[-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology

[Eugenio Tisselli]

Christina,

It's very interesting that you bring up the question of "privacy" as a possible precondition needed for innovation (and, if I understood correctly, also creativity). But I wonder if "intimacy" would be a better way to characterize this "separateness" that an individual or group needs to develop cognitive processes in a staisfactory way.

As Scott says, networks such as Facebook are primarily designed to harvest user data for its use by corporations. Privacy, indeed, has been a big issue around Facebook, and more so lately, when extreme policies were found to be invasive. Many users left Facebook because they felt their privacy threatened, by flocking to "smaller", more grass-roots or focused social networks. But I think it's interesting to think about this also in terms of intimacy. As individuals, we tend to seek intimate spots in order to think, to reflect... to create. As groups, we also gather in places which are welcoming. These environments seem to propitiate the "invocation/evocation of the broad contents of the mind", as you beautifully put it in your question.

Can we think of an example of an "intimate" network?





Eugenio Tisselli Vélez

cubo23 at yahoo.com

http://www.motorhueso.net

--- El jue, 7/8/10, Christina Spiesel <christina.spiesel at yale.edu> escribió:

De: Christina Spiesel <christina.spiesel at yale.edu>
Asunto: Re: [-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology
A: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Fecha: jueves, 8 de julio de 2010, 05:44 pm




  
Dear All,



One of the clever aspects of Facebook was that it found a way to
capitalize (in mutliple senses) relationships that pre-existed in meat
world. That it is a panopticon is what keeps me disinterested in
participating. And this leads me to a question that rubs against a
number of these threads. Fair disclosure, it came up yesterday in a
face to face group I am part of. Is privacy necessary to innovation
(not necessarily artistic)? Follow up: is it necessary only to
individuals or can it be a feature needed by working groups as well? I
am raising this question not particularly with respect to protecting
property interests in advance of "publication" (although they may come
up along the way) but much
more with regard to psychological/cognitive processes.



Looping back somewhat in the conversation about the "utility" of art,
why it is important (and by art, I mean all forms/media of expression),
I have always thought that it represents the wider mind, gives form to
its integration, which is incredibly powerful and important. What do I
mean? The contents of our mental lives are big stews of the
present/past experience, fantasies, unconscious material of all kinds,
and yes, desire (=drive?), kinesthetic knowledge, etc.. Art making,
because it draws on all these sources can, quite aside from the
expressive goals of the maker, assure others that integration is
possible. And it gives permission to others to try the same thing. So a
more refined version of the question above is this: Is privacy required
to invoke/evoke the broad contents of the mind in either individuals or
as a result of group process? 



Christina

















Eugenio Tisselli wrote:

  Davin,

When I read your phrase

  
  
    And, if we live in a true community, our
ideas and actions
are bound to modify, be modified, contradict, and/or
complement the
negotiation of being.
    
  
  the rose-colored environment of Facebook immediately came to mind. You know, you can "like" but not "dislike", and people rarely disagree or contradict each other. You say that we are bound to be contradicted when we live in a true community, and I would say that we actually need to be contradicted in order to set arguments, discussions and debates in motion. The fact that we are here at empyre, not necessarily contradicting each other, but offering continuous counterpoints and different viewpoints, makes us all richer. Knowledge can emerge from disagreement. So, in the almost complete absence of a minimal quota of agonistic exchanges between people, how can a community emerge from Facebook? Are there so many contradictions and conflicts in the "real world" that we turn to Facebook simply to escape from them? Could we then see Facebook as an "anti-community", where we all just whiz by other poeple's walls, stopping only to acknowledge what we like and
 ignoring what we don't?

Eugenio.





      
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