Why are these places empty?
overheads
Just a few imperfect thoughts about thinking too much.
You belong to me
‘cos it’s getting blustery out there.
Future of Online Video
FOOV (can’t wait for future of online media – FOOM! True Believers!) was yet another kudos-tastic #amp09 production – top marks.
When talking about the future of online video, there’s a not very interesting conversation about what sorts of whizz-bang & weird innovations we might be able to make up. There’s another, more frequent but equally uninteresting chat which is how we can turn the visual media of the past into something that might just work in the hypernetworked, digital world. What is fascinating is looking at how the things that people are already doing now which work well in a networked digital world, can be applied to areas that haven’t seen them yet – ie how can we more evenly distribute the future, which is already here.
So interesting was this cafe-style set of conversations that I only managed to take part in two: firstly, can “Big Brother” survive in the Qik-enabled panopticon, which was most amusing because it does work for the Nineteen-Eighty-Four version as well as the Endemol production.
I then went on to talk about the implications of conversational media (especially things like phreadz) on Higher Education especially on the teaching side, though we rambled all over formal vs informal, online vs offline relationships etc etc.
As always, you kinda had to be there. Tweets were tagged with #amp09 and Phil provided a rezpondr page. Penny Jackson was collecting audio impressions. Stuff will probably bleed out of my ears sometime later.
The Overland Project
Back in Mayfair this week, just round the corner from the squat…
We went along to the opening of The Overland Project, an exhibition by Sara Haq based on her trip last year overland from London to Thailand. She and Michael Chaplin reported on a blog and via twitter on their way, but the Alexia Goethe gallery in Dover St is hosting a show of a selection of the thousands of photographs she took during the trip.
The gallery was absolutely packed upstairs and down- but I caught a couple of minutes with Sara out of the private view frenzy to hear a little bit more about it all.
Standing room only…
Definitely the busiest tuttle so far – we had nearly 70 people signed up on the wiki and although they didn’t all make it, the numbers were swelled by many more who hadn’t said they’d come.
For the first time, for those who still have no idea what happens at a tuttle, I did what I’ve meant to do for ages, I wandered around with my recorder and captured reactions from some of the folk. Mike doesn’t like it being called podcasting, as you’ll hear, so welcome to Tuttle Radio.
This is also for those lovely Lawsons who are clearly pining for something tuttlish.
Running Wild
On a lighter note…
Triangles
At Amplified we had an interesting series of exchanges around relationships.
I asserted my belief that in a 3-way relationship, say Alice, Bob & Carol, then Alice is responsible for her relationship with Bob and also responsible for her relationship with Carol, but that Bob and Carol’s relationship is none of Alice’s business.
That’s my belief. It’s what I try to practice in life, although when you do start to try to practice it, you see how entrenched in our social dynamics is the belief that we can tell two other people how to run their lives or believe that in some way we are looking after either of them by trying to make their relationship “work” or “better” or maybe “work better”.
“What about gossip?” I was asked. Yes, good question. Again, I try, I really try not to indulge in gossip anymore, it doesn’t do either of us any good, although I don’t deny that it can be absolutely delicious.
None of this is to say that I think myself any better than anyone because of this belief, it’s just what works for me.
There was an interesting point where we were talking about it and there was some disagreement. Someone asked for a show of hands as to who agreed with me. Funny. I think maybe one or two hands went up. Did I change my mind? Nope. Did I suddenly think, maybe I should start interfering in other people’s relationships? Nope. Forty years of llife has taught me not to stick my nose in. Peer pressure isn’t going to swing it.
Do as I say…
How do you change the world without telling people what to do? Forget changing the world even, how about getting anything done or created at all? I guess that’s one of my big life questions.
Because telling people what’s good for them and what’s best for all of us and what they should do that I’m not already doing – isn’t that the only way it’s going to work? Isn’t that what marketing and politics is all about? Don’t people need to be told how to live better lives, what things they need and what they don’t need, what they really ought to stop doing straight away? Otherwise, then what would happen?
It does seem as though there is no other way. Except, oh dear, we have a rather major blind spot. There is no other way as long as it’s me or my pals who are doing the telling, but the moment that you’re telling me what to do, you’re telling me how to live my life then I will resist – to put it mildly. Sometimes I will resist violently, sometimes more subtly, in fact sometimes so subtly that even I might not notice that I’m resisting, but nonetheless I will resist.
Oh yeah, and I’m quite good at recognising when you try to make me think it was my idea in the first place.
Aren’t I?
Bonus audio: Vinay Gupta’s lecture on Infrastructure for Anarchists (70MB) at the Temporary School yesterday
Perfect Path 