Miriam Suzanne's Practical Guide to Losing Control

A Practical Guide to Losing Control

What do we do about the power dynamics between creator and consumer, artist and audience, client and creative, developer and user, collaborators, even author and medium and object? As creators, it’s tempting to grab and consolidate our power, but sometimes the medium or audience has a different opinion. Maybe we’ll look at my experiences of chaos as a professional web developer and mixed-media artist — what’s worked and what hasn’t. Maybe we’ll talk about differences in media, or how they mix. Maybe we’ll talk about the performative turn, or some other academic jargon. Maybe we’ll get way off topic. These things are hard to predict.

Miriam Eric Suzanne is an author, performer, musician, designer, and web developer — working with OddBird, Teacup Gorilla, and CSS Tricks. Her work deals with design thinking in digital humanites, as well as performance studies and critical code studies.  Questioning the politics of media and technology as an insider, her work also address practical concerns within media archeology broadly.

She’s previously been artist in residence at the Media Archaeology Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder and lives in Denver, Colorado. She’s the author of Riding SideSaddle* and The Post-Obsolete Book, co-author of Jump Start Sass and 10 Myths on the Proper Application of Beauty Products, and creator of the Susy and True open-source design toolkits. Miriam has also been published under the names “Eric A Meyer” and “Eric M Suzanne” — but you should call her Miriam, or Mia, or maybe Princess DieHard, or something like that.

Questions?

Contact Scholars' Lab Assistant Director for Public Services Laura Miller.