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 brings together contributions by twenty-two international artists, writers, scholars, musicians, architects, and scientists who explore protocols across various fields, foregrounding opportunities for creating new protocols that are inclusive and equitable. Through essays, artworks, interviews, and scores, the book speaks to protocols as practice—neither conventional mannerisms nor abstract concepts, but material processes, relational affinities, shared responsibilities, and mutual care.

Edited by Re’al Christian, Carin Kuoni, and Eriola Pira, 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.

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“At a time of intersecting and increasingly alarming global crises, it is incumbent upon us, as differentially positioned artistic researchers, makers, and workers, to reassess our roles and responsibilities in the context of emergent and urgent global crises: our job is not only to ask why art, but which art (forms/practices/commitments) do we offer our energy and life-blood to? As for Protocols…touches on so many of the perspectives, vocalities, and literacies that the project of art attuned to social and ecological justice needs right now. It is wide-ranging, smart, diverse, attentive to constitutive difference, and productive of generative confluence.” —Natalie Loveless, University of Alberta

“As for Protocols is an exciting volume of reflections on the concept or convention we know as protocol—sets of techno-cultural procedures that organize communicative interaction. … In As for Protocols chapters build upon each other; concepts developed in one chapter reappear in subsequent ones efficaciously, providing continuity across projects whose methods and contexts are very different. The writing is consistently accessible and insightful from start to finish.” —Kelli Moore, New York University