Description

Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) and Rhizome present Trust & Safety, a screening and conversation addressing the challenges faced by organizations entrusted with preserving artworks that test cultural, technological, and institutional limits.

The program features a selection of works from EAI’s collection by Peggy Ahwesh, Alex Bag, Ellen Cantor, Barbara Hammer, and Muntadas. The works were selected in relation to Vimeo’s content moderation policies and the limitations those policies pose for an archive of challenging media. After EAI encountered repeated problems hosting works on Vimeo, Rhizome assisted with the migration of EAI’s video holdings to PeerTube, an open-source platform that allows organizations to maintain greater control over their digital infrastructure.

Following the screening, Rebecca Cleman of EAI and Michael Connor of Rhizome will discuss the formation of alternative systems for distribution and access.

Artists and independent media organizations have long developed their own channels of circulation in response to cultural and institutional barriers. Histories of queer experimental media are especially bound up with these challenges. Artists created alternative networks for engaging sexuality, identity, and desire at moments of stringent cultural suppression. Today, commercial platforms apply standardized moderation systems to material whose meaning requires crucial historic context.

Trust & Safety considers how arts organizations build and maintain their own technological infrastructure, and how federated systems such as PeerTube might support new networks for the circulation of challenging work.

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