Cultural Relations Opportunity: A Few Weeks Left to Apply to TN2020

Andrew Kneale just Tweeted that the British Council's Transatlantic 2020 Initiative (known as TN2020) is accepting applications for only another three weeks. TN2020 a great opportunity for anyone with an interest in cultural relations or cultural diplomacy, not the least of which is an opportunity to be affiliated with the world's premiere cultural relations organization. From the website:

TN2020 builds innovative collaborations between young North Americans and Europeans to address challenges that will define their generation. Designed to run until 2020, we are creating an expanding network of emerging leaders (25-35 yrs.) from the fields of business, arts, civil society, media, science and politics, and encouraging and empowering them to develop solutions to global issues. These young people from Europe and North America are working to revitalise links and build new connections for the future

TN2020 seeks to target outstanding early-career professionals who are shaping, or who have the potential to shape society in the coming decades. It is the goal of the network to bring together people from a wide range of educational, ethnic, religious, political and professional backgrounds. It is essential to do this in order to have challenging discussions, real learning from others' views and international outlooks, and ultimately - the cross fertilisation of ideas which lead to action in at least one of three focus areas - sustainable living; building resilience in communities; creativity and innovation.

Rita J. King was one of several essayists including Michael Ignatieff, Irshad Manji, and Marietje Schaake who were commissioned by the British Council in 2007 to help launch the TN2020 Initiative. Rita's essay "The Emergence of a New Global Culture in the Imagination Age" also launched The Imagination Age. DIP just returned from a week with the British Council including meetings with TN2020's innovative program director Jacqui Allan who has some fascinating cultural relations projects in store for 2010.

The Joy of Music Illustrates Virtual Worlds for Storytelling

Netherlands-based film maker and machinimist, Chantal Harvey, has posted a fantastic new video that illustrates the amazing potential of Second Life as a complex storytelling platform. The video, which is filmed on IBM's space in Second Life, is an engaging story about a young boy's quest to understand music.

It reminded me a bit of Harry Nilsson's 1971 animated classic "The Point" starring the voices of The Brady Bunch's Mike Lookinland and Ringo Starr from the Beatles, in which a young boy is born with a round head in a world where all people and things have points on the tops of their heads.

The Joy of Music another powerful example of how the potential value of a virtual worlds like Second Life have yet to be fully tapped.

Thanks Bettina!

The 99 and Wham Bam Islam!

Ninety-nine mystical Noor Stones carry all that is left of the wisdom and knowledge of the lost civilization of Baghdad. The Noor Stones lie scattered across the globe-now little more than a legend. However one man has made it his life's mission to seek out what was once lost. His name is Dr. Ramzi Razem and he has searched long and hard for the missing stones, to no avail. His luck is about to change...

The 99, a highly creative concept that bases superheroes on Islam, was created by Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, whom we met while working on the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project. Filmmaker Isaac Solotaroff's "Wham, Bam, Islam," documents the creation of The 99 (DIP hosted a private screening of the film-in-progress at the Imagination Age Salon in NYC this time last year--click on images below to enlarge).

Filmmaker Isaac Solotaroff at the Imagination Age Salon.

A still from Wham Bam Islam! (Naif on right).

The 99 has been controversial from the start but its creator is forthright in his thoughts on the development of the project and what it means.

Mommy Blogger Tweets Son's Death: Condemned by the New York Post

Cheeky Geeky posted on Facebook about an article in the New York Post that slams a mother as she grieves the loss of her son because she went from a stream of "inane" tweets to suddenly posting about a "horrifying tragedy."

My response is below.

What do you think about this? Is anything too personal to Tweet? Is sharing the reality of our daily lives an act of narcissism?

Cheeky Geeky, AKA Dr. Mark Drapeau, Self-Described: From understanding the evolutionary origins of new species, to performing research on the genomics of sleeping disorders and animal social behavior, to studying how people interact and collaborate in social networks, Dr. Mark Drapeau has spent his career thinking about some of the most profound topics stretching the limits of human knowledge today.

Follow me on Twitter.

Follow Cheeky Geeky.

The Importance of Identity in Cultural Relations

The British Council's Mike Hardy who heads their Intercultural Dialogue division has an amazing essay on the importance of Identity in Cultural Relations in a new collection published by Vodafone called "Future Agenda":

Socially, identity has become a complex and central phenomenon, and with it diversity itself has become one of the single most important issues for human development. To accommodate diversity, we have to come to terms with multiple and changing identities. What we define and describe as our constituent parts, say in Europe or in Asia, become an integral part of ourselves. It is not just that these parts coexist in communities, but their ideas, art, literature, food and lifestyles now play a central part in shaping both the communities and the individual. In best cases, the difference is evaporating; and we must adjust to this radical change.

