[-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology

Wed Jul 7 19:01:22 EST 2010

Hi Helen,

I fully agree with you that commonality is a necessary condition for the emergence of a community... which, in turn, will constantly transform the very nature of that commonality through interaction between its members. I also believe that commonality can be subtle, or even contradictory: a community may form even emerge out of people holding antagonistic positions. Let me illustrate:

Last year, megafone.net was invited to do a project in Manizales, Colombia, involving two groups: displaced people (people who had to abandon their home towns because of violence) and de-mobilized people (ex-guerrilleros). Obvously, these two groups are in extreme positions, which can be understood as the opposite ends of the Colombian conflict. However, they were all willing to work on the project. Antoni Abad, the head of megafone.net, went there and started the project by working separately with both groups. Each group would share a common mobile phone, from which the participants could send tagged images and audio clips to a web page. The goal for each group was to create and share a "community memory", in which they would reflect their daily life. Each week, the phone would change hands and would be passed on to another participant. 

Surprisingly, after a few days of activity, the participants themselves asked Antoni if he could arrange a meeting of both groups. And then it happened: displaced and demobilized people were shaking hands and even hugging each other after realizing that they had so many things in common. According to our Colombian hosts, something like this had never happened before.

The web-based community memory they created together is available at megafone.net:
http://www.megafone.net/TEMPORAL

If I have to see this project in retrospective, I must say that the web page both groups created using mobile phones unexpectedly worked as a pretext for their face-to-face meeting. I also have to say that this community's creative production of itself is reflected in the folksonomy which emerged from their participation in the project, which can be viewed here:
http://www.megafone.net/TEMPORAL/tags.php

The most relevant tags speak for themselves.

Finally, I must admit that my intention to start from a taxonomy of networks was maybe a little too far-fetched. I agree that networks are a good example of a fluid space, which can hardly be made to fit into a set of fixed categories. But I just wanted to try and see if we could characterize and find different types of networks, and see if we could identify which of their traits favor (or inhibit) collective creativity.

Eugenio Tisselli Vélez
cubo23 at yahoo.com
http://www.motorhueso.net

--- El mar, 7/6/10, helen varley jamieson <helen at creative-catalyst.com> escribió:

> De: helen varley jamieson <helen at creative-catalyst.com>
> Asunto: Re: [-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology
> A: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> Fecha: martes, 6 de julio de 2010, 01:21 pm
> hi eugenio & all,
> 
> yes, i definitely agree that community (& trust) needs
> to be built on common interest or connection; with UpStage
> it is the technology/platform that is the specific common
> thing - otherwise it's quite diverse, in terms of individual
> approach, themes, ideas, & backgrounds. the word
> "community" presupposes at least one point of commonality,
> whether it's geographic or political or social. online
> networks allow us on the one hand to be even more specific
> in our commonalities, such as the UpStage community or
> another example would be Furtherfield, because we can
> connect with likeminded people across geographical &
> other distances; and at the same time it becomes general to
> the extreme, such as facebook etc.
> 
> the point of commonality can be subtle. i remember being
> shown MOOs & text-based role-playing environments in the
> early 90s by a friend who was really excited by it, but it
> didn't interest me at all at the time. it wasn't until the
> late 90s when i encountered Desktop Theatre & their work
> in the Palace that something clicked & the
> creative/imaginative potential was suddenly obvious to me.
> the difference was that i had connected with others who
> wanted to create theatrical interventions & performances
> in this environment, not just role-play for our own
> amusement; in some senses that is a fine line, but for me it
> was two completely different situations. now of course i
> look back on the early MOO/IRC performances & recognise
> the roots of my cyberformance practice.
> 
> this maybe is connected to what simon has just posted about
> the distinction between art & creativity ... altho it is
> a minefield to enter into ;) we could say that facebook is a
> creative community, but are people making art there? (&
> i mean making, not promoting/distributing). i am sure that
> some people are ...
> 
> i am a bit wary of taxonomies, my thinking is more along
> the lines of axel bruns & pierre levy - that taxonomic
> structures are no longer appropriate for the new "knowledge
> space" which is fluid, ad hoc & unfinished. networked
> communities are also in a constant state of flux, with
> evolving technologies & emerging codes of behaviour.
> 
> h : )
> 
> On 6/07/10 9:26 AM, Eugenio Tisselli wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > Helen, I find that UpStage is a very interesting
> example of an online community, since it states its scope
> (and thus its borders) quite clearly from the beginning.
> Networks like this make a lot of sense, as they can really
> help people with common and specific interests come together
> and collaborate. The fact that people in UpStage all relate
> to cyberformance may create a basis of familiarity, in which
> trust can be built from the bottom up. Do you agree? This
> may also happen within other networks where a common
> interest is made explicit right from the start. However, in
> "bigger" networks (ie. Facebook, MySpace) there is a
> tendency towards dispersiveness: there are myriads of
> groups, but they don't seem to be strong enough to generate
> a sense of community.
> > 
> > In order to find out how networks can facilitate the
> emergence of creative communities, maybe we could start by
> proposing a taxonomy of networks. We would certainly find
> that some types of networks favor the cohesion of focused,
> collaborative communities more than others. I am not aware
> if such a taxonomy already exists... I will look into this.
> However, let me propose an initial set of traits which may
> help kick start a general characterization of networks:
> > 
> > - Entry threshold: Can anyone join? Do new users have
> to be invited? Is there any kind of filtering?
> > - Openness towards emergent topics: Does the network
> allow its participants to create new topics, or is there a
> set of pre-existent ones which can't be modified?
> > - Openness towards group forming: Does the network
> allow the formation of groups of people with common
> interests?
> > 
> > Would you like to add to this list?
> > 
> > Melody: Although I haven't read "After Babel", I can
> imagine that Steiner maintains a certain coherence
> throughout his books. In that case, it might be interesting
> to study the relation of his ideas of "translation" in
> communication and "invention" in the arts. The concepts you
> mention do point towards an idea of creativity which is
> quite close to Steiner's "invention".
> > 
> > G.H. Hovagimyan: The points you make are very
> interesting. Can you elaborate a little bit more on the
> relation between art and language? I find that artworks can
> also arise from the sense of an impotence in language.
> > 
> > 
> > Eugenio Tisselli Vélez
> > cubo23 at yahoo.com
> > http://www.motorhueso.net
> > 
> >    
> >>      
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > empyre forum
> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> > 
> >    
> 
> 
> --
> ____________________________________________________________
> 
> helen varley jamieson: creative catalyst
> helen at creative-catalyst.com
> http://www.creative-catalyst.com
> http://www.avatarbodycollision.org
> http://www.upstage.org.nz
> ____________________________________________________________
> 
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> 