2025–2027
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Explicitly—or not—protocols determine much of what we do. Supplanting traditional notions of “good manners,” protocols are languages that regulate how people relate to each other, to their cultural, social, and political environments, and to the technologies that create them. They are evidence of governmental, organizational, social, or corporate power structures. Protocols speak to processes, rather than finite outcomes. While often overlooked or invisible, they set the tone and conditions for potential encounters. Investigating them as such will allow us to contribute to the creation of new protocols that are inclusive and equitable, ranging from computer interfaces, A.I., data aggregation, and algorithms to community agreements and culturally-specific engagement protocols to protocols undergirding scientific research. As “protocol” may also refer to documentation and minutes, the term signals a hybrid time frame of both the past and projection into the future. With the engagement of artists, scholars, activists, and students, the Vera List Center will consider protocols as the foundations for the performance of living, and begin thinking and working toward new spaces of political empowerment.
Scroll below for As for Protocols programs, exhibitions, fellows, and publications.
Maria Hupfield
Riel Bellow and Kite
Naeem Mohaiemen
Michelle Marxuach
Naeem Mohaiemen
Salome Asega