collaboration and collectivity are not the same thing. the scale /
number of people involved in a collaboration is usually less than what
you would expect in a collective act. in addition, collaboration does
not always involve a good deed; collaboration can also refer to
quislingism (act of cooperating traitorously with an enemy that is
occupying your country). on the other hand, collectivity ideally
includes some sort of a wholeness, integrity, assemblage (i exclude
people acting "collectively" like followers under dogmas, leaders,
religions, beliefs, faiths, fashions, trends, etc., this is not
collectivity it is rather slavery). collectivity can be composed of many
collaborations but the fact that you collaborate does not necessarily
mean you have an integrative approach. two or more people can easily
collaborate against collectivist approaches, cultures, habits, practices.
there is one notion called "imece" in the traditional turkish culture
which generically means collective labor. below is a link that tries to
define the notion in english:
http://www.imece2009.anadolu.edu.tr/index.php?dil=en&icerik=index
and a quotation from mehmet kucukozer's paper:
"Another concept that promoted village solidarity was imece, or
"community project," as Delaney defines it (152). Mainly women engaged
in cooperatives but this depended on the project, which could take
various forms: pooling money for cooperative construction of
infrastructure; helping members of the village community who were in
need (such as relatives from the city when they run out of money, or
taking in their children during the summers); and organizing sporting
and social events. [...] Imece indicates the emphasis placed in Turkish
culture on maintaining the harmony of the social group, whether the
family or its extension, the village. Jenny White's (2002) ethnographic
work of a poor migrant district of Istanbul illustrates how [...] imece
continued to be the basis of social networking in the city and provided
a foundation for horizontal political organizing, mainly among women."
(from "Civil Society: A Proposed Analytical Framework For Studying its
Development Using Turkey as a Case Study" mehmet kucukozer paper, p.21,
UNIVERSITA' DEGLI STUDI DI MESSINA Facoltà di Scienze Politiche
Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica, Matematica e Sociologia "Pareto")
reference for Delaney: Delaney, Carol. "Traditional Modes of Authority
and Co-operation," pp. 140-155. In Culture and Economy: Changes in
Turkish Villages (ed. Paul Stirling). Hemingford, UK: Eothen Press, 1993.
reference for white: White, Jenny B. Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A
Study in Vernacular Politics.Seattle,Wash.: University of Washington
Press, 2002.
if we take the word genius as the level of wizardry in gathering people
together for a common interest, i guess "imece" constitutes a good
example for collective genius.
i apologize to go back in discussion, but i would like to give two more
links concerning our past topic:
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/US_military_embraces_robot_revolution_999.html
(military robots)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7529 ("Doomsday
Seed Vault" in the Arctic - genetically engineering a master race)
best,
murat
<<< +90 532 473 8970 (gsm mobile)
<<< http://www.muratgermen.com
<<< http://www.flickr.com/photos/muratgermen/
<<< http://muratgermen.wordpress.com/
<<< http://www.camgaleri.com/en/sanatci.aspx?id=27
On 14.08.2009 23:58, Kerry Tunstall wrote:
> Now we have four cents, I have taken in some of the reading here and
> have been involved as an arts collaborator with a science factor and
> have some reservations about being able to describe to others, what a
> collaboration is and how it works etc. Ours just works, to an end, we
> set out to explore something and we see what is there, in the looked
> for territory. Yet whilst distracting the minds eye with doing,after
> reading some of the past posts, i came to think about something to do
> with the topic here, and that If we take in the idea of some
> neighbours, to work the minds into strategy with collective genius
> via meditation and commune with the ideal genius, then we can
> perhaps 'know' the thing we call the higher power as hero and ideal
> collaborator. I would tinker with the idea of collective channeling,
> or post humus collaboration, if as Murat means or what i think he
> means, in that everything is a product of something like a net work,
> in this fringe future, we might not understate the prior ownership of
> the process in order to appreciate the collaboration factor.
> On 8/15/09, *Murat Germen* <muratgermen@sabanciuniv.edu
> <mailto:muratgermen@sabanciuniv.edu>> wrote:
>
> my 2 cents...
>
> "collective genius" is sort of a conflicting concept. genius is an
> exclusive "post" and usually used for individuals, no need to
> mention what collective is. maybe there is need to expand upon the
> nature and various definitions of collectivity first. some
> concepts that come to mind are:
>
> - integration (staying as an individual but maximize sharing,
> help. some social networking tools of the web2 concept are good
> examples; but i do not mean anything like facebook since it is
> full of ads and therefore highly commercial, i rather mean
> independent blogging activity which usually does not involve ads
> and is a great opportunity for creating personal histories as
> alternatives to "heroic" institutional histories written by the
> states)
>
> - distribution (scattering power centralizations around the world
> and trying to avoid concentration on very few focal points; e.g.
