sector specific Software as Service applications.
Working with tools from the giants doesn’t guarantee a product won’t go away for no good reason (RIP Google Reader) – but the bigs are diversified in their revenue and grotesquely wealthy, so are less likely to bail or become abandonware.
Also, the bigs are trying to reach large numbers of people and have design teams focused on that, so while nothing is “intuitive” for everyone, the applications are more likely to have usability at heart and folks may already be familiar with them. As opposed to deeply unfriendly Canadian arts specific apps like SUMAC or Ticket Manager that, from using them, I assume never had design resources or values.
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Art may be essential.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t “non-essential” art.
And especially non-essential travel for art.
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early 14c., transitive (“collect into one place”) and intransitive (“meet or come together”), from Old French assembler “come together, join, unite; gather” (11c.), from Latin assimulare “to make like, liken, compare; copy, imitate; feign, pretend,” later “to gather together,” from assimxilated form of ad “to” (see ad-) + simulare “to make like,” from stem of similis “like, resembling, of the same kind” (see similar). In Middle English and in Old French it also was a euphemism for “to couple sexually.” Meaning “to put parts together” in manufacturing is from 1852. Related: Assembled; assembling. Assemble together is redundant.
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