[iDC] Downtime & Play

[john sobol]

Yours was a great response to a great post. Further thoughts below...

> How to be aware of the alienation inherent in the use of a mobile 
> phone?  How to be aware of what has already been lost in the 
> technologies that we have no conscious memory of it NOT being part of 
> our social system?  Not so easy.  But, by identifying the principles 
> by which this process of social determination takes place, and by 
> which we each are changed, it is possible to tease out the mechanism 
> and move to a more powerful position of a (radically?) modified lived 
> praxis to reflect the knowledge of these principles.
>
> A critique is a weak response -- an altered life-praxis, based on 
> principles, is much more powerful!
>
> Cheers
> John
>

I think that one way to do this is to invest in practices that 
specifically address cross-cultural dynamics, because it is in the 
technologically-induced dislocation between user cultures that both the 
frictions/dangers and opportunities are made manifest. WE may have 
forgotten what it was like before email, but 5/6 of the world has yet 
to discover what it means to live with it.  To learn what we have 
forgotten we need merely speak with someone who has yet to connect to 
the web. Too often we forget that this simple solution is available to 
us (not meaning to preach here, but it's true).

In designing technologically-mediated social environments for 
communities that have yet to embrace the disempowering eConsumer 
paradigm, human issues inevitably come to the fore. In such contexts, 
when alternate models of engagement are introduced at the outset of an 
encounter with a new technology, alienation becomes just one option 
among many, including others that may clearly offer far more rewarding 
and transformative delights. And in addition to the usefulness of such 
projects in the particular, they also enable "identifying the 
principles by which this process of social determination takes place, 
and by which we each are changed",  in the general.

For example, a while back I spent several years connecting street kids 
to their own creativity and knowledge via digital media. The critical 
understanding I gleaned form my (and their) cross-cultural explorations 
has valuably informed many completely unrelated media projects since. 
It enabled the articulation of what has proven to be a potent 
methodology based not on what technologically-savvy people thought 
would work but on the fusion of the principles of experiential 
education, collaborative creative improvisation and cross-cultural 
mediation. The technology came into play as a set of enabling tools 
only when our human goals were clear.  "Why?" is a question that must 
be answered convincingly to engage people who have not been 
indoctrinated.

Anyway, right on Trebor and John for your inspiring insights...

John Sobol

--
www.johnsobol.com
bluesology • printopolis • digitopia