“Utopian Entrepreneur” by Brenda Laurel

Work for peace.  Speak for peace.  Tell stories for peace.  Make music for peace.  Write books and make movies and build websites for peace.  Do culture work that corrodes extremism and intolerance.  Manifest peace.

Brenda Laurel describes in this book the concept of popular culture as the language used by cultural workers to interact with popular culture itself. Popular culture is the language used to discuss different topics such as politics, religion, ethics, and action. Cultural workers do culture work when they act or create because they believe in what they’re doing, because they think it’s a good think to do. To applicate knowledge or truth means to believe in humanity, to believe that humanity has the power of shaping its own destiny. Cultural worker has a strong social responsibility having the power to change people’s mind (or at least trying to do it) in the sense of helping people asking themselves simple questions as: What is the meaning of this?  Who am I? What are the world and I becoming?

Culture work is action and design using different tools: storytelling, persuasion, technology, and economics. Cultural worker is actually an activist and an artist as Brenda Laurel defines helself. What really strikes about her book is that she describes her very personal professional experience in a professional way. She is a utopian entrepreneur because she believed in something and fought for it. She was sure that even a professinal failure wouldn’t have meant a social one. Purple Moon, the company she launched had a project dedicated to create video games for girls. Even if even the website they created was socially a great success, the company had to be shut down. But the passion Brenda and her group put in the project of investigation what kind of video games would little girls be interested in playing with made their work a social success any way. Their goal was to do something socially positive in the business world. It is true that an artist works in the art world whether a cultural worker worls in the popular world, but when the artist creates for a positive social purpose the line between artisi and cultular worker becomes almost invisible. Brenda Laurel is an artist, a designer, a cultural worker and an activist. I wonder whether I could be able to work and create in such a perspective, at least this is what I would like to.

I was surpised by receiving this book 2 days ago……still no sign of the other one, but it’s a start! I was amazed by the design of Utopian Entrepreneur, very innovative and appealing.

Reading responses to Utopian Entrepreneur

Laurel writes, ‘we construct ourselves out of two deeply intermingled kinds of materials: our life experiences and our culture context.  We are the product of both the stories, we hear and the stories of our lives.’

1. How does your research project reflect your life experiences and your cultural context?
2. How would you apply Laurel’s thoughts to your experiences in Second Life?
3. As a Utopian Entrepreneur, how would do relate your finding and initial discoveries to this week’s readings?

Methodology

This week’s readings concentrate on methodology. It wouldn’t be useless to describe all different kind of methods. I’ll concentrate on the ones that might be useful to my research project.

Qualitative research would be the basis of my research as it provides human behavior and the reasons that govern human behavior. Qualitative research focuses on the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of decision making based on the analysis of documents and materials.

Case studies is an important research method, especially during the beginning of my investigation process:

Determine and define the research questions

Select the cases and determine data gathering and analysis techniques

Prepare to collect the data

Collect data in the field

Evaluate and analyze the data

Prepare the report

Action research might be appropriate to my research project. This method associates research and practice. Working on an immediate problematic situation requires the constant combination of theory and practice. I need to try out my theory (that the use of video and audio resources can give people a better understanding of foreign cultures) in a real situation where practitioners are University students.

Critical ethnography is a method based on cultural relativism. Cultural relativism is the idea that any belief or action must be judged in relation to its place and in the unique structure of the culture in which it occurs and in terms of the particular value system of that culture. To fully understand a foreign culture and to study a foreign language easily we must consider the relationship between knowledge, culture, society and action.

My Research Question

Internet is a powerful learning tool. How can Internet be better integrated in education, in the language learning process? Learning a foreign language means also learning a foreign culture: How can Internet video and audio resources can be used as a cross-cultural tool? How should the online learning environment be designed in order to integrate those resources in a natural way?

Out-of-order

Hello everybody….

