I must create a system,
Or be enslaved by another Man’s;
I will not Reason and Compare,
My business is to Create.
- William Blake

if creativity cannot be taught, cannot be ‘made’ to happen, how best to approach the assumption that it can be fostered or stimulated within situations?

one answer to this is a consideration of the meta-structure of flows that characterize a particular situation. I have talked about meta-structures elsewhere. to begin with, each instance itself is only ‘separated’ from everything else through a process of abstracted defining. separation is an abstraction, a reduction of the actuality of holistic, immersed, and connected being and presence. so, best not to consider separation, distinction, and particularities. rather, retain a sensibility to all possible flows, or flow in general. easy to say, despite the (English) language being wholly insufficient to deal with such concepts. (Csikszentmihalyi is pretty good at making a natural language argument for flow, though he comes from a completely different direction than me, the conclusions are similar, will explore that when I shuffle through some of the references…)

so, back to the meta-structures. okay, suspending my suggestion of a holistic approach, a specific example of a meta-structural condition is Lighting. the Light which suffuses a situation presents a crucial ground on which the situation unfolds. deep into a dialogue on education, I recall Wolfgang mentioning to me that he had a class (possibly more) meet in a space that could be completely blacked-out. brilliant! later, during an advanced digital media class that I taught at Boulder, I had the students curate one day of class a week, so we would meet in different places. once we met at a horse stable and had class on horseback. another time, it was in a fully blacked-out room in the belly of the CU library complex. it altered the nature of the ‘classroom’ encounter. how did it alter it? I don’t recall the de-briefing that we followed it up with, but it was clear that, obviously, the qualitative aspects of encounter were shifted. one of the reasons I did this kind of shifting of venue was to instill a sensibility of how encounter is shifted when immersed in different regimes of flow. it provides a starting point to any discussion about, for example, online presence (versus presence in a dark room, or presence on a horse, or presence in a living room, etc) it seems obvious to state that varying the Lighting in a typical sterile classroom can go a long way to repairing the alienating damage inflicted by an architecture of oppression which typifies many place of learning. of course, Light is a much more profound force that can cause all sorts of nuanced environmental effects. Light is the essence of flow (as one ‘form’ of flow which is distinguishable to our evolutionarily-determined embodiment). it is essentially infinite in its range of affects.

if creativity is a condition of (open) flow, then a consideration of (all!) the conditions of flow impinging on a situation is imperative. intuition itself is a good indicator of this. most people will immediately acknowledge that a typical classroom situation is not conducive to learning. they may not be able to nail down a reason, but they instinctively know that there is something wrong with the flows or something antithetical to true learning that are present in those kinds of spaces. I have used the example, when teaching at Uni Bremen, where we have a room with a particular vibe to it. it faces a busy autobahn not far away, but at the same time is very ‘stuffy.’ windows open for ‘fresh air’ (what’s that exactly?); windows closed for the noise from the autobahn (what’s that exactly?)

the open window presents us with a chaotic flow of energy. (it’s cold! (it threatens organismic viability)) (it’s noisy (it threatens social cohesion and social/academic viability)) the closed window is safe, flows are restricted, controlled by buffers, circumscribed by protocols (ANSI rating of windows, sound-proofing in ceiling/walls) — no more threat, no more noise; but wait, we can’t breath! (organismic viability threatened again!). there was a rough consensus that the room had a negative vibe ‘because’ of these issues and more, so, we took over other spaces, and sought out other situations where we could encounter each other in the course of the workshops — in restaurants, in cafes, by a lake, in the woods, in a beer garden, in museums — and this clearly gave a solid grounding on a range of qualitative potentialities of affect. when flow existed, everyone forgot about where they were, they were immersed as though in air. we are not consciously (much) aware of the particularities when flow occurs, but rather when flows are constricted. which makes sense in that viability depends on discovering novel sources of energy and extant known sources.

this kind of intuitive, overt, covert struggle goes on constantly as we try to balance the imposed social protocols along which flow has been directed versus the desire to optimize our own (idiosyncratic) viability by seeking out a combination of known/unknown and controlled/chaotic flows for ourselves to immerse within…

in another instance, where I was to do an evening seminar at the University of Art and Design in Zurich which is housed in a magnificent example of Bauhaus architecture. I was brought to the space where I was to meet with the students. the room was horrible — bad acoustics, bad ventilation, bad furniture — so, before the talk started, I had about 30 minutes to hang out, so I took all the furniture and made chaotic piles of it around the space. a bit in protest, but also just to see what would happen. the immediate thing that I observed when people started to arrive was that, after a fraction of a second trying to apprehend what was going on, people zoomed in to seats as though they were being guided by wire. it was a good example of how intuitively people will operate to idiosyncratically hone in on the situation that appears to most augment their viability as they understand it… some people added to this a sensibility that they would decrease the overall level of disorder by re-placing the tables and chairs in some kind of order for others. I recall that the discussion after the seminar that evening was very intense and power-full. I suspect that any learning situation that combines a strong intellectual component with some kind of physical, embodied element will have a far more powerful affect than either of those in isolation.

and so on. enough for today.

The official blurb for the workshop:

This workshop will draw on Hopkins’ international experience in facilitating creative encounters in the context of the Temporary Autonomous Zone. With an open structure for engaged and focused dialogue, the workshop will explore a powerful energy-based worldview that can open up new awareness of social, cultural, and natural systems. The dynamics of collaborative human relations confined within an attentive space is guaranteed** to generate provocative and inspiring outcomes. Creativity is, by definition, about the formative flow of energy between living organisms. We will move through a variety of environments (including on the river by waka) as we share life-time in the workshop. The workshop will augment the processes of any creative practitioner with a profound, situated, and practice-oriented conceptual toolbox that address the following areas and more:

(Keywords in no particular order): energy, creativity, thermodynamics, technology and techno-social systems, art, attention, entropy, learning, media, networks, participation, process, virtuality, creative action, human presence, Light, human encounter, mediation, concentration, optimization, pathways, meals, sustainability, simplicity, synchronicity, auspiciousness, and serendipity.

