Simone Browne and Tsige Tafesse

This interview is narrated by Simone Browne and Tsige Tafeese and took place on January 11, 2020 at New Inc, 231 Bowery fl 2, New York, NY 10002 in response to Surveillance Studies by American Artist and Simone Browne. Simone and Tsige discuss the following keywords: surveillance, technology, supremacy, oral history, trust, memory, Ethiopia, family, decay, thinking, moments, life, space, game, stories, bubbles, hologram. Transcription by Tsige Tafesse and neta bomani.

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ This transcription is a work in progress. Please check back later for a full transcript. Thank you! (◕‿◕✿)

Alright. So, I’m here and I’m Neta Bomani and I’m here at New Inc in the Lower East Side, New York and I’m here with Simone Browne and Tsige Tafesse and we’re just here to talk about Code Societies—our participation in Code Societies and also get a sense of how we ended up here in Code Societies throughout our lives and now I’m going to give Simone an opportunity to introduce herself.

Simone

My name is Simone Browne and I am a teacher, writer, and very interested in this conversation we are going to have.

Tsige

Hi my name is Tsige Tafesse and I’m an artist and organizer based in Brooklyn, NY and I stumbled my way into SFPC and the world of technologists and this intersection of Black Studies and people love—I’m just a learner and just very excited to be in conversation with y’all and continue harassing this school and area of study.

Can you describe a time when you felt like home or understood the concept of home?

Simone

I think home is with the people that I love, or learned to love, or grow to love or have grown to love me. For me it’s not really an attachment to a structure—like a house—I’ve never had that—or like a land or a nation or a state. Maybe it’s about a kind of relationality where we are there for each other and yeah.

Tsige

I love that, I love—love as like a practice space outside of institutions or nation state. That makes me very happy. I feel like that is similarly love feels like—it feels like—I guess like a liberatory safety outside of structures like care—like either care with myself or networks of care—people I care about. Home is like this weird [makes sound of home/goo] in between gooey space—shouts out.