Mesh Archive Blog

Mesh Archive is a mixed media collective founded on the concept of community exploration.

[mesharchive]

Recently Archived

Conversation Starters Podcast

“A podcast about Clayton and Kelley, two lost millennials, and their never-ending conversation about the questions that keep them up at night, from the history of v-necks to ethical mourning to media curation.” Check out conversationstarterscast on Tumblr.

“Lynch Law in America” by Ida B. Wells (1900)

“Not only are two hundred men and women put to death annually, on the average, in this country by mobs, but these lives are taken with the greatest publicity.”

Against Students by Sara Ahmed

“Complaining, censorious, and over-sensitive, university students are destroying their own institutions. Wait, seriously? People think that?”

Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology

Beatrice Martini - On tech tools for social justice and rights

Material beings: objecthood and ethnographic photographs by Elizabeth Edwards

“Photographs are both images and physical objects which exist in time and space and thus in social and cultural experience.”

codedoodl.es

“codedoodl.es is a showcase of curated creative coding sketches. The aim of these doodles is to exhibit interactive, engaging web experiments which only require a short attention span. No loading bars, no GUI, no 5MB 3D models or audio files, just plain and simple doodles with code.” Read more about the project from Neil Carpenter.

Inspecting the Nineteenth Century Literary Digital Archive: Omissions of Empire by Adeline Koh

Adeline Koh examines the use and operations of archives alongside the developments of digitization. Specifically, Koh discusses “the politics of digitizing the literary nineteenth century.” Koh outlines three different components of her study, which are “(1) how the politics of the literary nineteenth century archive interact with and reflectissues within Victorian studies; (2) existing issues with interfaces of existing literary digital projects that limit their correlations with colonialism or the literary productions by the colonized; (3) the contrast between digital literary projects and broader historical digital archives, and the urgency of dealing with this gap (385).”

Check out more resources here.

[mesharchive]

Hi! I was wondering if you have received my application?

Hi there! We received your application and sent you an email about it a month ago, please check your inboxes :)

[femhype]

Trans gamers deserve so much better than this. You deserve to see yourself in games. You deserve to feel safe in the gaming community, and to be able to rely upon games as an escape from the immensely oppressive world you live in. So how do we fix all this? These problems aren’t insignificant; they’ve taken almost 2,000 words to articulate in any kind of clarity. And, if history is any indicator, the solution won’t come from cis folks. It may be facilitated and supported by cis allies, but trans people will be the ones to articulate what they need. When asked how they felt developers could increase trans visibility and representation in games, trans gamers’ responses were incredibly modest:1. Actually create trans characters that aren’t jokes or fetishes. 2. Leave cissexist and transphobic slurs out of games. 3. Have community rules against trans discrimination. It’s a testament to how incredibly bad the situation is when the things trans gamers are asking for sound like the bare minimum.

Video Games Are Utterly Failing Trans Gamers & It’s Time We Did Something About It | FemHype (via gamingfeminism)

[mesharchive]

Recently Archived: Kodai School Life - Part 1 (SEP 1998)

[mesharchive]

Almost every day of my childhood consisted of me begging and pleading with my parents to “let me see” the computer, crawling under my dad's feet and waiting as he banged off email after email. Other times, I was being led to the old computer at the back off the office I could use during those common days when I went to work with my mom, only to find out it had some missing plug-in I needed. Spending my days at my moms feet were my earliest memories; my body contorted and my feet brushing the glowing power strip, I learned how to feel at home in tight spaces–at the margins. 

In my coming of age, identity always meant something a little different to me though. When I was little, I traversed Kiko Lake and the Haunted Woods in Neopets, playing games all day just trying to get enough coins to buy my Kacheek a neat hat. Next, it was an obsession with dress up games on Roiworld or Tycoon, maybe even the Teen Titans fighting games. Then, it was pairings and analysis on hundreds of episodes of British science fiction. And now, I find myself on group chats filled with kids from camp, and kids from school, kids who find a place of affirmation on their laptops.

–

Asha on marginality and (safe) space irl and online.   

[mesharchive]

I’m not sure it ever occurred to me when I was younger how critical the internet and online experience would be to me. It was always there; it was a privilege to have and use, and it was almost seemingly natural.  I didn’t start using it more for its other features until I reached the end of middle school and onto high school; prior to that it was for games or perusing through online shops to build myself an ideal lifestyle, to plan an ideal future. 