**on the condition that you bring along your entire Self, not merely your body, mind, and spirit

The originatory creative act perhaps requires a (painful) level of social isolation — is this the source of the ‘tortured artist’ syndrome? This in contrast to the integrated flow of socialized encounter with the Other which is (also?) the locus of creative action. hmmm…

Yes, as an originator man is solitary. He stands wholly without bonds in the echoing hall of his deeds. Nor can it help him to leave his solitariness that his achievement is received enthusiastically by the many. He does not know if it is accepted, if his sacrifice is accepted by the anonymous receiver. Only if someone grasps his hand not as a “creator” but as a fellow-creature lost in the world, to be his comrade or friend or lover beyond the arts, does he have an awareness and a share of mutuality. An education based only on the training of the instinct of origination would prepare a new human solaritariness which would be most painful of all. (Buber, 1974, p. 114)

ed: This short note is the epilogue for the Migrating:Art:Academies: book. Otherwise because the heavy duty editorial tasks, I didn’t have time to write something more comprehensive on the ideas surrounding movement and learning, maybe next time!

Further, deeper, wider, (more iconoclastic), what is research? Merely to search again? The broadening of a socially-sanctioned knowledge-base? A connecting-of-threads to historic tradition? A discovery of what’s been before? A following of a pre-existing trajectory (but with more fuel for a higher, further flight)? What about re-sensing instead of re-searching? Immersing senses in a situation again (related to German entgegen ‘opposite’). Sensually immersive: sensing difference again (from another situation), and reflecting on that. Or, better yet, riding the gradient of that difference, and using that potential, that power, that source, to express from.

Re-search — to circle again, more intensively — but to remain detached. Neither academic detachment nor technological objectivity are the way that is needed now. We need immersive, connected, aware, and sensual be-ing. In order to apprehend what the world needs of us. An empathetic engagement with all expressions of life-energy.

Creative action — as a descriptor of the wide field of human endeavor — sets up instances of resonance by configuring energies in novel ways. What does it mean to configure energies in novel ways? Assuming the universe is infinite, there are an infinite number of configurations of energy. Bringing energies in juxtaposition, resulting in the creation of difference: it is at the edge where resonant flows arise, along an expressive energy gradient. This juxtaposition of energy requires the Self to take on, generate, new pathways of flow. But how to initiate, how to self-start this process of potentially resonant expression?

One who speaks is such a path-maker. Gathering embodied energy, using the applied protocols of individual body merged with adopted social forms, we speak. Energy flows from one idiosyncratic body to the next. As energy flows, a gradient arises. From where there was undisturbed silence, an arrhythmic disturbance occurs. Within the modulations of energy applied by the body, within this applied difference and at the point where this intersects the presence of the Other, this is where change originates.

Change and difference? Dropping Cartesian temporal and spatial frameworks, what then is change? Can it be reduced to simple difference? Both can be traced back to the (apparently) anisotropic distribution of energy in the universe. This is a primary condition of life. Creation legends depend on the differentiation of energized matter from that-which-is-not, they depend on the creation of levels of being which exhibit difference. And it is along and within those differences, fundamental boundary conditions, where the creative, the unexpected, arises.

up to the hot springs with the rust-e crew on a business/pleasure trip to nail down details on the sustainable creative practices conference/festival next February. we have a substantial cabin to hangout in and passes to the Hot Springs pools. the resort hasn’t changed too much since the last time I was there twenty years ago or so. the weather conforms to the springtime-in-the-Rockies norm: changeable. with a tendency to unusually wet and cloudy which no one complains about. too much water is rarely even a nuisance in the West. the 14′ers, Mt. Princeton, and Mt. Shavano are mostly invisible, but when the peaks appear, there is plenty of fresh snow above tree-line. no motivation to do any serious climbing between the tight schedule of meetings and mandatory soaks in the hot water.

first we have an orientation meeting with the resort management who are really enthusiastic about the conference plans. to be sure, February probably isn’t the busiest month up there. there are a few ski areas within 50 miles, but weather conditions can be severe at any time, and the hot springs aren’t right on a major highway.

the afternoon is spent up in St. Elmo being introduced to the Ghost Town Guest House bed-and-breakfast with one of the owners, Sharon. along with her husband, they have just recently finished a fantastic place right in the town, and are currently the only year-round residents.

the evening starts with a long soak followed by a sumptuous dinner that leaves everyone ready to crash after suitable aprés aprés. Chalk Creek can hardly be called a creek this weekend, with all the snow-melt and fresh precipitation, it is raging and fills the moist night air with a power that erases all other sounds.

the day’s activities are interspersed with memories of trips to Tincup, over the pass from St. Elmo, and jeeping with Collin, Joe, Mike, Chris, Cindy, and the usual eclectic posse that would converge at Joe’s family cabin there. ages ago. another life.

month swings into May seeming. no May Day celebrations here. the Red Scare still too enfolded in natal-national psyches. no bonfires like in dark-less high-latitude white nights.

