Is Web 2.0 Redefining the Arts?

This is probably way to vague to get much traction on the idea--but I'll give it a shot.  What motivated me to think about it like this was the recent spat over Jon Bon Jovi's odd claim that Steve Jobs and iTunes killed the music business.  This is like saying that the printing press killed writing.  But in terms of user generated content, and some of the other features of web 2.0, such as free access, the Arts hold a rather special place. In so far as we are all 'artists' to some extent, in the sense that we all can be creative beings, we all generate content, espcially as children.  There is no doubt that using technology has increased our ability to be creative in many new and exciting ways. Often the Arts are juxstaposed to STEM, or other more 'career' based disciplines like Journalism or Business. Yet if you loosen the idea of the arts to be inclusive and think of them as creativity it is universally applicable. This is definitly the way Richard Florida is thinking about creativity, as cross disciplinary or interdisciplinary.  And so we now have "intermedia" where, for example the Minnisota Arts Organization "Intermedia Arts" emphasizes the multdisciplinary feature of the Fluxus movement and clearly identifies it with the creative economy of that state. The computer immersed new media form of hyperformalism is another great example of the synthetic influences of emerging and hard to define artistic forms, allowing viewer/participant interaction and altering of the experience of art.

Here are some snaps I took in Second Life of DCSpensley's ZeroG Dancers performance.

See the full gallery on Posterous

The silos of disciplines tend to distort and homogenize people and ideas. The arts are no less suseptible to this. User generated content and the internet's explosion of resources and opportunites brings me to wonder if there aren't opportunities in what we consider the "Arts" to be. If we re envision these silos and see the blending and emergence of new forms of media as offering us the chance to by pass the limited view of a juxstapostion of these disciplines-- suddenly the world looks different. What is technology? What is Dance? What is Film? What is Music?  What is visual art or Painting? They are blending. The boundaries are getting fuzzy.  Here is a young student of mine working in these new areas. Be patient with the video, its not fully revealing the effort, but it gives you the idea.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13406727

So the question is this: If we blend the disciplines--espeically the Arts, we open new possiblitlities to enhance all of the disciplines. The seeds of STEM are growing in the Arts--

 

 

New Media at Dibden Center for the Arts

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13406727

Time and Money in 21st Century Learning

The recent article in the New York Times Digital Age Is Slow to Arrive in Rural America is right on topic for my recent posts on the topic concerning the effects of broadband on rural Vermont. This has already occurred in other places, its is not like this is the first time.  I wonder what lessons there are out there to lern about this? It is something we are sharing with many diverse places around the world right now.  In the article, Kim Severson makes an important point about particpatory democracy. How quickly that access to participate and its denial is becoming important! There is a similarity between this and the dictorial relationships (fear of punishment) we have to education in this country.  Those with access and an understanding of how to learn using the internet have a big advantage over those that are on the other side of the divide.  What makes us think this is any less true for our kids?   

Jeremy's Design

It always bugged me as a kid that in the best part of the day you had to go to school.  What does 7:00 to 3:00 have to do with education? It has to do with an industrial view of the world. Bankers hours; do you still even go to a bank, how about the Post Office?  Learning can happen at any time, can't it?  With broadband more so than ever. We have constricted our productivity into a temporal and budgetary model that is no longer sustainable. We have the shortest school year of any developed county.  Can you imagine not getting into a rush hour? What would happen if we looked at learning 24/7? If the model for the school week followed a more organic schedule? Cohorts with common projects or skills levels contributing to real world projects.  More time can be available for off site projects.  Meeting at the school for a couple of hours during the day for meals with their group to reflect or get more specialized instruction on a relevant topic, experience a performance or workshop. This is school as Hub, a self sustaining, food and energy producing, living laboratory and home for the students on their learning journey. The place of Best Practice, state of the art labs, equipment, resources--but accessed across a much wider time frame and in a much less regimented way. Yes, it is much more complicated.