> google as the hegemonical and the almost sole search engine /
> information source)
>
> - foster unforeseeability and serendipity as opposed to
> predictability and preventability in social, political, cultural
> cases (taking databases, sampling, statistics not so seriously and
> treat anything with a novel and contextual approach to avoid
> biases). social databases are collective but most of the time used
> by individual sources to improve individual profit (scientific,
> medical, educational and similar databases are exceptions, of course)
>
> - anonimity is a notion that is to disappear soon unfortunately. a
> lot of enterprises, products, ideas, designs, theories, formulas
> are titled, named, credited, patented, copyrighted, reserved,
> registered, branded, etc. such registration is not highly
> compatible with the notion of collectivity since only a person,
> company, institution, etc. collects the profit. sometimes we learn
> that this person, company, institution was not the first, original
> creator of the idea; it/he/she just acted more quickly than others
> in a canny way. what about the tales, traditions, habits, stories,
> rites, rituals, ceremonies, etc.? nobody feels like paying for
> them, they are the "free" tools but a lot of people charge money
> for the supposedly "new" ideas that are based on these anonymous
> experiences. what about nature? we continue to destroy, exploit,
> abuse it but nobody pays a fee for this...
>
> sincerely,
> murat
>
> <<< +90 532 473 8970 (gsm mobile)
> <<< http://www.muratgermen.com <http://www.muratgermen.com/>
> <<< http://www.flickr.com/photos/muratgermen/
> <<< http://muratgermen.wordpress.com/
> <<< http://www.camgaleri.com/en/sanatci.aspx?id=27
>
>
>
> On 12.08.2009 13:02, Simon Biggs wrote:
>
> Hi Roger
>
> I think the open source software movement is an excellent
> example of
> collective creativity. It is interesting that this and other
> similar ways of
> working and creating have developed. There is a zeitgeist
> which seems to
> continue to gain momentum, a social understanding.
>
> Distributed agency is clearly linked to this and as we develop
> more powerful
> technologies that function to augment our capacity to perceive
> or act upon
> the world the better we understand that agency need not be,
> nor has ever
> been, restricted to the human. I am not familiar with
> Mayer-Schonberg¹s work
> but find the insight that most peer to peer work is
> incremental in character
> interesting. That has not been my own experience of collective
> working
> (committee drafting of a policy document is another example),
> where sweeping
> changes can occur to how a document or other artefact is
> structured and
> oriented. This capacity for paradigm shifts in collective
> working is one of
> the more exciting outcomes of learning to see with other¹s
> eyes. The kind of
> working that Mayer-Schonberg describes sounds less like
> intensive collective
> activity and more like networked individual activity which
> of course is a
> completely valid way of working but is very different.
>
> You mention models of working employed in business and
> industry. As you are
> aware, these models have found their way into and have been
> further
> augmented within other large scale institutional contexts, such as
> education. A lot of research today involves numerous
> individuals and
> departments across diverse institutions, often in different
> countries,
> working together on complex problems. How the work is
> organised is critical
> to its success and an important part of such work is
> determining which
> organisational model will be employed. It is a matter of
> finding those
> structures and methods most likely to deliver against the aims
> of the
> project. Many research teams now incorporate experts in such
> processes, from
> anthropology, psychology, economics and other relevant areas.
>
> The eMobil-art project you describe sounds like an example of
> this type of
> working that could have benefitted from the involvement of
> such an expert.
> You are aware of the art/science collaborations that Arts
> Council England
> and the Arts and Humanities Research Council initiated in the
> early 2000¹s.
> I had been involved in a number of similar initiatives like
> this over the
> years and what made this particular series of projects
> interesting and
> successful was the role played by expert facilitators who were
> embedded in
> the the trans-disciplinary research teams. This did cost money
> but the
> outcomes more than justified it. As a result of the confidence
> built in
> those early experiments in placing a few artists in research
> environments
> there is now an annual programme of such publicly funded
> projects across the
> UK. Numerous artists and scientists have benefitted from the
> opportunity to
> work together in an environment that is supportive and able to
> focus
> appropriately on the aims of each project. That applicants to
> the programme,
> from all sides, have to articulate from the outset how they
> will organise
> their work and what methods they will employ, justified
> against their stated
> aims and objectives, helps here. However, this highly
> calculated way of
> working does not suit everyone, at least all the time. It
> might be nice if a
> higher tolerance was set to allow for productive failure.
> Research/practice
> should be fun and the open source model does seem to sustain
> this option.
>
> Best
>
> Simon
>
>
> Simon Biggs
> Research Professor
> edinburgh college of art
> s.biggs@eca.ac.uk <mailto:s.biggs@eca.ac.uk>
> www.eca.ac.uk <http://www.eca.ac.uk/>
> www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ <http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/>
>
> simon@littlepig.org.uk <mailto:simon@littlepig.org.uk>
> www.littlepig.org.uk <http://www.littlepig.org.uk/>
> AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
>
>
>
> From: roger malina<rmalina@alum.mit.edu
> <mailto:rmalina@alum.mit.edu>>
> Reply-To: YASMIN
> DISCUSSIONS<yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
> <mailto:yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>>
> Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:32:45 -0700
> To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS<Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
> <mailto:Yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>>
> Subject: [Yasmin_discussions] collective genius
>
> Simon
>
> in your critiques of the concept of genius you state:
>
> I do not think there is such a thing as genius. As I have already
> indicated,
> I have a lot of time for Newton's idea of team-work.