sotto voce: Being fixated on the material aspects and ‘things’ that spin off from our activated and energized presence in this world is probably where you are going wrong in pondering the “art-or-not” question. Experiencing the energies that arise from creative action — they may come ‘packaged’ in a practically infinite range of forms — it’s more a question whether you (as an individual made up of the accumulated life-pathway that you have experienced) have any opening to the energies that are carried by that form. Technology mediates the expression of creative energies (technology is the accumulated set of mediatory pathways for the expression of creative energies). So, it’s ‘merely’ a question of what paths of expression and reception are open between you and some Other with whom you are in creative exchange.

iDC list gets annoying and rewarding at the same time. but what of life spent on the keyboard? the topic is teaching… and the transition of the teacher into the link jockey.

sotto voce: While the offerings of IP_based networks seem unlimited, and in rhetoric, the superlative of unlimited is often applied, I think it is important to keep firmly in mind that it is not a space of unlimited knowledge nor is it a space of neutral knowledge. And, also, in this time, it is not a space of embodied experience aside from eyes absorbing statically-framed EM radiation, ears hearing sounds disconnected from their source, and fingers twitching across a very limited place. Not to mention underlying ideologies which accompany each form of mediated connection (largely invisible but very much real) — among others, that of consumption (extractive resources, electricity, and thus, the globe-spanning world that we exert irresponsible dominion over). In this regard, the (limited)vastness of that knowledge-space seems a bit tainted and out-of-touch perhaps. Expensive and consumptive. Exclusive, reductive, and reified. A teacher is a catalyst, and is one who, simply by being an Other we encounter in life, presents us with the unknown. If we trust that Other, a world opens up that was previously unknown, and (if) we (trust enough to) apprehend and engage it, it changes us, we learn. This unknown world is sourced in the entire comprehensible universe, and is available through that Other. These encounters may take place anywhere, anytime, and can be had ‘for free.’ We need only ‘pay’ the Other with our attention, our life-time, and life-energy. It seems that in our formal techno-social educational systems, these potential encounters with the Other are (being) replaced by more and more socially-standardized systems-of-relation (protocols, curricula, government mandates, abstracted monetary instruments) which seem ever more intrusive to and even suppressive of potential open encounters. This limits the creative potential of the outcome. The cumulative effect of this social hyper-formalization-of-encounter — because learning occurs precisely at the edge of knowing, not within the known — is that we look elsewhere for the dynamic of coming-to-be (learning) that keeps us alive and growing. To me this is the ultimate source of the loss of vitality that affects the Education World, a vitality that ultimately does not rest on technological mediation but on human encounter. Yes, human encounter is always mediated by the vast range of social protocols and tools, and learning encounters may happen within highly mediated (‘virtual’) spaces, but when we allow those encounters to slide continuously into more and more mediated spaces, the life-time available for less mediated human encounter shrinks. I think that this represents a wide loss to learning, education, community, and creative potential as it moves to extremes and forgets what it is predicated upon — the originary encounter between the Self and the Other.

the creative use of digital networks needs to proceed with an understanding of the underlying principle of human relation as the situated potential for the real exchange of energy. I have stated this so many times, in so many variations that I’ve gotten tired of it. is it obvious? or useless?

the following from the introduction to a conference taking place in London at the London School of Economics in April. I’d like to go, but can’t afford it. no scholarships available.

Taken together, these developments establish a new socio-economic environment in which information-based operations, and information goods and services acquire crucial importance. This is clearly shown in the rapid ascent to economic dominance of internet-based companies that demonstrate superior data editing and information management strategies. New commercial possibilities steadily develop around the production, ordering and distribution of information, as data become interoperable across sources and older forms of information (e.g. image, text and sound) are brought to bear upon one another. But information growth has wider social implications as well. The involvement of information in every walk of life redefines the relationship between information and reality, and reshapes the social practices through which information is stored, retrieved, understood, disseminated and remembered. Increasingly, information mediates between humans and reality. In this context, the activities of ordering, making sense, evaluating, navigating and acting upon information step onto the centre-stage of contemporary life, impinging upon skill profiles and personal choices. They often do so under conditions in which the established boundaries between individuals and institutions are rendered shifting and negotiable. — Jannis Kallinikos and Jose-Carlos Mariategui

chilling out, some waiting, planning the spring which seems to be falling in place (nicely). a second teaching gig comes up, et al. as well, some other future teaching possibilities. falling into some order and potential, although the bigger questions remain unanswered. the discipline and focus to create in textual realms remains the greatest challenge.

meet Wolfgang at the Pergamon and on to an exhibition at the Mitte Museum am Festungensgraben that some of his students participated on. Sensing the streets.

Farben, Töne, Gerüche – viele Sinneseindrücke, Stimmungen und Empfindungen werden beim Gang durch eine Strasse ausgelöst. Um diese sinnliche Wahrnehmung städtischer Räume geht es in der Ausstellung “Sensing the Street. Eine Strasse in Berlin”. Sie ist Ergebnis eines gemeinsamen Forschungs- und Ausstellungsprojekts des Instituts für Europäische Ethnologie an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin sowie dem UNI.K –UdK. Studio für Klangkunst und Klangforschung und dem Institut für Kunst im Kontext an der Universität der Künste Berlin. Am Beispiel von drei repräsentativ ausgewählten Strassen – Acker-, Adalbert- und Karl-Marx-Strasse – wird der Strassenraum multisensorisch, d.h. visuell, auditiv, olfaktorisch und taktil erfahrbar gemacht.

I meet and talk to Friederike, one of the students involved at some length, mainly encouraging her with the project — they have, indeed, made a very nice manifestation of research. and this is only the first of three absolutely different exhibitions in different venues entirely in the next two weeks. I would wish to be around for the other two. it was an opening, so that it was crowded and hot, but we got there earlier than the crowds and got to check out the especially provocative audio and video works.