If global economic and technological events, processes and change are creating difficulties for individuals to cling on to traditional notions of identity (of both type and role), and challenging our self-confidence and our ability to really understand ourselves, they may at the same time be redefining our potential and the opportunities on offer for human development. Take for example, the virtual world which radically changes the notions of interface. This line of thought takes us quickly to the potential consequence of a world economic order which forms and massages identity types to deliver majority identity agendas, whether for political or economic gain. The influence of Hollywood or Bollywood, the globalisation of brands or the promotion of single-minded liberal democracy comes to mind.

In an earlier blogpost, I highlighted Clay Shirky's important caveat that the "just-add-Internet" approach to engagement is not the answer. Context is critical. And a key component to contextualizing effective cultural relations using social media and Internet-based outreach is understanding how people use it and what it means to them. In our Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project we highlighted the opportunities and challenges provided for cultural relations practitioners by understanding the fluidity of identity as manifest in virtual worlds and social media. Mike's essay underscores the importance of the evolving landscape that is identity as mediated by virtual worlds, social media and culture.

In addition to Mike's essay, the other surprise topic is an essay on authenticity. The other topics, while not unexpected, are nonetheless pressing issues of our time including: Health, Migration and Water among others. All well worth a read.

[Future Agenda]

Cory Doctorow on Copper Robot

Copper Robot is a provocative and thoughtful program that broadcasts live from Second Life. Today it featured my friend Cory Doctorow.

Cory Doctorow talks about hackers, the economy, reinvention, creative destruction and his new critically and socially acclaimed book, Makers. Click images to enlarge.

I know Cory in the physical world, just as I know Copper Robot's host Mitch Wagner and the producers of Copper Robot, World2Worlds principals John Jainschigg and Kim Smith. In fact, I also know my seatmates in the audience, Ian Hughes and Joshua Fouts. The audience is filled with people that I have actually spent time with in the physical world. While critics often say that participation in virtual environments can be dehumanizing, this is not true for the community of people who are working (and playing) long hours to create a new reality in which talented, thoughtful people can find meaningful work and be fairly compensated for their time.

On the set of Copper Robot, pondering the split between "work" and "social" avatars when every social gathering has the potential to turn into a professional collaboration and work is creatively expressive. I thought I was just going to see a friend host a show with another friend on it as a guest, but it turned out to be a work session, full of material for my Smarter Work project as Innovator-in-Residence at IBM's Analytics Virtual Center.

Copper Robot host Mitch Wagner, shown left, recently revealed that he's been laid off from InformationWeek and is looking for new opportunities. Most of the time, he said during Copper Robot today, he's optimistic. "I'm only terrified from the time I go to bed until I drink my first pot of tea," Mitch said.

The audience chatted about their own struggles with employment in a changing world during Copper Robot. Calliedel Boa, shown above, dropped a link to her recent blog post, "You're Hired! How Would You Like To Pay for Your Job Today?" in which she shares her outspoken views on outsourcing and her perceptions on the job market.

Kaseido Quandry: Gods deliver me from ever working in anyone's office again.

epredator Potato: Having left corporate life, it's much better out here, self-organizing.

Rita J. King, the creator of the Imagination Age, is Innovator-in-Residence at IBM's Analytics Virtual Center with a focus on Smarter Work, in support of Smarter Planet. For more on Smarter Work and the Imagination Age, follow @RitaJKing on Twitter.

US a "Berlin Wall Against Cultural Diversity" or Why We Need Officer 2.0 in Gov 2.0

Berlin Wall Image credit: Urban Art Core.

Last October we blogged about a group of Egyptian political bloggers traveling to the US on official State Department-sanctioned fellowship who were detained and arrested upon arriving in the US.

On Friday, The Wall Street Journal published a damning article, "Send Us Your Tired, Your Poor, But Only if They're 'Culturally Unique'" about the continuing visa travails experienced by non-US citizen performing artists and musicians who are invited to the US to perform, oftentimes at the invitation of the US government, but who are denied entry to the US because of bizarre subjective evaluations by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Performers are denied entry for not being "culturally unique" or lacking evidence of "international recognition and acclaim."

More from the WSJ article:

The officials' rulings have led to delays, cancellations and additional expenses for orchestras, museums and nonprofit arts organizations.

"A Berlin Wall against cultural diversity" is how Bill Smith of the Eye for Talent agency describes it.