In high school, I realized that I spent a lot of time online and began utilizing it, mindlessly, as a primal tool for communication. I had a lot of speech insecurities, and I still do, but using messaging and chat systems made talking a lot easier for me. I never realized that writing was a form of communication until the internet became that for me. It is now, more so than ever, my primary resource for more aspects of my life than I can count.

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Mads on curating identity, speech, and access on the internet. 

[mesharchive]

Recently Archived

Hello everyone! While we are working on our first issue, we wanted to share with you what has been informing our thought processes, what inspires us, and some resources we have been working from. At Mesh Archive, we want to provide as much access to resources as we can, and many of these resources are typically under the radar. These are our personal archives; we hope to bridge these gaps with you and encourage you all to share with us what informs your learning! 

The Hyper-affective Turn: Thinking the Social in the Digital Age

Nestor García Canclini and Maritza Urteaga discuss the shift of many 21st-century social theorists toward affect studies and how this has affected as well as been formed by digitization.

‘I WILL DO EVERYthing That Am Asked’: Scambaiting, Digital Show-Space, and the Racial Violence of Social Media by Lisa Nakamura

“Memes that depict the black body in abject and bizarre poses and situations are part of the long history of viral racism that spreads using user and audience labor.”

Pao Out as Reddit CEO; Co-Founder Huffman Takes Over

“The social news service has thousands of loyal, unpaid moderators who produce and curate the lion’s share of content on the site. But a staff firing and the controversy that erupted thereafter yesterday has moderators of some of the most influential and important parts of the site closing off their sections in protest, posing a serious problem for Reddit’s future … “

Monoskop

Monoskop is a wiki for collaborative studies of the arts, media and humanities (Monoskop About). This is a large database of resources that can helpful in exploring some other concepts in relation to what we have been talking about.

Mindy Fullilove -- Reading about Displacement

A collection of research and resources by Mindy Fullilove, who has provided a profound amount of her research online for access concerning displacement in relation to black women and community, housing, family, and AIDS.

Center for Art and Thought

Center for Art and Thought is a network of artists, scholars, and activists who use the internet as a platform to showcase the variety of works being produced out of the Filipinx diaspora (CA+T About). They have collections of work, art, essays, and exhibitions speaking to the digital era and importance of access to resources that inform learning.

Jane Jin Kaisen

Jane Jin Kaisen is Korean transnational adoptee who works with a variety of artforms that explore representations of memory, history, and transnational subjectivity (Jane Jin Kaisen About). She has produced an incredible amount of works surrounding this fairly difficult concepts such as her film The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger, which can be found here.

Chapter One of Queer Phenomenology by Sara Ahmed

Queer Phenomenology explores orientation — a turn of the body toward objects — as well as the significance of objects’ physical impressions upon the body. Much of Ahmed’s work focuses on the occupation of spaces and bodies and the politics of those spatial-material interactions.

[mesharchive]

It’s something I never really thought about. When I joined the network I didn’t see it as a learning space, I acquire my education in different ways. But this is from a space of privilege as I was a uni student at the time. This isn’t the experience for all members, this can be damaging for them because the educational side of the network isn’t brought to the forefront...What you see in the network right now is a reflection of those who feel most confident posting. What’s posted on the walls may not be reflection of the whole club, but definitely reflects who has the most power.

Soo, an admin from a popular WOC network on Facebook, about how the culture of communication develops, changes, and operates within social networks built on common identity. 

Learn more about how you can contribute to our first ever publication. 

[mesharchive]

What kind of writing examples are acceptable for staff writer applications? Thanks!

Hi! We accept any and all forms of writing. Whether it’s a link to your personal post tag on tumblr, writing for high school/university or published work, we’d love to see it.

[mesharchive]

Donate!

As a community based organization we are working to provide as much content and material as we can to everyone. We want to be able to bridge gaps between the levels of access in our community, but we are going to need some help! 

If you’re able to donate, it would allow us to further our goal as a community that strives to provide access to materials that could help and inform our growth. We want to produce a publication that could be widely accessible to those who might not have regular access to our online materials as well as other multimedia works. We hope to foster a community that can share and exchange our ideas, works, and creations, so a donation would bring us a little closer to, at least, a physical publication! 