Art is the image of a human being, This means that when a person is confronted with art, then they are in fact confronted with their own self, and so open their own eyes. And so it is the creative person who is addressed, their creativity, their freedom, their autonomy. And this is only possible using the concept of art, however, this concept must be made more comprehensive. You cannot and should not deal with this concept traditionally and say: that is what artists do, and that is what engineers do?. but you can get beyond the concept. And the only escape route is a more comprehensive concept of art that is anthropological and that is taken seriously: that everyone is an artists, and that every person has a creative core. — Joseph Beuys

Wolfgang and I continue our conversation a bit later at a cafe (after I meet Barbara, an old friend of Volker’s!), then I race back over to the Pergamon for a longer walk-through, then it’s back home to get some packing done. Roman is there and asks for some help editing a copy of the manifesto that he and Alexei are working on for Transmediale. then I crash for the early wake-up.

as the share-nomad node, participate remotely at the conference at MIT MiT5: creativity, ownership, and collaboration in the digital age in Boston with share people, as share.nomad node. Martin was there from Bremen along with quite a few other nodes being represented.

Loki’s interest in photography prompts me to request an image a week at least, to continue to hone his sharp & creative eye. this is the first in a series that I’ll be posting here.

second day of the workshop. hard to read the situation. everyone is in an unfamiliar environment. the ambiance in the place is calm. but hard to decode. we are strangers. landing from one planet to another. it is unusual for me to be sharing the direction of the workshop, or at least trying to. there is an internal process of deference, but that clearly is not collaboration, I need to retune myself. it is hard for me to find a balance because of this. on my part. waiting for the students to make the 0900 morning start request to appear after losing most of the first day to stragglers who arrived late into the evening. there is a lack of awareness of the meta-structural social dynamics that would facilitate a greater intensity. but this is the normal condition. intuitive actualization is possible, but going through the gymnastics of cognitive understanding first seems the only way to bring back the operational authenticity of that intuition. either that or just get drunk with them all night, see who is the last standing.

I think what we need is critical consciousness. Critical consciousness towards the entire construct of technology. Technology is not neutral, it’s not God-given, it doesn’t come from the burning bush, it doesn’t emerge from the world of antimatter. It’s something that human society makes. So all of human society is inscribed in the machine in this sense – and then the machine becomes a force to reinscribe something on society. And you can have the negative aspect of this, and you can be truly creative – why not. I’m absolutely not denying anyone’s creativity. All I’m asking for, for myself, is critical consciousness about technology. — Hakim Bey

just as I had observed and inferred from bits of data that I have seen over the past few years. that the US is in serious crisis regarding the precipitous drop in the numbers of creative talent entering the country. graduate students are not turning up in droves as they used to, populating all the hard-core science, business, and technology programs at the best US universities. they are staying home or going to European, Asian, and other societies which are not so repressive and paranoid as the neoconservative fascists in power now in the US. so, reading the article “America’s Looming Creativity Crisis,” in the Harvard Business Review that enumerates the extremity of the situation only confirms my observations. empire continues its decline with the deluded self-knowledge of ascending to the millennial realms of power and righteous glory. ideological and religious dogmas constricting scientific research along with repressive and exclusionary visa and immigration practices lead the way to a rapid decline in creative capital that was once a primary mechanism in US global hegemony. in the metric introduced in the article, the Global Creative Class Index, the US already ranks behind 11 other countries, including Iceland — a statistic that somehow hasn’t reached Icelandic eyes yet, for it is sure to make front-page headlines “Icelanders More Creative Than Americans” when it does.

leaving Bremen after one of the most energizing workshops ever. so good to be back on a roll. inspiring conversations and interactions. crowded train, standing at the exit door for an hour, ipodding, staring out the window until it’s so dark I only see myself, change trains at Hamburg Dammtor and catch up with Christian on the way home from work. exhausted. but energized. the weekend is slow and relaxation-full. Chris takes a shot of Steffi and I before I head to Finland.

Sven asks me to write something about the radiostadt1 stream from last fall. so, I generate the following brief spin on that special living-room-to-live performance venue that I enjoyed while hanging in Colorado:

Thanks to the fat-pipe running from the University of Colorado research grid to the neoscenes living room in Boulder, Colorado, USA, along with access to a Helix server that the university hardly ever used for live streaming, neoscenes made about 10 major live audio/video streaming performances wearing only underwear and socks while drinking a cup of tea. (sorry, no photo’s ;-) “Bring it on home!”

It’s a bit strange, sitting on an office chair rescued from the dumpster parked on horrible-cheap 1980′s shag carpeting, pumping out an acoustic signal to a situated live urban-drinking audience halfway around the world. How to get the groove on? The inspiration of the moment has to be local and global at the same time. The senses of the body have to pick up every shred of remote input to judge the reaction, and with only those minuscule bits of evidence plow ahead with faith in connection. “I’m thinking about you!” Concentration, attention, focus are all keywords in the process of throwing embodied energies from here to there, across a network that is defined by thin wires snaking across thousands of kilometers. Connection is where the Self and the Other actually make energized contact, whether it is bridging 2 meters or 20,000 kilometers. neoscenes gets up early (GMT-7), studies the possibilities, brews some tea, maps out a course of action, and dives into the work-play.

First, gather stores of internal energy, then facilitate a material infrastructure, and then, with care-full intensity, send that energy out into the network.

