Explicitly—or not—protocols determine much of what we do. Far exceeding traditional notions of “good manners,” protocols are systems of language that regulate how we relate to each other, to our cultural, social, and political environments, and to the technologies that create them. The first publication to look at protocols across a wide range of disciplines, As for Protocols features essays, artworks, conversations, and scores by twenty-four international contributors who speak to protocols as practice—neither conventional mannerisms nor abstract concepts, but material processes, relational affinities, shared responsibilities, and mutual care. What emerges from the book’s pages are tools for empowerment, ways in which protocols can be rebooted, reengineered, embodied, appropriated, and used to our own ends.

The As for Protocols launch brings together the book’s editors—Re’al Christian, Carin Kuoni, and Eriola Pira—with contributors: artist Salome Asega, scholar Shannon Mattern, performer Silas Riener, and artist Robert Sember of the sound art collective Ultra-red. Using the book as a prompt, performances, readings, and conversations with the contributors speak to protocols through their technological, political, and social dimensions. 

Order As for Protocols here—the open access ebook is now available online.

As for Protocols is co-published by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics and Amherst College Press, with an opening score by Raven Chacon and contributions by Salome Asega, Carolina Caycedo with Lupita Limón Corrales, Jesse Chun, Asia Dorsey, Taraneh Fazeli and Cannach MacBride, Pablo Helguera, Emmanuel Iduma, Mary Maggic, Shannon Mattern, V. Mitch McEwen with Nadir Jeevanjee, Rashaun Mitchell with Silas Riener, Romy Opperman, Rasheedah Phillips, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson with Maria Hupfield, Ultra-red with Robert Sember, and Underground Resistance.