Zach's Design

What kinds of budgetary impacts would a different temporal model for education have? We can see what is happening in Higher Education to get an idea. An explosion of on-line and hybrid models. Global access to excellence, diversity and collaborators. Can we resolve the paradox of a staggering global teacher shortage and unemployment? We need more teachers, not fewer.  If our drop out rate is 50% we are at the tipping point. Just the market forces alone would legitimize an alternative that can include those who have given up.  Maybe it is just like electricity. All the waste to get to the end--a systemic problem with monolithic networks. It is worse in electricity, sometimes 90% line loss!!  Our schools mimic this in many ways. The web 2 transition to a losely connected network of whole systems makes much more sense. Local, glocal, hyperlocal solutions to waste, energy, food, education. We can leverage the affordances of broadband to break out of the dominant paradigm and save a lot of money doing it. I have to think about this.  Teachers would have hybrid responsiblitlies as well, fluid, flexible, allowing for Professional Development.  For example, there are opportunities to create on-line versions of their successes, for which a market exists based on use, that extends their earning power into the global economy.  This is a vision of lateral wealth creation and meritocracy, bringing the best to the top. Would we need fleets of buses to simultaneously transport students? Once and a while, for special events. Facility use would be spread out accomodating different populations of learners and projects.

Nancy actualizing a design at the board

It is very strange to see schools closing!  Is there an opportunity? Those edifices of conformity--Let the students redesign the archaic educational buildings into living green machines. Consider the facility if it could become a hybrid of teaching, creativity, learning, business and science. There is no reason that these redesigned facilities would not only be carbon neutral, but could easily produce food for the community--not only lunch as the Center for Ecoliteracy suggests. The ecosystems of the sustainable community are the curriculum. This is the doorway to all the interdisciplines, a place for passion driven learning to propogate and bear fruit.  Let the geeks geek and the thesbians act. Empowering the students this way would be a step in applying Buckminister Fuller's idea of Design Science. Beginning with design, allowing students to create their own learning environment; accustom them to solving problems using desing and allow them to effect real change in their environment --so they can see the consequences of their decisions.

Vermont Red Fox, Lamoilllevt

How Would Universal Broadband change the culture of Vermont? Micro Grids and Media

Its a big question. I am challenging myself to envision the world with 100 gigabytes download speed, here in every house in Vermont.  I see some big changes possible with education, which I started to get at in my last post.  The excitement is that with unfettered access to the internet the world's on line repositories of knolwedge and the global brain are there to help you learn anything you want. Anything. Anytime. For example, a network of micro grids makes much more sense than a mega grid for our electricity generation, distribution and uses.  The technology and resources are there to create your own micro grid and be liberated from the constraints of the power companies. In many cases this is possible. I envision the smart grid as the web 2.0 of electricity. In other words, that user generated power is the future.  The cost of the power lost in transmission along monolithic networks are precisely the savings we can leverage to decentralize our grid.  This democratization of power is part of the paradigm shift accompanying the transition to the digital age, and a component of what it means to have ubiquitous broadband here, or anywhere for that matter.

But think about simple day to day commerce. Instead of each household going out to buy individual items, things are ordered all on line and a delivery service stops by as needed.  This makes much more sense than endless trips to the store; instead, fleets of energy efficient delivery vehicles routed through a GPS system would be making their rounds.  More people would be working from home, perhaps tending gardens or creating other localized enterprises, perhaps participating in their children's education.  Travelling would be special, not a commute. This reduces emissions and wear and tear on the roads.

I see a dynamic between a hyperlocal intensification of  the value and understanding of location and a global connectedness that is always learning, being exposed to diversity and new ideas. The content that we create as we live our lives in our specific location is like the water beneath our feet and flowing around us. Our content is, like our water, our most precious resource. Is it being bottled and sold? Our media is as vulnerable.  Equally our participation in the emerging global web is what defines and adds value to our unique content. That dialogue with the global village is an important part of what rejuvinates our ability to be creative and innovate.

I would love to hear how you envision what effects broadband to every household in Vermont would have.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Rest Stop Living Machine on Route I-89, Northfield, Vermont

How Would Universal Broadband change the culture of Vermont? Micro Grids and Media

Its a big question. I am challenging myself to envision the world with 100 gigabytes download speed, here in every house in Vermont.  I see some big changes possible with education, which I started to get at in my last post.  The excitement is that with unfettered access to the internet the world's on line repositories of knolwedge and the global brain are there to help you learn anything you want. Anything. Anytime. For example, a network of micro grids makes much more sense than a mega grid for our electricity generation, distribution and uses.  The technology and resources are there to create your own micro grid and be liberated from the constraints of the power companies. In many cases this is possible. I envision the smart grid as the web 2.0 of electricity. In other words, that user generated power is the future.  The cost of the power lost in transmission along monolithic networks are precisely the savings we can leverage to decentralize our grid.  This democratization of power is part of the paradigm shift accompanying the transition to the digital age, and a component of what it means to have ubiquitous broadband here, or anywhere for that matter.