The gathering process is critical. It starts with listening and looking while moving through life, an awareness of the surrounding fields of flow. Keeping the “be here now” above the need to re-produce history. Over time and space neoscenes accumulates a deep archive from this lived process of looking and listening, be-ing. These fragments are a very real energy bank of electromagnetic impulses waiting for the proper moment to be re-configured and revealed. It is from this archive that the remix arises. Serendipitous elements are facilitated in every performance — unstable real-time inputs that reflect the energy of the moment. With the proper concentration, these are combined with a flow from the archive, and whatever remote vibe is coming from the receivers at the other end. It is impossible to guess the result. Except in the deep space of psycho-spiritual anticipation.

Configuring the technological infrastructure is a time-intensive and energy consumptive process — and it’s important not to run out of energy doing that, else the actual performance suffers. Fighting the technology is an old story, not a very nice one, but it comes with this kind of work, it comes with any work involving technology (which raises the question, what exactly IS technology? Well, maybe it’s whatever means any human uses to reconfigure their internal energy in order to pass that energy along to an Other.) A balance between twiddling with tools and the ensuing energy loss must be precisely found. Simple = saving energy for the communicative act itself, not worshipping the binary coders. Creativity happens in unstable autonomous zones.

Finally, the performance. The flow, transmission. Point-to-point. Real time. Is the receiver open to the right frequency? Is the transmission to narrow? Where is the groove, especially when the sonic space is outside rhythm and rhyme. When it is full of Ghosts of the past. Speaking tongues gone by. From ether to ether to ether. And while passing through bodies again and again.

You had to be there. Revolution is a live praxis. But you can still be here now, in which case, you can pick up the vibe still ringing from radiostadt 1, through the trans-temporal ether.

my entry for the exhibition womanifesto Procreation/Postcreation in Bangkok that Varsha asked me to join — turns out that she uses the simple entry as a main element of the exhibition poster, invites, and publication (it’s the spiral line of text)!

____________________________________________

procreation:

creativity is energy-in-motion

the essence of motion, movement, is energy

the quickening of the spirit

a look around to apprehend the Other

a dialogue begins

small flows of energy between two

fundamental creation, life

one plus one equals three

primal phenomenon

__________________________________________________

the raw suspicion that stability is a straw dog. (a term that Anthony first raised into my consciousness). in that conversation in a bar-restaurant somewhere on the Delaware River a long time ago. wondering what happened to him, no words from him in many, 18 moons ago. while now in the moment, the Leonids rain down from the sky. he was supposed to be going to Flagstaff, the wanderer that he is.

the last morning of the Media Lab workshop, I have something of a microscopic revelation in the number six tram. understanding that I am talking deeply about the power of presence as a creative strategy and practice, traveling around Europe preaching this, and all the while, at the same time, leaving my little boy behind. a little boy who is not so little anymore. everything seems impossible for this family. relationships are crushed and fragmented, distorted and removed, applied over distance and imbalanced. hmmmmmm.

another thread that came from the workshop this week were characterizations about the externalization of memory and the problem of re-presentation. with memory removed from the embodied self, there is an erosion of personal autonomy (the external localized memory is the technological network — which is not a network after all, but a lateral hierarchy). the act of placing memory externally reifies what would be an internally dynamic condition of evolutionary presence. and contributes to an ethical or even moral slide. (assuming that a static condition of memory is problematic — haven’t meditated on that one so much.)

here in Jyväskylä, dinner with Niina, finding out about the local situation (email never provides enough communications spectrum), in a hotel on campus by the lake. seminar tomorrow. a late call, like those many others, of the sadness I have caused to an Other. by not respecting innocence. and not providing the right dreams.

the carefully tended dirt field, sitting between the Joensuu Technical center where the University Media Department is located, and the new track-and-field center is the scene of changing activities. when I first arrived in September, there was kids football (soccer) matches happening in the afternoon and Saturday mornings. then, one Saturday, there appeared a large group of 30-to-50-something men playing what I would term a Finnish variety of lawn bowling. suited to the available materials, the game pieces consisted of 12 or 14 solid wooden cylinders about 14 cm high and 7cm in diameter, painted orange-red, and two perfectly cylindrical bats (unlike a US baseball bat), each with a smaller diameter end for grasping, and the rest about 8-10 cm in diameter, and maybe 80 cm long. the small pieces were set up, stacked two-high in a line, spaced about 20 cm apart, at one end of the playing field. each player then took turns flinging the wooden bat at the line from a distance of about 20 meters. the object, like bowling, was to knock down as many of the pins as possible. I gave Sanna a call to see if she knew what it was. she didn’t, but called me back later after researching it. turns out the game is called kyykkä. it’s an old Carelian sport that is not commonly played or even known anymore. anyway, that game appeared only once (check out http://www.kyykka.com/ for the full scenario, Finnish only, sorry) and now half the field has been taken over by the installation of two hockey rinks. waiting for the chill. there is an outdoor rink not far away with refrigeration pipes, that was fired up two weeks ago, and there are daily hockey workouts and figure-skating classes held in the middle of a pine forest, near the indoor swimming pool.

public works are apparently locally organized, possibly with some EU support, as this is literally a fringe region. there is the Technology Center, also EU funded, the location of the Media College‘s facility along with tens of small technology companies, the local University Biology Department, and state-of-the-art media (digital teevee and audio) production studios, Cadimef.

yet over all this, repeated in medium-to-large towns across Finland, there doesn’t seem to be much creative output. but maybe this is an outside view — the system internally cranks onwards.

the severity of conformation that the grid of streets in this town applies to life reaches deep. the trees are beautiful. in their military ranks. this area of Finland was on the front line of the Winter War. it has affected people.

an informal survey shows that in cars with both male and female occupants, only one out of 40 are driven by the woman. there is a stylistic difference in gender relations. uniformity. in the course I taught in the spring, every student had a partner. diversity. eNwhYCee. thinking of that other place is a tremendous cultural leap.

