Photo by Eamon Lochte-Phelps

The Performing Arts department has asked me to do an overnight review of The Builders Association production, Continuous City, this Friday. In preparation, I had the opportunity to sneak into the green room and speak with Claire Hallerau, Managing Producer for the Builders Association. I’ve re-assembled our conversation here.

 
Super Vision was a look into the side effects of our surveillance society, a digression into an Orwellian future. Contiuous City  seems to embrace a more hopeful future, with people using the technical tools on their own.

Super Vision wasn’t trying to be Orwellian, it was more about observation, but it was a grim picture. This show has an effort to be hopeful, and the decision to hire writer Harry Sinclair  was a way to make it ligher, more imaginative. Harry is a writer, director, and performer from New Zealand, writing on Lord of the Rings, amongst other films, and we knew he could help to bring a more hopeful narrative.

Continuous City is very much about relationships: How the father connects with daughter, Sam. The only way they know to connect is by video conferencing. In fact, they have talk more than they would if they were at home. It’s good and bad.

[This a really interesting paradox, backed up by the latest study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project: "The survey shows that these high rates of technology ownership affect family life. In particular, cell phones allow family members to stay more regularly in touch even when they are not physically together. Moreover, many members of married-with-children households view material online together."] 

 
In terms of the set design, The Builders Association always seems to put people normally relegated to the sound booth or the back of the theater right on stage. Can you talk about that choice a bit?

Photo by Eamon Lochte-Phelps

The video performers have been on stage, because they are part of the show. If we could put the sound designer on the stage, we would. We really like to have everyone that’s part of it out there on the stage. In this show, we take it one more step, our video designer is not just on stage, but really interacting with the characters. He is a character himself.
 

What kind of software do you use to choreograph the performance, projection, music, etc? 

We use Watchout to do everything. We spent a lot of time customizing things to make it work for the show. I don’t know all the sub-software that might be used, but it’s mostly Watchout.

You have a large tour scheduled for Continuous City, as you did with Super Vision. How does a performance like that evolve over time, as you move around the globe doing performances?

As the show travels, the setting changes to match the city. Sam, and her nanny, Deb, always live in the city where the show is taking place. They’re curious about their surroundings. In every city, the things that Sam learns about the surrounding community will change and expand. 

Another way is that the xubu website will continue to invite people to add their video stories, and the pool of the video we use in the performance will continue to expand.

• Minnesota Public Radio is hosting a discussion tonight on New Media journalism ethics, moderated by Dan Gillmor. It looks like all the tickets are gone, but Metroblogging Minneapolis is promising to live blog it. I’ll be there and probably ask a question or two about the role of design and credibility. If I have anything to add, I’ll post here tomorrow.
• The Spark Festival is this week. Always good stuff. Graffiti Research Lab is in town, and will be giving a talk on Wednesday, Feb 27 at 12:30 in the Regis Center on the West Bank campus.
• On a related note, Ali Momeni, a professor at the U is teaching a class this semester where his students are building GRL-inspired mobile bicycle projection units. The class has a blog and will likely be collaborating with The UnConvention. I’ve posted some more info on The UnConvention’s blog, too.

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other “good” kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we’d call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, “burnouts,” “alternative kids,” “art fags,” punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. Teens who are really into music or in a band are on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.

She also discusses the role that aesthetics play in this breakdown:

This is even clear in the blogosphere where people talk about how gauche MySpace is while commending Facebook on its aesthetics. I’m sure that a visual analyst would be able to explain how classed aesthetics are, but it is pretty clear to me that aesthetics are more than simply the “eye of the beholder” – they are culturally narrated and replicated. That “clean” or “modern” look of Facebook is akin to West Elm or Pottery Barn or any poshy Scandinavian design house (that I admit I’m drawn to) while the more flashy look of MySpace resembles the Las Vegas imagery that attracts millions every year. I suspect that lifestyles have aesthetic values and that these are being reproduced on MySpace and Facebook.

I should note here that aesthetics do divide MySpace users. The look and feel that is acceptable amongst average Latino users is quite different from what you see the subculturally-identified outcasts using. Amongst the emo teens, there’s a push for simple black/white/grey backgrounds and simplistic layouts. While I’m using the term “subaltern teens” to lump together non-hegemonic teens, the lifestyle divisions amongst the subalterns are quite visible on MySpace through the aesthetic choices of the backgrounds.

This lines right up with what I found when I talked to some of the WACTAC teens a few months ago. I’m still contemplating what this means for a museum, or any institution that wants to reach audiences. We need to be all-access and blind to class lines. Yet, at the same time, there is also a drive to maintain the and re-enforce the image (brand) of the institution itself.

It may all be moot, though, because some people tend to think that there is a saturation point for all this social networking / web 2.0 activity, and it is quickly being approached.

