I’ve been thinking about the dichotomy of connectivity, communication, and new media. How “web 2.0″, social networking, cell phones, email, etc are making communication across time and space exponentially faster and easier. And yet, we are often so plugged in that we sometimes don’t take time to interact in real ways with real people around us. I am not arrogantly scolding society, I am often guilty of this too. But I am always trying to think of creative ways to start conversations between strangers, like my 11 Shirts project. Also, this was part of the instigation for my friend Tara to start the Society for the Creative REalization of a Weirder You. This is from our manifesto:
Worried about personal connections in a society of increasing isolation, SCReWY aims to be the antithesis of apathy — to challenge the public to actively engage in changing and exploring reality.
SCReWY manifests interactive interventions by using internet video and new media technologies to connect cyberspace with real space. Orchestrating flash mobs, Happenings, community art, and collaborative performances, SCReWY aims to proactively instigate community expression
There are a million other sub-topics I could take on here: crowdsourcing, social bookmarking, activism on the internet, performance art and the web, and of course… facebook. I have probably done too much critical thinking about facebook for my own good. But these will probably all come up in future blog posts. For a start, see my two videos about Friendship on the internet, and Minifeed: a Story about Facebook.
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In other news, my SCReWY-cofounder, friend, and long time collaborator Tara will be joining me on this blog! She’s also taking next year off of Hampshire, and she’ll be in London for most of the year, playing with her new baby niece and doing circus things. Hooray for Tara!
-Molly