and feeling under the constant socialization-forcing gun of language. used without contextualized knowledge, having to explain nuance.

some kind of practice must evolve from. no, creative results arrive from a deep practice. but the depth of practice must be no greater than is sustainable with authentic living.

such a tired way to go. and this text is so poor in the actuality of living, the stresses, (where is my sense of humor, no clown alive no more). Scandic living cooled all that right out of mind and soul. here in the heat. seeing everything new and clear. nothing to be spared. heat waves: vibrashuns. repainting the bathroom. work is meticulous with what is there. what is available. that’s also the result of living in a conservative environment too much. but it is a solid lesson — to create with what is there. nothing more or less clear than that. okay, because of the ultraviolet shift in Light at high latitudes, the wavelength of the cumulative radiation adsorbed is short, intense, and accurate. in the equatorial latitudes, the red, IR shift is long, wide, and soft, casting everything seen in voluptuous shimmers of distance between the wind devils racing across the dirt parking lot of the Yavapai horse racing track. between that and the moto-cross track where a race is laconically kicking up clouds of Light-tan dust that later traces the advance of the wind devil. all things are clear, whatever the wavelength, and where ever they fall on the ground, scattered by monsoon weather coming. desert monsoon.

but really, the things that could be added here, as I scan images from my Aunt Mary’s collection of mostly Kodachrome images from the 40′s, 50′s and 60′s of her life, as she saw it. creating an archive in digital form from analogue boxes of things. turning the color tracings and reducing that to patterns of magnetic polarity. that is energy. period. driving life and everything else forward.

cafe9.net, the final chapter. forum with the folks from around about. the city, Brussels, is moving into the next state, as that is going. European Development. mapping into the spaces of being. the view from the hotel is raucous. the day after the ending day of the networking and creativity workshop with a nice compact, concentrated group of participants. five cultures. and seven points-of-view. synthesizing. in both form and function. small successes, leading to interventions of energized sparkings. crossings, no genetic alterations. no need for that. (reading in the paper about the GM fish. (faugh!)) needing to counter these migrations and permutations of the matrix of living energy.

potato and chicken soup, a local specialty. chocolate mousse.

Lev was suggesting that the skyscraper was the ultimate (or crucial) symbolic and real social expression of the Industrial Age, and, in the course of his fascinating lecture, pondered what might be the crucial expression of the Information Age. immediately my thoughts went to the concept of LifeStyle as being that edifice — LifeStyle becomes the penultimate expression of the consumer society. this false edifice of success(-full) surrender to a socially mandated norm or behavior. the vapid Look of it all.

and what about creativity — too much attention paid to aspects or results of it — and no observations that is is a continuous, (NOT sporadic) and peak experience. and, at the same time, it is cyclic. and it involves both the creative and destructive principles. it is not a commodity. it is harmonic, balanced from all scalable viewpoints and sensual contacts.

some notes I wrote later:

In this era there are (pseudo)nomads who dance around the monuments of the global information age. These monuments — status, wealth, and power — together combine in a single ever-shape-shifting edifice with no seam, no crack, but with the seductive and bewildering attraction of Joseph’s Technicolor mantle aLight and burning with the fire in Plato’s cave. The edifice is Life-Style. Its ornamentation is Fashion.

The sky-scraper stands shadowing the physical self as the ultimate manifestation of the material Age of Industry. Turning around from this retrospective view, eyes still dilating in the deepening shadow that stretches across the shrinking self, there, Babel-towering over head is the edifice of the Information Age. That shape-shifting edifice is Life-Style. It has no common social locus but rather embodies the fantastic and distributed presence of hierarchic global networks. There is a definite place for (pseudo)nomads in this structure. They are the promoters and producers and simultaneously, the perfected consumers. The techno-fetishists, oiled and gleaming skins with secret odors of plastic and metal, hair blazing in a variety of artificial colors, clothing sleek and clean, with alchemical accouterments of chrome, molybdenum, vanadium, coltan, and titanium. They sit at terminals, eyes reflecting the ever-changing scenes. They are pose-able props in places of transit, they drive late model vehicles, they move through airports, hotels, underground shopping malls, and parking garages at all the same harmonic and unstable high speed — the speed of Kali Yuga, the last age of the Hindu, when the complete seduction of fantasy and sin takes over all human endeavor: righteousness and godliness forgotten. It could be that these fashionistas used to be called the imperialist vanguard, back when the name was self-applied, back when Life-Style was more centralized, more focused on and applied to the edifice of physical empire. But conditions have revolved, memory is digital and discontinuous, and now the center is everywhere, the perimeter is ringed by the delocalized and networked center. The vanguard becomes the Other, apparently, never the Self.

A Closer Look at the Edifice of Life-Style

It embodies the entire projected reach of globalization, consumer fetish, and the materialization every whim and fantasy. It projects a uniformity of being and a homophobia towards the Other more virulent than any previous oppressive ideology ? woven into the warped threads of sexism, racism — to the extreme that the Other must become the same or become nothing at all. It is omnipresent and changes its skin every day. Its appearance and being are only skin deep, yet it stretches to envelope the soul. Faustus. Its reach is infinitely small because the human self is constricted, compacted and appended to a materialistic worldview of intellectual and physical property and ownership. Life-Style then needs only to expand into small space of the abandoned self. Skin deep. Soul flown, it is easy. It has only one dimension left.