But think about simple day to day commerce. Instead of each household going out to buy individual items, things are ordered all on line and a delivery service stops by as needed.  This makes much more sense than endless trips to the store; instead, fleets of energy efficient delivery vehicles routed through a GPS system would be making their rounds.  More people would be working from home, perhaps tending gardens or creating other localized enterprises, perhaps participating in their children's education.  Travelling would be special, not a commute. This reduces emissions and wear and tear on the roads.

I see a dynamic between a hyperlocal intensification of  the value and understanding of location and a global connectedness that is always learning, being exposed to diversity and new ideas. The content that we create as we live our lives in our specific location is like the water beneath our feet and flowing around us. Our content is, like our water, our most precious resource. Is it being bottled and sold? Our media is as vulnerable.  Equally our participation in the emerging global web is what defines and adds value to our unique content. That dialogue with the global village is an important part of what rejuvinates our ability to be creative and innovate.

I would love to hear how you envision what effects broadband to every household in Vermont would have.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Rest Stop Living Machine on Route I-89, Northfield, Vermont

What would ubiquitous broadband look like in rural Vermont?

The tsunami of connectedness is reaching many rural areas of the world.

The telecenter, and inceasingly, mobile apps, are giving voices, income and information to the millions who have been muted by the hegemony of power or circumstance. Our society is shuddering from the transition of a fossil fuel based economy to a knowledge or wisdom based economy. Increasingly connectedness is described as a human right.  or see Timothy Karr's post: Is the 'Freedom to Connect' a Right? This includes calls for Healthcare as a Human Right.  (Why? as information is shared the monopoly of the health care system is weakened, comparable and alternatives emerge that do not involve drugs)  But, if you build it--ubiquitous broadband--will they come? Oh yeah they will.  Will they stay? Maybe. How does it change a rural community? What remains? What evolves? What is lost or gained?

 

Vermont was one of the last states to receive the Interstate system. Farming with horses was still common in the 50's in the Green Mountain State. What was it like when electricity first came to town?  Are there parallels to the impact of broadband? No, this is something of a magnitude different from these events.  When I look at the school drop out rate--hovering around 50%--I can't help but wonder that broadband has the potential to disrupt our institutional structures in unforseeable ways. Would, for example, a student centric learning environment reverse drop out trends? Or offer something unique when the "plug and play" generation thinks about where to live? I try and imagine.

What would a re visioned school look like in rural Vermont if broadband was ubiquitous?  Each student had a notebook or iPad and the school was a wireless hub for the local network, and each home had 10 Gigs for download speed? What would You do? There is no constraint on time, as lessons are delivered in a hybrid or blended way, scyncronous and asyncronous, face to face and virtually. The teachers role was also..dispersed. And the curriculum is sustainability-ecoliteracy, to which all the other 21st Century literacy's connect. Cohorts of students grouped by interest, ability and passion--not age, meet 3 or 4 times a week, face to face at the school, or maybe daily in some cases, but return to their team projects and engagement in experiential learning; tending gardens, excavating archeological sites, making a film, installing algae bio reactors simialr to the ones at school, imagine. What happens to the need to transport students? Its reduced. What happens to large buildings that need to accomodate everyone simultaneously? The facility is re visioned as well; its footprint reflecting ecodesign, sustainability, labs, state of the art technology, presentation and performance space, seminar rooms, kitchens, gardens, living machines. The school could produce extra energy and food. The curriculum is the sustainable community and the systems that support in. The school becomes a microcosm of the home. Earthship, Earthschool:

Many more parents would be working from home, telecommuting instead of burning fossil fuels, available for their children. Teaching is going through a similar transformation. The apprenticeship model would be able to permeate every level as students appentice to teach as well. With incentives and encouragement teachers (and students) would be engaged with a global--not just hyperlocal--student body.  This too would lead to economic opportunites supporting excellence locally, with the cost spread out to the marketplace of the internet. Why should a good teacher be limited to one town, one age group? Those with the capacity and inclination could address the huge teacher shortage the world is facing. If the financial model was more spread out it would take some pressure off the tax rate, with further incentives to support apprentices and interns.

 

 

Picasso at the Lapin Agile

Dibden Center for the Arts presents Picasso at the Lapin Agile, written by Steve Martin, directed by adjunct Professor Margo Whitcomb, with lighting and scene design by Jan Herder. Dibden Center for the Arts is a participative learning community, at Johnson State College, in the Lamoille region of Vermont. The performing arts center is run 100% by students in the Associates in Technical Theater Degree Program.