I subscribe to a promo newsletter from the folks who produce RESFEST and RES magazine; the newsletter is called, appropriately enough, RESalert.

The whole RES family is a sort of digital media, cooler-than-WIRED, glossy, eye-candy kind of enterprise, but often includes mildly political content that reflects, I imagine, the generally liberal-to-progressive tendencies (however inchoate) of its very cool audience. Hence there’s an annual theme issue of the magazine called RESistance, focusing on digital media folks doing cool, quasi-political stuff. Of course, it’s also got corporate sponsors and advertisers up the ya-ding, but only the cool ones: Diesel, Nike (Nike?), Apple, etc.

Consistent with this general orientation was their RESalert newsletter from October 29th, that included links to various pre-election mash-ups centering on Bush and Kerry. Unsurprisingly, given the aforementioned leanings of most creative types, and the hubris of the currently elected President, most of this stuff had Bush in its sights, rather than Kerry. So did the editorial, which went like this:

Election Day Reminder

Halloween might be scary, but it pales in comparison to next Tuesday, when we’ll all be waiting with bated breath for the outcome of what many have called the most important election in a generation. Let’s just hope we know the results on Wednesday morning, and not many weeks and legal battles later. We screened a program in RESFEST this year called Bushwhacked!, so we’re obviously not all that concerned about being accused of partisanship, but we’ll let the artists do the Bush-bashing. We just hope and pray you’ll make your way to the polls next Tuesday — unless you’re planning to vote for Bush.

Nothing earth-shattering here, right? Well, yes actually. Here’s the very next (post-election) issue of RESalert:

AFTERMATH

We’d also like to say that RES is a publication for and about creators, and its extended community of talent includes some of the smartest communicators in the world. Communication seems particularly poor these days, between various factions within the US and between the US and the rest of the world. Let’s all look for better ways to communicate with one another, and demand the same of those around us. There’s no surer path to progress.

Eh? And we’re supposed to believe that this groveling apology is the result of a ‘few’ letters? Perhaps not. After all, among the many corporate sponsors RES relies on for its survivial is Fuel TV, which happens to be owned by Fox Entertainment Group, which is itself part of Rupert Murdoch’s oh-so-progressive media conglomerate News International. Oh, now I understand.

Since last Tuesday I’ve been in residence at a week-long institute on digital media, art and culture. Digital Poetics and Politics was organized by the wonderful folks in the Department of Film Studies at Queen’s University.

We’ve shared creative work and critical ideas, had friendly and productive debates, and developed a remarkable sense of community in just a matter of days. This might be because we were all asked to present work in progress, rather than finished projects; or, because there’s such a diverse mix of talents and interests and personalities; or it could be that the organizers just managed to get it right. Perhaps it’s all three.