When Mr. Smith tried to get a visa for Mexican indie band Los de Abajo, which already had visited the U.S. several times, immigration adjudicators asked him for some details about his own office: "Color photos should show both the inside and outside of all production, warehouse and office spaces with equipment, merchandise, products and employees clearly visible," said the letter of June 12, 2009.

"I dutifully complied," says Mr. Smith. "Then they denied the visa." The reason: "The group's biography indicates their music is a combination of music..." said the denial. "Fusion music," it said, is not "culturally unique." The group had to cancel its tour.

This past May, Andrea DiMaio of Gartner Research wrote an important blogpost that merits revisiting in light of the Wall Street Journal's piece. Her post, "Government 2.0 Won’t Happen Without Officer 2.0" addresses the communication gap between meta government and those who enforce government policies and the need for everyone to be on the same page toward the transformation of government culture.

The British Council weighed in on the issue:

"It is essential for countries like the United States and the United Kingdom to maintain open borders for arts professionals," says Carrie Annand, a spokeswoman for the British Council, which deploys talent around the world.

In 2007 the British Council did an amazing and bold cultural relations program in the US -- a tour of the Scottish National Theater's play Black Watch. The play was one of the first theatrical explorations of the cultural and societal impact of the war in Iraq. The New York Times did a great write-up.

Creativity and cultural relations cannot thrive in the Imagination Age if we don't also have collaboration and cooperation.

"Social Media Improves Political Information Cascades"

An exhibit from the 2008 ITP Winter Show. Image credit: Rita J. King

There is an interesting almost Cartesian debate that appears when a new form of media matures in society: It's a debate about whether this media will be considered legitimate alongside the current contemporary forms of media. We are still very much in those stages with regard to Internet based communication and its potential for enabling democratic discourse.

My favorite illustration of this was in remarks by telecommunications policy scholar and NYU prof Ted Magder who noted at a recent Aspen Institute Cultural Diplomacy Forum, even Samuel Morse, who revolutionized communications with the invention of the telegraph, had detractors. In the 1850s people began to refer to Morse's telegraph system as the "tel-lie-graph."

I encourage readers of this blog to check out Clay Shirky's latest essay "The Net Advantage" in the UK Prospect. The article, which responds to an earlier article by Evgeny Morozov is a great example of the democratizing power of the Internet, especially social media. We view this as foundational in illustrating the power of these venues for augmenting cultural relations and cultural diplomacy. But where Shirky gets it especially right, is his comment that the solution is not to "just add Internet." Rita J. King addressed this in her speech at the 140Conf in New York about the controversy surrounding people changing their Twitter locations to Tehran.

From the article:

[E]ven within the logic of the arms race, the easier the assembly of citizens, the more ubiquitous the ability to document atrocities. And the more the self-damaging measures which states take—like shutting down mobile phones networks—will resolve themselves as a net advantage for insurrection within authoritarian regimes. Net advantage, in some cases, is a far cry from the “just-add-internet” hypothesis, but it is a view that is considerably more optimistic about the balance of power between citizens and the state than Morozov’s.

I've seen this myself firsthand. When I was at the Voice of America, I participated in an effort to make VOA accessible to Iran by any technology readily available to consumers. In 1993 that meant simulcasting VOA radio on satellite channels and hosting regular call-in programs. Within weeks of the satellite service being launched people began calling with stories of constructing satellite dish receivers out of found objects like garbage can lids. This was a necessity because the government at that time was reportedly cracking down on satellite dishes, which I loved for the bootstrap science-fiction images it conjured in my mind. One thing was clear, people who are hungry for information in societies where information is tightly controlled will use any means necessary to communicate with the rest of the world.

[The Net Advantage] Thanks Andrew!

Smarter Work in the Imagination Age

Last night, IBM launched the Analytics Virtual Center in support of Smarter Planet. I am Innovator-in-Residence at the Analytics Virtual Center, working on the Smarter Work project.

Above, the avatar of R&D leader of web.alive (also known as Project Chainsaw) Brent Hadden, chatting with me from thousands of miles away. Below, a detail of my space, the Imagination Age, in the platform. Click to enlarge.


The driving force behind the Imagination Age is the idea that technology and human creativity will enable us to design new, contextualized systems for real world benefit. Technology is a prism held up to the bright beam of creativity.