I’m sorry to inform you that I won’t be able to be online in SL this week and that I won’t be able to post any responses. My PC is out-of-order: I hope I won’t have to change it! I have access to a pc at University but only 20 minutes a day Another problem: I haven’t been able to login to New School webmail or blackboard….any time I tried between 4-11 a.m (New York time) there were connection problems with New School’s server. This is kind of frustating considering that we should be garantee a 24 for 7′ access.

Sorry again. Enjoy this week talk.

Media Ecology….questions

Question #1) How do you react to these 2 statements: Information has nothing to do with communication, or with media. It is not just information that must be free, but the knowledge of how to use it. Would you say that the processes of remixing information and of hacking into it are the same?

Question #2) Which aspects of Second Life would you consider literal and which one magical? Did the designers of SL reach the goal of creating a balanced (between literal and magical aspects) “alternate reality kit”?

Media Ecology…responses

Media Ecology is an interdisciplinary field of media theory involving the study of media environments: “the study of media environments, the idea that technology and techniques, modes of information and codes of communication play a leading role in human affairs.”

“Report profile image violation”: since yesterday I noticed that in every youtube’s user page there’s this writing. Is this an exemple of DRM? It probably is. My technical knowledge is not stong enough to jugde if it was possible to be aware of the fact that someone is using our product? Would I mind if another user try to imitate my technique? I don’t think so. But I would probably mind the use of images I took or videos I shot as I do consider them as a private and personal souvenir…a picture of a specific moment of my life. Even in this case…I would I discover the misuse of my, let’s say, picture, within the neverending quantity of products published on the Web?

I don’t agree that hacking is freeing the information, if the hacking is just a copy and not a personal and creative product. A new product would be helpful but just a copy would just be a repetition that wouldn’t enrich culture in any way. I think we should distinguish between the possibilities of creating new products that can get inspiration from someone’s else works, technical or by contents, and just copying someone else’s works.

The freedom of information is another, but different important point. I consider the freedom of having access to information in its pure form, without filters that could alterate the content. The Web is certainly considered one of the most impartial way of getting a complete information, but unfortunately this is not completely true: there are technical ways to censor the information on the Web, and governments that use these possibilities, for example the Chinese government. So I wouldn’t talk about freeing information as the same problem of remixing or hacking information: the first problem is about having access to information, the second one is about creating new contents by “getting inspired” from already existing contents.

Culture should be free as a way to enrich our knowledge. The Web is a revolutionary means to have access to knowledge of different level of quality for free, especially Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is really the site of experimentation and innovation. I just ask myself if there’s a lack of brand new ideas or if getting inspired has just always been the way to create and develop new content and new products; simply before there were less chances for amateurs to publish and to contribute to popular culture in a practical way ?!!!

Free software or not? Hard to give a one-way answer. We probably need both of them: in order to develop useful free software we need shareware payment ones. This is one of my limits: I can’t understand how we could have good quality software if there are no investments…That’s why I’m not in the marketing field. Of course I would like to can get all the softwares I need for free, especially the ones for digital design.

The balance between quality and quantity is also an important issue. The DIY (Do It Yourself) concept is intriguing and challenging: it would just be important that people wouldn’t become too presumptuos about their results. If we surf over the Net, we have probably more chances to bump into poor quality products that into good quality ones: we need to be patient in order to evaluate the contents. But it is important that everyone can have the right to express themself and give a contribution to popular culture!!!

Media Ecology

Through this week’s reading on Media Ecology:

Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars? Digital Cinema, Media Convergence, and Participatory Culture. Henry Jenkins’ article regards the idea of intellectual property by describing the symbiotic relation netween popular culture and the products of media companies. Popular culture takes inspiration from the products of media companies, filmmakers in the case of Star Wars. Easy access to technologies has encouraged fans all around the world to “remix” their favorite film. Digital media and portable technologies changed the direction of popular culture giving birth to participatory culture. Participatory in the sense that both media consumers and media producers participate into it. The web, especially considering web 2.0, is nowadays the site of experimentation and innovation. The web is the most important showcase for cultural production, giving visibility to alternate media productions, DIY (Do-It-Yourself) productions.

