Is this THING on?
A class about Livestreaming
– Gray Area Festival Workshop

Is this THING on?
A class about Livestreaming
– Gray Area Festival Workshop

Livestreaming is a hundred billion dollar, global industry owned and controlled by Big Tech. Although streamers create the core value of these platforms, they/we have little agency, from how streams appear to how profits are shared, terms of service, and what social agreements exist between audience and streamers. Is this THING on? is a community-driven livestream network built in the spirit of web3 — decentralizing technology in the service of decentralizing power. Through this software-development-as-critical-performance, we are playfully questioning what exactly web3 is: blockchain versus webring, crypto versus dollars, DAOs versus co-ops. 

THING was founded by artists Bhavik Singh, Christopher Clary, Molly Soda, and Sarah Rothberg. All four met as members of NEW INC’s Rhizome cohort. They have worked together on various projects from programming for the International Center of Photography to online exhibitions for The Wrong Biennale and New Art City.

Workshop Overview

Is this THING on? will lead a workshop about livestreaming. First, we’ll give a brief presentation on the history, creative approaches, and obstacles of livestreaming in its current form, as well as a presentation of THING itself. Then, participants will work in groups to collaboratively come up with and run a livestream using their own assets, culminating in a (most likely chaotic) simulcast of each group’s livestreams. Members of THING will guide individual groups through the process. Participants will also be responsible for defining and applying collective community guidelines for their streams. A discussion/reflection of the process will wrap up the workshop.

This workshop is part of the Gray Area Festival 2022: Distant Early Warnings, and the C/Change Initiative.

Now in its 8th year, this year’s Gray Area Festival partners with the McLuhan Institute to explore artistic practice as an important sensing agent in a world of rapidly evolving media and technology. Building off work by media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who in 1964 compared artists to Cold War–era distant early warning systems which were designed to raise alarms at signs of impending nuclear catastrophe, this festival stakes a role for arts and technology experimentation as a critical research & development department for society.

C/Change is a joint initiative by Goethe-Institut San Francisco and Gray Area, exploring ways emerging technologies can shape and support digital cultural exchange.