This is the second time I've written a story featuring IBM's Jack Mason. The first was when I documented IBM's Virtual Universe Community across multiple platforms in 2006-2007. When he first visited me in my space at the Analytics Virtual Center, he told me that he wrote his master's thesis on graphic novels and I told him that I'd written a graphic novel called Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds. He asked me to click on a link to the project so we could look at it together in my workspace. Then I told him that I'm writing another graphic novel, this time about Smarter Work, and that he's a character.

The driving force behind IBM's Analytics Virtual Center is--analytics--making sense of the massive flood of available information. The ability to contextualize and leverage that stream of information through collaborative creativity is the focus of Smarter Work. If your business enterprise group is interested in participating in the exploration, ping @RitaJKing on Twitter.

Rita J. King on PBS Frontline's Digital Nation

Rita J. King speaks with PBS Frontline's Digital Nation about "Becoming more like my Avatar".

A few weeks ago DIP was invited to participate in Frontline's ongoing documentary series, "Digital Nation" to discuss the role of virtual worlds, especially Second Life, as it pertains to business, culture, identity and autheticity. Rita J. King's interview is above. The full page of interviews with numerous Second Lifers is here.

Burqa-Shaped Sunglasses

Prolific Bahraini blogger and entrepreneur Mahmood Al-Yousif who I first met at an Aspen Institute retreat in Jordan, refers us to a fascinating new discovery and illustration of the Imagination Age: Burqa-Shaped sunglasses. The sunglasses are an effort to to retain "elegance and respect [for] our culture." The website offers a design-your-own glasses feature as well as a making-of video. As digital venues provide newer and wider access to ways to mix-and-match and explore authentic identity, innovations like this in fashion will only open up newer and more exciting cultural synergies.



From the site:

The burqa was widely used by women from the Gulf in the nomadic times. It played the role of a face cover and a protection from the sun. Not to be confused with the head-to-toe cover worn by women in Afghanistan.

Burqa is made of a piece of fabric dyed with indigo. It is not metallic. The indigo stayed on the woman’s face and after she washed, it made her skin softer and brighter.

Wearing the burqa meant a lot for women. It was a way to communicate that they were just engaged or married. It symbolized womanhood and pride. The older generation still wears the burqa.

The “bq” project intends to revive this unique and traditional accessory.

[bq website]

Vintage Iranian Breakdancing

The YouTube description reads, "break dancing in tehran in 1369-1370." And it must be watched in its entirety. The story is a powerful illustration of the power of music, dance and art as a constant that transcends and intersects culture creating connections. This video has everything -- the "top" Iranian breakdancers from 1991, a wedding party, pompadours, and even a break-dancer on crutches. (Hat tip to @alexismadrigal)

Andrew Kneale on Talking Cultural Relations

The British Council's Andrew Kneale has a new blogpost up on the British Council's blog about a recent conversation with British Council head Martin Davidson on differing approaches to the definition of and priority of cultural relations. As we've spoken and mentioned many times before, the British Council is the model by which other countries should base their cultural relations outreach efforts. No other country has an organization with this level of independence and a concurrent commitment to cultural relations. The fundaments of the organization are based on a critical basis: mutual Trust & Understanding.

Andrew notes,

"during the roundtable, Martin was quick to point out that in 1936, then British Council Chairman William Tyrrell successfully appealed to the Chancellor for more funds, making the argument that the organization should be seen as ‘assisting practically in our national defence. Modern defence consists not only in arms but in removing misunderstanding and promoting understanding’. This belief, Martin said, still rings true today."

[Talking Cultural Relations with foreign policy thinkers in Washington]

Worth Watching: Interview with Rodrigo Nogueira of Viva Favela

On the frontlines of cultural relations and citizen journalism sits Viva Favela. Check out this interview on the Global Voices blog with Rodrigo Nogueira, Viva Favela's editor about their work. Favelas are the densely populated Brazilian slums that sit alongside or often inside major Brazilian cities. Nogueira is working to reshape the narrative around slums in Brazil. Work to transform the favelas has been an ongoing issue for Brazil for dozens of years. They have also been a source of creativity and innovation in Brazilian culture, with some of Brazil's well-known artists and musicians coming out of the favelas. You can follow Nogueira on twitter @rodrigonogueira. Amazing stuff.

From the site:

The first Internet portal in Brazil designed exclusively around the needs and interests of low-income communities, Viva Favela has a team made up of journalists and “community correspondents” – favela residents qualified to act as reporters and photographers.

With their “inside” perspective, they help expose all of the human, historical, cultural, economic, and social dimensions of these areas.

Started in July 2001, Viva Favela aims to broaden the digital inclusion of these communities and to reduce social inequality. It is the only Latin American portal of its kind.