Exhibition Dates: April 1 – 30th, 2019
Location: Online in conjunction with FLEFF 2019 in Ithaca, NY

The 21st edition of the Finger Lakes Film Festival (FLEFF) investigates the theme of disruptions and invites submissions for its online group exhibition, Networked Disruptions.

 

disruption (n.): “a rending asunder, a bursting apart, forcible separation into parts,” early 15c., originally medical, “laceration of tissue”; general sense from 1640s, from Medieval Latin disruptionem (nominative disruptio) “a breaking asunder,” noun of action from past-participle stem of Latin “disrumpere, break apart, split, shatter, break to pieces,” from dis- “apart” (see dis-) + rumpure “to break,” from PIE root *runp- “to break” (see corrupt (adj.)).

 

Disruptions stop the flow of events, ideas, processes, and structures. They produce stoppages, breaks, and fissures where old flows are halted and new ones can emerge. In some cases, disruptions are productive, as in technological and political revolutions. In other cases, disruptions are destabilizing and counterproductive, as in severe weather patterns and market volatilities.

 

Global climate disruptions consist in unwanted and unnatural environmental changes. They give rise to rising air and water temperatures, to rising water and toxicity levels, to rising fears and anxieties. Disrupting consumerist habits, such as use of cheap fossil fuels to power single-person or single-family (“private”) automobiles and produce single-use (“disposable”) plastics, is an urgent response that can be distributed across the world.

 

Networked disruptions consist in outages, censorship, violations of privacy, and thefts of identities. Hackers have often worked to unlock content and interrupt the algorithms that narrow the aggregated information in our search engine results or our social media feeds.

 

This exhibition seeks projects that explore disruptions in relation to our natural and virtual environments. Ones that contribute to broadening dialogues and debates.

 

Curated by FLEFF Digital Curator Dale Hudson (New York University Abu Dhabi) and FLEFF Assistant Digital Curator Claudia Costa Pederson (Wichita State University)

 

The exhibition will launch in conjunction with the onsite festival in Ithaca, New York, United States.