most of the texts that I have been absorbing in the last weeks deal with creativity as a discontinuous (non-cyclic) and anomalous event rising above the normal “level” of daily life. this view is an obvious artifact of materialist thinking that treats life as a linear (singular) trajectory and that the expressions of that living can be wholly reduced linguistically to various statements and formulations. accepting that this view IS true within its own limited framework (the history of rational thinking), a critique would have to deconstruct the whole facade of Western philosophy in order to make a substantive attack on the position. this writer is neither qualified nor interested in making such a frontal attack which would simply be tossed aside in the dumpster of academic discourse. instead, understanding that to even name a philosophy or a philosopher that stands supporting that edifice would only give power to a system that I believe is fundamentally flawed, I have chosen to proceed intuitively, and perhaps poetically, making enormous and possibly scandalous generalizations, leaving the normative conventions of the English language behind, and simply dive into thoughts that are reflecting through waters muddied by 42 years of thrashing around in a world that seems more intense and striking everyday. by this methodology, combined with a desire that these texts be only the opening for a dialogue with the Other who might come on it, here in the sea of hyperspace, I will begin.

not being a practicing Buddhist, it is dangerous to rely on the familiar and frequently mis-understood and mis-interpreted dialectic of East – West. however, buried in the residual mudflats of surrounding language, there are things that stick between the toes as one wanders between the tides.

tides return to smooth all things into harmonic ripples, the size and orientation of which are determined by the velocity, depth, and laminar deviation of the liquid flow and alignment of the planar particles of complex alumino-silicates.

there appears to be a fundamental difference in these flows.

there is lacking the recognition that with creativity (creation) there must come loss or destruction (decay). the suddenness of the creative impulse is mirrored (in time or not) by a natural tendency (of the Second Law of Thermodynamics).

suddenness, speed, quickening, all relate to special conditions being met in the movement of energies. humans are specialists in the dangerous play of resistance to universal flows. at the same time their energy-sensing systems are highly tuned to the movements of energy around them, their internal ego systems distort and filter. this dichotomy might be explained by the intervention of ego-forces which distort the reading or interpretation of the raw sensual mechanisms with often dire results. observing children moving through their lives, one sees a more or less direct line between sensual experience and reaction. age gradually moderates this.

results of this resistance are so manifold and compound that, well, what’s the point in exploring the obvious.

at any rate, this resistance to flows is also illustrated obliquely in natural systems where all processes are in fundamental movement, and there is simply scalar differences between different events. earthquake vs fertilization of an egg. while an earthquake is considered a precipitous event of violence, it is a result of continuous forces cycling on scales that are beyond human capacity to imagine. fertilization could be seen as an ultimate violence. or ultimate expression of the cyclic nature of energy movement. but there is never a resistance, only the expression of the true nature of the material configuration of energies.

Buddhist thought provides a more accurate model to follow. at least it makes sense as translated across the gap of language and culture. ego is the source of resistance. or there is something that causes us to resist. and construct complex mechanisms for justifying the resistance.

stretch and bend. images for nowhere. not finding. and so on. notes. undirected speaking at self instead of with Other. cleaning glasses. pick up sticks. associative words. not carving much of. and else-wise. activity. suggesting things. actions. or others. words the world of words. the other world. is it possible to bring what is expressed in words into practice? what is alluded to. what is suggested, instructed, what is dreamed. what of the world without images or words?

everything is potential energy.

class discussions about creativity spin wheels when they cycle through the endless threads of mediative agents instead of concentrating on the origin of energies that subsequently bring about the entropic transformation of any mediating substance.

what happens when language is no longer understandable? can it be any longer the tool that it once was? or does it wedge like a piece of corned beef between the teeth, only gotten out with wet-nailed picking that leaves politeness behind, or by jamming a lucky stiff toothpick right in there to pry it loose. otherwise it sticks only to disappear gradually through the the digestive action of salivary juices.

I finally meet Kenneth, from Haparanda, across on the Swedish side. he’s the editor of a culture ‘zine called N66. we came into contact last fall when he was trying to find some support and information to support a Millennium project he was doing linking the cities of Tornio/Haparanda and Arkangelsk in Russia. he interviews me with the mind to juxtapose my view of creativity and technology and that of a Russian artist that he knows. in our conversation, I restate many of my views concerning the dangers of technology versus the real possibilities of using technology as just another mediative tool that stands between the self and the Other. life rolls on and then doesn’t.

this entry is added in retrospect, in a strange retrospect of distance, surprise, and chagrin. that notice of the passing of two close relatives was communicated only weeks after the fact. that the moment of death was forgotten and by the time it reached my ears, the fact was cool and detached. and more sad. My Aunt Winifred passed this month (6 April 2000). My Uncle Howard, two months into the short future (June 24, 2000). I suppose no surprise in the synchronized passing, as they lived close as far as I ever knew. and now, gone. recollections, remembrances are the best way to prolong the energies that they spent in this incarnation. and I shall construct a few in the next weeks to fulfill this need.

in the north, a mellow plane flight over a white-on-white landscape. sun rising. always conscious that clock-time is off from sun-time here. humans delegated that GMT rules, when, by global position, high noon comes at 1330. makes the mornings dark and thick in the winter, no doubt. arriving, Helgi meets me at the airport, and straight to school with a cup of coffee, and jump into the delayed workshop. rolling through several topics and introductions. working online afterward, then happen by dinner with Helgi and his family. on to the guest flat which is quite nice, like the one in Tornio. getting significant email done — critical business things crowd in. related to the movement that is about to break on me in 11 days or so. logistics. and in several conversations during the last couple weeks, I understand that I have reached a critical point in creativity. it’s not there! the ability to reflect, meditate, ponder, let the mind float in silence has crept away. not noticed, as I was busy doing other things.

on the above note, couldn’t project energies any longer into this space, but days have pulled me forward through nights as Rilke’s rider, “riding, riding, through the day, through the night, through the day, riding, riding, riding, through the night.” and threads build into a new fabrics to wear as old ways get worn pressed between body and outer beings. too many things happening for me NOT to be noting some of them. case I forget what happens now, off in some future time, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe when this medium itself is not readable anyway. creating archeological ruins in the moment, of the moment. head has been full even eyes can’t see sometimes now, thought-forms dragging along despite outside influence. or just accumulating. (summer is a time of storing and accumulating, and it is already gone.) surrounded by successful people. why is success important? it seems to have a deep evolutionary reading. having or lacking the tools for survival. strong body, intelligence, creativity, cleverness, adaptability, conserving resources for lean times, positioning the self (security) properly when the body declines.