McKenzie Wark’s essay “A hacker manifesto” describes the hacker class’ interest of freeing production from the ruling class. There is a conflit between hacker class and vectoralist class. Hackers are producers while the vectoralist class own the vectors, which are the means by which information moves. The vectoralist class owns copyrights and trademarks. Knowledge is the goal of the hacker class, not education, even if our society gives more importance to education than to general knowledge.

Randall Smith’s article “Alternate Reality Kit” describes the possibilities of new media technologies. It emphasizes two aspects: the literal use of new media technologies and the magical one. Nowadays the designer has the power of choosing between reality and magic. The designer has also the freedom/power to modify reality. His ability lies in knowing how to change reality depending on the purposes of the digital of the digital product (education, entertainment, art…). How does the designer decide when to implement a capability magically instead of literally?

Culture…The surprise of Ethnography

I read Richard A. Shweder’s article after reading the one about Nacirema society. This way I could better understand why ethnography is so important for graphic design research too.

As Richard Shweder says “ethnography is about discovery. Skillfull ethnography is about making some room for the creative imagination and some disciplined intuition”. And absolutely important is that ethnography is about entering the field without predefining the domain of interest and without presuming that you already know what is universal. The process of discovery is a process that should be followed in everyday life: it would be a good way of keeping mind widely open in order to be able to participate the flow of life. If I had to think of an experience happened in my life, I would think of my first period of study in China. I did go to China for studying different times and even if I didn’t go there to make research on the community, but just to study the language (my major during my BA was Chinese language and literature), I did try to participate the flow of life of the community. This was I could always live there in peace and armony with everyone and their culture.

Reading the articles on ethnography and autoethnography (I never heard of autoethnography before reading Ellis & Bochner’s article) reminds me of my Chinese experiences. I completely agree with this statemente “understading the others is a process by which you will find something within yourself that will be the bridge to understanding difference”. if we are aware enough of this we might have the chance during our life to discover and develop the complexity of cognition and emotional structures that we have within ourselves.

The point for me now is to use the qualitative research method of empathizing, imagining, interpreting, narrating, contextualizing, and exemplifying for design research. It is true that desing research is qualitative research, not quantitative research, especially for the objects of study, both subjectivity and contect dependent realities.

Culture…Body Ritual among the Nacirema

Nacirema society….this is the first time I’ve heard of this culture and its society.

It is quite amazing; if I consider America from a European point, or just an Italian one of view, I would never imagine such a culture existing in XXth century.

I first tried to read the article without any point of view, especially without thinking of a particular time and place this society was/is living in. From the brief introduction, I could understand that the article would have been the description of a society, the Nacirema society, where “attitudes about the body” have a pervasive influence on. I tried to get involved in the detailed description of all the rituals, of all the people taking part in those rituals, the magical practitioners, the medicine men, the holy-mouth-men, the natives… The attention they pay to their mouth and all the rituals related to this part of the body was really astonishing to me. Such an attention to all the details being part of an entire society certainly left me speechless but more and more curious. My curiosity is the only point of view I chose to read the article the first time.

Now what? Still no prejudice, but…this society is a North American society analysed in the ‘50s. By chance I take a look to a book of American ADS of the ‘60s I have in my book-shelf: icons and images that gives a certain idea of the American culture and society at that time that wouldn’t leave place for the Nacirema society. Where was Nacirema society at that time? And nowadays? Hidden from far and above, beyond the crudity and irrelevance of magic, from a developed civilization point of view.

 This reading was another chance I had the opportunity to take to open my mind and to reconsider my origins and the origin of my culture too: every step I take in my life, in the society I live in, a higher stages of civilization society, is one more step the Nacirema group takes in his rituals, in the learning of their culture, a reminder of Clarke’s Third Law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.