Roger Dooley at Futurelab:

…the rising tide of total time spent online (number of users and hours per users) has lifted a lot of boats, but inevitably online activity will become a zero sum game. People who spend more time on one activity will cut back other online participation by the same amount.

and Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion:

However, there is definitely a bubble and therefore a crash coming. It’s not financial. It’s not related to the level of noise or startups. This crash is personal. We are reaching a point where the number of inputs we have as individuals is beginning to exceed what we are capable as humans of managing. The demands for our attention are becoming so great, and the problem so widespread, that it will cause people to crash and curtail these drains. Human attention does not obey Moore’s Law.

I think the lessons are clear, extend beyond social networking, and can be easy to implement. Don’t try to grow a community where one doesn’t exist. Go to where the community already is. Make the information that users want free of any sort of restrictions. Don’t make me sign up for an account, everyone I already have too many. Don’t make me give you my email, I already get enough junk. Let me as the user choose how much I want to interact, and reduce all possible barriers to interaction.

Nearly four in 10 bloggers (39 percent) with a job have written something sensitive or damaging about their workplaces, employers, or coworkers, according to UK human resources firm Croner. The company commissioned a survey that asked 2,000 people whether or not they have a blog, and if so, how many of them have posted sensitive information about work. And despite the seemingly constant stream of warnings saying otherwise, some employees still seem to think that no one will discover their blog transgressions–which could eventually get them fired.

The numbers seem a little higher than I would expect, but perhaps I am not too familiar with the feeling of working for a monolithic corporation. There are two things I take away from this. First, we have a different situation here within the Walker and within the larger museum web. We already have blog guidelines for our own blogs. Many of our employees that are bloggers on their own are also bloggers here and are familiar with our guidelines, which are not onerous. Secondly, unlike a corporation which may depend on secrecy to keep it’s advantage, we in museums and non-profits aren’t so worried about that. We like to share and let people know what we’re doing.

And as an aside, the Powerhouse Museum recently adopted a new blogging policy that draws upon some elements from ours. Share the love.

Prior to heading to MW2007, I sat down with some of the WACTAC teens to discuss Myspace, Facebook and social networking in general. I thought I had a good handle on things (since I have, in fact, used Myspace). I figured a talk with the experts would fill in any gaps I was missing.

Download Social Networking Discussion MP3

Much of what I learned is interwoven in the notes I prepared for our workshop at MW2007. Here are some of the highlights, according to WACTAC:

• Myspace is old news
• Facebook is where all the cool kids are
• Some kids don’t even use email these days, sticking to myspace or facebook
• Kids consume a lot of media, therefore use a lot of media
• When multiple people add content to social accounts for institutions, let people know who’s doing the update
• Don’t use a different account for different departments
• Make groups and encourage people to join
• Make use of bulletins and notes
• Keep things up to date, nothing is worse than an out of date profile or events

The big thing that I took away from our chat was that it seems that Facebook is becoming the favorite among more technically savvy users. It seems due to the more refined design and permissions system that it enforces. So all the web designers who hate myspace because it is ugly can rejoice; smart users are shying away. Facebook is also more strict about who can create and hold an account. I heard from some people at MW2007 that their attempts to create a “person” for their institution were rebuffed, and they were forced to create a group instead. While that doesn’t fit with the paradigm that has happened within other social Web 2.0 applications, it does seem to be one that is more sustainable for users in the long run.

I just created a Walker Art Center group on Facebook. The acebook APIs seem interesting, and something Myspace does not offer to my knowledge. It is something I might play around with in the future.

Please note that this is a rough cut and basically unedited. I am adhering to the “quick and dirty” principles we discussed in our workshop. A big thanks to the teens that participated in the discussion:

• Willy Schwartz
• Basanti Miller
• Mark Severson
• Ricardo Ortiz-Vasquez

Also thanks to Witt Siasoco and Megan Leafblad for setting the discussion up.

Rebecca Allen is an internationally recognized artist and pioneer in 3D computer graphics, human motion simulation and interactive media. Her work is inspired by the potential of advanced technology, the aesthetics of motion and the study of behavior.

While on leave from UCLA from 2003-2005, Rebecca served as Senior Research Scientist and Director of the Liminal Devices research group at Media Lab Europe in Dublin, Ireland. From 1996-2002 she directed the Emergence Project at UCLA, an Intel funded research effort involving artificial life, 3D virtual environments, augmented reality and unique multimodal interfaces.

I’ve been paying attention to the Design | Media Arts lectures although there are some lectures related to Arts and Sciences that look interesting too. The webcast archive goes back to 1999, so far everything I’ve watched has used Real Player.

TechSoup is a technology resource center and community for non-profits of all kinds run by CompuMentor.

First our podcast of Art on Call material is up in the iTunes store for you. Because of the way iTunes currently plays podcasts (it stops between segments) listening is easier if you move this into your iTunes library or onto your iPod before listening. All the material from the podcast is also now available as a regular mp3 from our Art on Call page.

I also missed the new video iPod. Unfortunately the video iPod will not play our current Channel offerings because they are in Real format not one of the two supported quicktime formats. We’ll have to see if this new technology takes off since converting our archive would require a considerable amount of time. Sorry no vodcasting in our immediate future.