technology and culture (hold the climate change)
if the Institute is going to morph more fully into a think-'n-do tank, and if the "do" is publishing, there are some interesting analogies with changes in film distribution. See the story in today's NYT Business section (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/business/media/22carr.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin) which describes how M dot Strange, a filmmaker who never goes to the movies, brought a huge audience garnered through YouTube to his Sundance premier. "I'm already part of a big campfire," he says. "We talk to each other all the time about what we are seeing and thinking. It's a personal experience without anybody in between." Another filmmaker first premiered her work on Second Life. experiments with new ways to get books to people and vice versa could be an important part of the conversation.

i understood that we were going to have a manifesto as mission statement, but i could have been lost in translation. the hope, i thought, was to expand that mission statement and to make it more forceful, more like a pronouncement. much of what we talked in the retreat, and what Brian put together reflects the original mission statement.

From the mission statement:
The Institute values theory and practice equally. Part of our work involves doing what we can with the tools at hand (short term). Part of our work involves trying to build new tools and effecting industry wide change (medium term). And a significant part of our work involves blue-sky thinking about what might be possible someday, somehow (long term).

Given the ever-changing character of 21st century technology, which as Bob says, requires complex chains of effort, the short-term goal as stated above is central to the Institute's philosophy and goals. The "invention" of the printing press, a mechanical device whose moving parts were easily reproducible, gave birth to the home press and the subsequent spread of ideas. However, as printing became subject of the demands of commerce, printing shops with no access to distribution channels died, as small bookshops are dying today. We are at a complex crossroads; we seem to have regained access to the distribution (but for how long?) But, more importantly, how the character of the discourse that is being distributed is affecting, and effecting, the future? Here comes the importance of the Institute as network publisher and as experimenter and generator of tools that address the distribution issue.

A publisher that also functions as think tank, insures that the conversation is both deep and broad. In order to foster networks of collaborations, we need better tools and mechanisms to represent the complexity, not only of the ideas, but of the conversation they engender. The social impact of the Institute's endeavors resides in its ability to generate a networked discourse that manifests the changes and the consequences of new technologies in the late capitalist era.

As Brian says, the birth of the networked culture we are observing seems spontaneous, a force of life itself. But in reality it is the intentional creation of hundreds of thousands of people who work painstakingly to invent the tools that make it possible. The forms of this communication do have a spontaneous aspect that is both exhilarating and deeply unsatisfying. Some are put off by the banality inherent in mass communication. Some fear the dictatorship of the crowd. There is no guarantee that the promise of communication in the digital age will not emulate earlier technologies breech of hope. Already sharp battles are emerging in the market place over access and content control.

The Times article "Time Inc. Cutting Almost 300 Magazine Jobs to Focus More on Web Sites" http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/business/media/19time.html, is one more example of how the Web is becoming synonymous with the shifts of commerce. Publishing companies are migrating to the Web because of commercial implications; they are coping with the movement of readers and advertisers from print to the Web. There is no choice, the drive for profit is already there, but we are also seen an unprecedented flourishing of independent creation and interconnectivity. The mainstream media ventures into social networking is just one example of the revenue big portals are deriving from the creation of network communities that are both consumers and generators of content. As individuals and institutions become increasingly aware of the communicative possibilities of social networking sites and virtual worlds to advance and promote political agendas, artistic endeavors and so on, the need to test and study these advances is undeniable.

The mission statement responds to this: Although we are excited about the potential of digital technologies to amplify human potential in wondrous ways, we believe it is crucial to consciously consider the social impact of the long-term changes to society afforded by new technologies.

So does Brian:
The Institute is an experimental publishing node in the network of authors, artists, editors and filmmakers, discovering new ways to present their creations and to generate interaction between them and the networks of people who are drawn to respond to their work. We will continue to explore new ideas for collaborative, networked production and intend to build a library of networked publications that can be widely tested for their substantive originality, usability and impact.

two words about 3-D environments:
the article Bob mentioned the other day on Le Pen opening headquarters in Second Life http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1994883,00.html warrants a lot of thought.

and, couldn't help it but being fascinated by Seth Schiesel's review of The Burning Crusade as he played it as he became his server's first level 65:

In addition to bragging rights there is a very practical reason for wanting to stay in front of the pack in a situation like this. Only by maintaining a lead does one gets to experience the world in an almost pristine state. As I moved into lush Terokkar Forest Wednesday, there was almost no one else there, creating a blissful sense of exploration akin to hiking into Yosemite well before the tourists arrive. In a week Terokkar will be packed full of the equivalent of tour buses and noisy R.V.'s.

This: http://slash.autonomedia.org/print.pl?sid=07/02/02/1413224 might be a good start for thinking through the politics of this: they're approaching the network through the lens of the political rather than the political through the network, but there seem to be some useful ideas there. It's unfortunate that it's not presented in a particularly screen-friendly format.