From Jordan on nettime: Maybe we need to EXTEND the market as a network, rather than resist it, developing ways of speaking through it.

Ted wonders what it would be like to assume that the intellectual vanguard “is in fact a reactionary force trying to protect its political patrimony by imposing traditional interpretations and ideals.” We have to be brave enough to realize to what extent this may be the case.

sotto voce: The vanguard is (should be!) that which is not engaged in criticism alone. The vanguard alights where action and word intersect. I was thinking that one measure of the efficacy of a critical point of view would be to see if that point of view could be translated into a way of living to be taught to a child! As an educator, I am seeing the glaring gap between the academic mind-set and the reality outside that students have to deal with and indeed is their milieu. I am not surprised when the answer to the question “what did you learn in the last 12 years of education that you use in your life?” is an uncomfortable silence from a roomful of young adults. They KNOW what they need, in many instances, the skills for humane survival, but they also need something to live for. They don’t get it through the system that built criticism.

Jordan’s observations about the futility and hubris in the thought of re-constructing a new way from parts of the old are quite accurate. That argument seems to be a repeat of those which vainly (in retrospect) dealt with deconstructing the Master’s House with the Master’s Tools. Naming and confronting the enemy simply strengthens it (whatever it is). Best to turn and walk away on a new path.

I hope the critics live for more than the sound of their own and others’ words in their ears and eyes. The network is alive. The vanguard needs to walk the walk at the same time as talking the talk: the walk and the talk must fly in synchronous orbit around a life that is engaged with those around it both in cyber extension and in physical extension. There are people doing this, and have been doing this (quietly) for years as Brad rightly points out.

To quote Saarinen and Taylor (from imagologies: media philosophy):

1. in the praxis-dominated world of ultra-tech, the politics of critique must take a new form.

2. the strength of theory is relative to strategies for action. action must lead, theory must follow. in opposition to mainstream modern western philosophy, thoeretical and conceptual reason must serve only an instrumental role and thus give up its previously unchallenged position of supreme value in itself.

3. critique that is restricted to the realm of the literate and remains a literary project is no longer feasible as an effective strategy for action. Argument and objective analysis, pure content, abstract thinking, logic, and evidence, these forces of the word-centered world have lost their creative potential. Literate reason and the literary critic have become relics of the past.

When can we shake this reliance on the weakness of abstract reason and instead forge interactions of dynamic presence and being?

Christmas over. I made a big breakfast for everybody on Christmas morning, and then we opened presents. Janet gave me a copy of David Byrne’s book, Strange Rituals, which caught me somehow … I have always enjoyed the Talking Heads (one of my first concert and album reviews was the Heads’Fear of Music disk which, although I didn’t quite understand the minimalist urban perspective at the time, in retrospect was quite a good album. And of course, in-concert, the Heads were explosive — lead by Byrne. I also caught a solo concert by Byrne, in, of all places, the national symphony concert hall in Reykjavík a couple years ago. I remember sitting, no, standing on the chair, dancing, while this older lady sat next to me and didn’t move a muscle — she was probably only at the concert because it was (literally) cool to be there. Byrne really has been all over the map creatively, and not in a spotty and dilettante-ish way, but in a struggling (and successful) movement testing, trying the responses of various media to see if they will be the proper vessel for his message. Anyway, this book, Strange Rituals, is pretty interesting. It is a photography book primarily, with some text. I found it inspiring (not to mention that Janet posed the question in the accompanying card — When’s your book coming out?). I have been toying with the idea for some time, doing a book, and have made a few attempts at a beginning, although I haven’t had the time to make a more serious start. The images are there, and I guess the daunting task is the editing, layout, and treatment of text. I have gone through several working titles, the latest being Rituals of Movement, Rituals of Place. I guess it resonated, this Byrne book, the images had a vein of the raw and concentrated aimlessness with a thematic non-thema that concentrates energy on the flow and energy behind the images … A bit hard to settle upon, but striking. I have been put off of my own work by the over-riding need not to make a “best-of” type project, searching for the images that are most accessible from the traditional photographic view. Editing has always been such a challenge for me. Some where, I have the wish that another person would come along and help me do the editing, the critical construction of this structure — a book — as I am unable, so far, to do it myself.

I am free to behave, to create, and to act in ways that have never appeared before on the Earth. Maybe. I am free to invent myself and my culture from scratch. I have, like Stephen Daedalus wished, cut myself off, released myself from the dead weight of history. The pressure of constantly having to build my own support system, my own philosophy, my own religion, my own unique way of life makes me slightly neurotic. It is more than one person, or even a living community or nation, should have to bear. America, for many immigrants, is the insane wilderness it always was. It is still the land of limitless dreams, boundless desires, and insatiable lusts. And of greed, psychotic outbursts, and subtle oppressions. — David Byrne

On to work at LANkaster.com. Plenty to be done. And money to be made. I move onward into the day. Lawren left early this morning, driving to eLAy, to get back to work. Doug came up with Jason and Angelique after flying in to Phoenix from NYC via Las Vegas.