As time and energy are in short supply, having a couple days of focus is a gift. We have spent this last week in January at Impact HUB San Francisco building a plan for our workshop and exhibition. We met with the program team and many tech and art experts from the Bay Area to flesh out our concepts and plans for ground work. After developing this concept over time in relative isolation, it has been great to connect our ideas to a larger community.

We also had a chance to meet and collaborate with the other AAI artists. The artists are a fantastic, experimental bunch. It is a humbling group to be a part of, and this week has provided a framework for us to more directly share resources and ideas with each other.

The response to the Emerji has been very positive. We have developed methods of breaking down the larger project into more immediate pieces, and at the same time we have made connections to push it forward well after the initial phase of work overseas. We have had discussions throughout the week around the role of social media as a civic and social tool - and ways of conveying ‘emergency’ within the local social structures. It is unusual and satisfying to find a group so willing to talk about both community engagement and new media as part of art practice.