The donations we receive this time around will be used solely for physical productions of our premiering publication. We want to be able to distribute and reach as much as we can geographically, so donations for our first issue would be very helpful!

However, if you’re just as excited for this project as we are, would like to see more physical developments, and have something to spare, it would help us along the way to provide us input on what we can provide and how we should engage our community. When you donate, feel free to leave us a suggestion! Let us know what you want to see come out of Mesh. 

Right now, we are in the process of incorporating audio/visual elements and interactive design into our projects and developing games and web apps, podcasts, and video that further contribute to our mission to explore identity and community, cross medium. 

Follow us on twitter for updates.

[mesharchive]

Announcements

Submissions

We are accepting pitch proposals for Mesh’s first multimedia project!

Now Hiring

We are currently looking for staff to volunteer their time at Mesh. Though we are accepting applications for all positions, we are specifically looking for staff writers, coders, and photographers. No formal experience is required!

From Our Directors

About Us

“Mesh is an exercise in asking questions, and in attempting to answer them through discussions and practice in our communities.”

How We Mesh

“Dialogue is easy where experience is similar, but it isn’t productive.”

Inbox

Would you take someone on as staff writing who has no formal experience in writing but has the life experience that can contribute to social discussion?

hey! is mesh a global thing?

For more information be sure to follow us on twitter for updates. Feel free to shoot us an ask or email [email protected] for further inquiries.

[mesharchive]

Are you looking/will you ever be looking for poems?

We’re accepting any medium for submissions, so poems are fine as well!

[mesharchive]

is Mesh Archive only looking for submissions from poc? i was thinking of submitting but i wouldn't want to invade a space that wasn't meant for me

Mesh is about negotiating identity, so as long as you feel you have experience with that then feel free to apply!

[mesharchive]

Hi! I filled out a staff application recently but I'm not sure if it went through or not. Is there any way I can find out if it was received?

Hello! Please message us off anon and we will let you know if we received it!

[mesharchive]

About Us

The internet is a phenomenon fundamentally bound to our experiences. This binding has made identity central to the internet, and has destabilized identity from geography.

What is Mesh

Mesh is a digital archive of community knowledge and a learning project. Our aim is to create a resource and a place where people to feel safe enough to start participating in their own liberation.

Why We Created Mesh

Conversations and writings about identity building and community, especially regarding the internet have been historically whitewashed and detached from larger narratives that inform various media and forms of communication on the internet. However, there has been a plague of antiblackness and transmisogyny in spaces (including internet spaces) dedicated to practicing solidarity and ensuring the safety of people of marginalized identities. While the internet does allow a greater amount of resources to be accessible to people outside of academic institutions, information still fails to be understandable and can be further alienating to people (similarly to how we have been alienated and silenced within the classroom).

Our Process

We seek to integrate discourse about the IRL/URL experience (especially regarding identity building), to create an archive where people can reference and have access to historical resources about identity, liberation, etc. Simultaneously, we also seek to document and save contemporary and non-academic works regarding our experience, that may be harder to preserve, but may be more accessible and equally valuable due to the greater accessibility of self publishing.

Our Goals/Mission

Our goal at Mesh is to both engage people more and to engage people completely, through honest dialogue about identity centered on intersubjectivity, that is facilitated through a variety of mediums. Mesh is an exercise in asking questions, and in attempting to answer them through discussions and practice in our communities.

Submit

We are currently We are currently looking for artist, writers, photographers, and videographers, etc. to submit to our first publication! More information can be found here.

Feel free to ask us any questions on our blog or shoot us an email at [email protected]

Follow us on twitter for updates.

[mesharchive]

Would you take someone on as staff writing who has no formal experience in writing but has the life experience that can contribute to social discussion?

Absolutely! You, and others like you, are exactly who we are looking for! We completely encourage this kind of enthusiasm for contribution, discussion, and learning. We are currently taking applications here!

[mesharchive]

How We Mesh - Asha

The formation of Mesh was conceptualized around discussing communication and community cross medium, and not only where they allow us to participate in forming our selfhood differently than we would without contemporary forms of communication, but also how our understanding of ourselves cross dimensionally fails us. The coexistence of spaces and bodies, of ideas and oppressions–is something that has intrigued me for a long time. As I continue to experience more and become a part of more and as I negotiate my own identity on the internet and in my physical life, I’m realizing how pertinent it is to my own liberation to answer questions about the interconnectedness of our world.