"Connected Worlds immerses visitors in a fantastical animated world where your actions — gestures, movements, and decisions — impact how well the world is kept in balance."
Image via the New York Hall of Science website.
Discovering the 3Cs in Denbighshire
In July, I traveled with my family to North Wales. During our journey, we observed several government-sponsored initiatives that invigorate the local economies by connecting culture, commerce and community. I wrote about the experience for Flung Magazine, and you can read the piece here.
Sacha Wynne, WӔRK Founder
Friday Food for Thought
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Game Changers: ARTs East New York
We're inspired by ARTs East New York's art-based approach to fostering community growth and development.
Image via the ARTs East New York website
STEAM Links Tuesday: Beyond Digital
"This is the essence of Beyond Digital’s mission: making space for meaningful encounters between artists of different media and from different contexts, and exploring the frictions and insights generated by these exchanges."
Image via the Beyond Digital website.
Art, Technology and the Internet of Things. Part 4 of 4.
In Conclusion
Contemporary popular culture – especially music, film and fashion – is dominated by nostalgia: sequels, “reboots”, “reinterpretations”, and “rehashes” are the norm. Could this be the manifestation of fear of the future, because we inherently know that a future dominated by technology, without mediation by the arts and culture, isn’t somewhere that we necessarily want to go? Are we subconsciously rebelling against the inevitability of the unmediated Internet of Things?
It is important to consider the actual value of the things that we so freely allow to influence our lives. Consider this: what would a world without social media look like? Now contemplate a world without arts and culture. You see, there are limits placed on joy in a life defined by efficiency, while there are no limits to joy in one defined by expression. Digital technology undoubtedly provides tools that help us to manage our hectic modern lives, but it is the arts and culture that provide sanctuary from its difficulties.
View Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
Photo by bjones27/iStock / Getty Images
Friday Food for Thought
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Game Changers: The Great Discontent
We're inspired by The Great Discontent, a triannual publication focused on creators and the many phases of creativity.
Image via The Great Discontent website
Art, Technology and the Internet of Things. Part 3 of 4.
Part Three of our series on Art, Technology and the Internet of Things continues to highlight ways in which inclusion of the arts (or the artistic point-of-view) within the Internet of Things can address technology's shortfalls.
Collaboration as Means to Avoid Miscommunication
As its ability to convey nuance is limited, our increasing use of technology has contributed to fissures due to misunderstandings and fractured interactions between people. As the arts and culture are the original means through which we communicate complex ideas, increasing their presence within technology may provide access to diverse perspectives, advance understanding, and strengthen the sense of community throughout the worldwide web.
- By helping us to unravel symbols, the arts and culture encourage the development of greater understanding of the inner workings of the world.
- The arts and culture encourage observation with all senses, as well as with heart and mind, and transcend language and culture, to connect people fundamentally.
- The implications for combining code and pixels with metaphor, rhythm, beat, etc. carry the potential to create both immense beauty and forge previously uncharted bonds.
- The arts and culture’s focus on universal truths facilitates cross-cultural translation. Specifically, it can deepen sharing across platforms and boundaries. This will enable increased empathy for those who are different from ourselves, provide opportunities for collaboration and facilitate understanding of issues foreign to our immediate experiences.
- Data may be interpreted into stories. Stories facilitate understanding and there are no better storytellers than artists.
Collaboration as Means to Discourage Feelings of Isolation
The online world has exponentially expanded the social circle of the average individual, yet many of us feel alienated, despite maintaining hundreds of friends and attracting dozens of followers. The arts and culture can help us to build authentic connections, in a world filled with those that are superficial.
Creativity and imaginativeness are not the exclusive provenance of artists. However, it is artists who traffic in the certain uncertainties of life, and whose work has the ability to heal, connect and decipher matters of heart and soul. Our talismans, the song, the scene, the sonnet can successfully cure, strengthen and guide us through adversity and uncertainty in ways that the sciences and technology cannot.
- Technology can bring people to a place, while art and culture find ways to fundamentally connect the people within a place.
- Art and culture link not just to something, but profoundly to our emotions and to one another.
- The incorporation of an arts/culture perspective into technology may encourage people to start showing up for one another, instead of just showing off to one another on social media.
Photo by KingJC/iStock / Getty Images
STEAM Links Tuesday: Stanford School of Medicine's Compassion Journal
"The first publication of its kind, Compassion Journal offers a comprehensive view of compassion in its many forms — including how compassion is expressed in the arts and literature, the latest in the science of compassion, and the gift of compassion in the daily lives of people all over the world."