Date: Monday, 07/20/2026
Class: Concepts, Cultures, and Communications (IMALR-GT 101)
Section: 001
Name: Janice Vuong
Week: Week 2
Roopa’s Talk + Tufecki’s Twitter & Teargas
On Roopa’s Talk about Opening the System, I really liked how she used punk and DIY as vehicles for getting past “gatekeepers”. DIY stands for doing it yourself, and the subculture of punk music is independently organizing shows, making their own merchandise so it is very intertwined.
With technology advancing it can feel that one has to adopt and join the bandwagon or be left behind. But in the reading of Twitter & Teargas by Zeynep Tufeck, Tucfeck mentions “Technology causes things, but not as straightforwardly as we think”. This was shown in Roopa’s values and her work. With her values, she is involved in open-sourced software with the Processing Foundation as a Fellow and mentor. In the mission statement ↗ of the Processing Foundation, the second sentence is about goals. “Our goal is to support people of all backgrounds in learning how to program and make creative work with code, especially those who might not otherwise have access to tools and resources”. I highlight those words, because there are people, foundations, and groups that try to help those to adopt technological tools and programs. I guess what I am trying to relate is that, technology is not all bad to society, it can be good, or not just black and white.
Other points that Roopa shared during her take, I resonated with is that “Artists need to talk to each other more”. I think that can be true, because creating work, sometimes you turn inwards and isolate.
It was funny because later that night, there was a celebration for ITP & friends at Wonderville (Brooklyn) Bar & Arcade. I was preparing myself to talk to new people and introductions, and then what ended up happening was: I just talked a lot to my classmates in my cohort (lol!). Well technically I did play the 10 player arcade (Killer Queen) game, and it was Low Res vs. ITP (???) alum, (I think???) .
But I think that was needed. Like the us (the cohort) talking to each other, in an environment that is filled with interactive games, arcade machines, a classmate performing visuals, a cool summer night.