Joline Blais (born May 9, 1960) is an American writer, educator, new media scholar, and

permaculture Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using Systems theory, whole-systems thinking. It applies t ...

designer. As Associate Professor in the

University of Maine The University of Maine (UMaine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Orono, Maine, United States. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the Flagship universitie ...

'
New Media Department
Blais teaches classes on digital narrative,

sustainable design Environmentally sustainable design (also called environmentally conscious design, eco-design, etc.) is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of ecological sustainability ...

, and permaculture. With

Jon Ippolito Jon Ippolito (IPA: Help:IPA/Italian, pˈpɔːlito born March 19, 1962) is an American artist, educator, new media scholar, and former curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Ippolito studied astrophysics and painting in the early 1980s, ...

in 2002, she co-founded Still Water, a new media lab she continues to co-direct that is devoted to studying and building creative

networks Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

. Blais' publications and creative work explore the overlap of

digital culture Internet culture refers to culture developed and maintained among frequent and active users of the Internet (also known as netizens) who primarily communicate with one another as members of online communities; that is, a culture whose influence ...

indigenous culture There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

, and

which has included advocacy for updated tenure and promotion criteria based on sharing rather than hierarchical principles.

Selected Projects

Blais' 2006 boo
At the Edge of Art
co-authored with Ippolito and published by

Thames & Hudson Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...

, investigates how new media art puts the power of networks and distributed creativity into the hands of ordinary citizens in a variety of non-art contexts.

Alessandro Ludovico Alessandro Ludovico (born 1969) is a researcher, artist and chief editor of Neural (magazine), ''Neural'' magazine since 1993. He received his Ph.D. degree in English and Media from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge (UK). He is Associate Prof ...

, January 9, 2007. "Joline Blais, Jon Ippolito – At the Edge of Art,"

Neural (magazine) ''Neural'' is a print magazine established in 1993 dealing with new media art, electronic music and hacktivism. It was founded by Alessandro Ludovico and Minus Habens Records label owner Ivan Iusco in Bari (Italy). In its first issue (distributed ...

(Bari), http://neural.it/2007/01/joline-blais-jon-ippolito-at-the-edge-of-art/, accessed November 7, 2017. The book creates a metaphor between

digital art Digital art, or the digital arts, is artistic work that uses Digital electronics, digital technology as part of the creative or presentational process. It can also refer to computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960 ...

and the human

immune system The immune system is a network of biological systems that protects an organism from diseases. It detects and responds to a wide variety of pathogens, from viruses to bacteria, as well as Tumor immunology, cancer cells, Parasitic worm, parasitic ...

, relating the auto-immune response to the important role of art in society. In this book Blais coins the terms "autobotography," personal histories automatically recorded by digital devices such as

webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in Videotelephony, video telephony, live streaming and social media, and Closed-circuit television, security. Webcams can b ...

s and blogs, and "executability," an ability of 21st-century expression to operate on computable, social, or legal codes.Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito, 2006. At the Edge of Art (London: Thames & Hudson), 93, 125. Blais and collaborators, including John Bell, Ippolito, and Owen Smith, develope
The Pool
an online project design workspace noted by the

Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is an American newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals, including staff members and administrators. A subscriptio ...

as a "new avenue for new-media scholars to do their jobs." The Pool is a collaborative online environment for creating art,

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communicati ...

, and

texts Text may refer to: Written word * Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including: **Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred **Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...

. In place of the single-artist, single-artwork paradigm favored by the overwhelming majority of documentation systems, The Pool stimulates

collaboration Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. The ...

in a variety of forms, including multi-author, asynchronous, and cross-medium projects.Andrea L. Foster, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 30, 2008. In 2005 Blais partnered with New York's

Eyebeam Art and Technology Center Eyebeam is a not-for-profit art and technology center in New York City, founded by John Seward Johnson III with co-founders David S. Johnson and Roderic R. Richardson. Originally conceived as a digital effects and coding atelier and center for ...

to conceive and produce an online forum on open culture that spanned six weeks and four continents. Entitled Distributed creativity, this system wove together correspondents from separate email lists based in California (

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

), New York (

Rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome ( ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and Shoot (botany), shoots from its Node (botany), nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from ...

), Ireland (DATA), India ( Sarai), and Australia (Fibreculture) in a global conversation on the future of creativity, intellectual property, and mobile media.Jon Ippolito, March 24, 2005. U-Me Co-Hosts "Distributed Creativity" online forum, http://newmedia.umaine.edu/feature.php?id=285, accessed March 15, 2013. Her sustainability projects includ
LongGreenHouse
(2007–2011), which wove the Wabanaki Longhouse, permaculture gardens, and networked collaboration in a hybrid "communiversity," in partnership with UMaine, the Wassookeag school, and Wabanaki elders. Other projects include RFC: Request for Ceremony, a call for re-investing quotidian life with ceremony; and the Cross-Cultural Partnership, a legal framework for developing trust networks with indigenous peoples.David Bollier, January 16, 2012. The Shared Patterns of Indigenous Culture, Permaculture and Digital Commons, Permaculture News, http://permaculturenews.org/2012/01/16/the-shared-patterns-of-indigenous-culture-permaculture-and-digital-commons/, accessed March 15, 2013. In 2008 Blais expanded this work from the university to community contexts as a partner and equity member o
Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage
whose

net zero Global net-zero emissions is reached when greenhouse gas emissions and removals due to human activities are in balance. It is often called simply net zero. ''Emissions'' can refer to all greenhouse gases or only carbon dioxide (). Reaching net ze ...

prototype house was the US Green Building Council'
2011 Project of the Year
Jennifer Mitchell, August 15, 2012. Belfast Ecovillage at Five Years: Idealism Meets Reality, Maine Public Broadcasting Network, http://www.mpbn.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3478/ItemId/23301/Default.aspx, accessed March 15, 2013.

Selected publications

Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito, "Art As Antibody: A Redefinition of Art for the Internet Age," Intelligent Agent 6, no. 2 (Summer 2006), mirrored at http://www.intelligentagent.com/archive/ia6_2_transvergence_blaisippolito_artasantibody.pdf. Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito, At the Edge of Art (London: Thames & Hudson, 2006). Joline Blais
Indigenous Domain: Pilgrims, Permaculture, and Perl
Joline Blais, Jon Ippolito, Steve Evans, Owen Smith, and Nate Stormer, "New Criteria for New Media," Leonardo (MIT Press) 42, no. 1 (Spring 2009). Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito, "New Media Innovators," in Lucas Dietrich, ed., 60: Innovators Shaping Our Creative Future (London: Thames & Hudson, 2010). Joline Blais, Jon Ippolito,

Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence "Larry" Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American legal scholar and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvar ...

, and Carrie McLaren, "Share/Share Alike," Intelligent Agent (New York and Baton Rouge) 4.2 (June 2004), http://www.intelligentagent.com.

Notes

External links

Joline Blais's Homepage

Joline Blais at the University of Maine New Media Department

At the Edge of Art

LongGreenHouse
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blais, Joline 1960 births Educators from Maine Living people Permaculturalists University of Maine faculty Harvard University alumni American women non-fiction writers People from Lewiston, Maine University of Pennsylvania alumni American women academics 21st-century American women