> I regard individuality as a contingent characteristic,
> preferring the
> Foucauldian notion of the distributed self or Latour's of
> expanded and
> diffused agency. In these models the individual is regarded
> as an instance
> of the collective and enabled through that context, drawing on
> and defined
> by the resources within and without them (there is no notion
> of an essential
> or irreducible self .
>
> A contemporary example of diffused agency/distributed self is
> found of
> course
> in open source software development groups. Many of us think of
> open source software development as a source of innovation and
> creativity
> as compared to commercial development or very
> institutionalised contexts
> but a recent article by Viktor Mayer=Schonberg in Science on
> Can We Re Invent the Internet
>
> http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/325/5939/396
>
> he points out that in general social network topologies are not
> conducive to radical innovation- and he suggests that the value
> of a 'node''s value in a social network is not proporitional
> to the
> number of links (facebookers beware) but the connections to
> disparate groups=which span 'structural holes' and enable
> radical approaches= he argues that much peer produced code
> is rarely altered except in an incremental manner= he suggests
> that one needs to create incentives to form network structures
> that, structurally, stimulate and enable innovation-and he
> suggests
> some prescriptions
>
> its an interesting thought that the actual 'structure' of the
> network
> of a collaboration can in itself determine whether the
> collaboration
> is inventive, and can make radical non incremental innovation
>
> but it also higlights how even in team work, individuals can play
> key roles in enabling radical innovation by a group= there are
> organisational geniuses ?
>
> which brings me to Nina Yankowitz comments on the emobilart
> collaboration groups:- have added my comments in CAPS
>
> roger
>
>
> Nina says:
> As an emobilart participant>> list some of my thoughts re:
> collaborative projects / establishing good conditions for problem
> solving.
>
> 1. Inviting prospective participants - distributing details
> of all
> participants proposals and profiles at least one month in
> advance of
> meeting, to ponder, can better prepare invited collaborators
> to make
> efficient choices when deciding with whom to collaborate.
>
> ONE OF THE STRENGTHS OF EMOBILART WAS THAT THE COLLABORATORS
> DID NOT
> KNOW EACH OTHER
> BEFORE THE FIRST WORKSHOP WHEN THE COLLABORATION TEAMS FORMED=
> BUT THE
> LIMITED AMOUNT OF TIME INDEED MADE THE GROUP FORMATION PROCESS
> PERHAPS
> NOT AS GOOD AS IT COULD BE=AT THE SAME
> TIME THE FACT THAT MOST OF THE GROUPS WERE ABLE TO COMPLETE A
> PROJECT=
> TESTIFIES TO THE POWER OF THE COLLABORATION IMAGINATION DRIVE !
>
> 2. Clearly establishing a non-hierarchal relationship between all
> participants and organizers, with special attention to this when
> participants from each category are creating and exhibiting in the
> same project.
>
> I THINK WE WOULD AGREE THAT WE DIDNT THINK ENOUGH AHEAD OF
> TIME ABOUT
> THE COLLABORATION
> BETWEEN THE ORGANISERS THEMSELVES AND BETWEEN THE
> ORGANISERS/CURATORS
> AND THE ARTISTS.
> PERHAPS A RECOMMENDATION WOULD TO DO ACTUAL TRAINING IN
> COLLABORATIVE
> TECHNIQUES=THESE ARE WIDELY USED IN THE BUSINESS WORLD FOR
> INSTANCE=
> ACTUALLY TRAIN IN COLLABORATION TECHNIQUES
>
> 3. All members should, I believe, have equal access to all
> meetings
> about the projects and networking meetings too, equally
> sharing in the
> decision making process and the potential networking benefits that
> these meetings can provide.
>
> IN STRATEGIC ALLIANCE METHODOLOGY IN THE BUSINESS WORLD, IT IS
> KNOWN
> THAT ONE MUST ESTABLISH THE CLEARLY ARTICULATED VALUES AND
> METHODOLOGIES AHEAD OF TIME AND IN WRITING
> = IN EMOBILART WE LEARNED BY DOING WHICH IS HIGH RISK !
>
> 4. I do believe the future, as I think Roger is suggesting, is in
> collaborative pooling of resources.
>
> A CLEAR PROBLEM WAS THE HUGE AMOUNT OF DONATED AND CONTRIBUTED
> RESOURCES NEEDED TO COMPLETE THE PROJECTS. THE COLLABORATION TEAM
> ITSELF WAS GROSSLY UNDERFUNDED=BUT IF WE HAD
> SUBMITTED A PROPOSAL WITH THE TRUE COSTS IT PROBABLY WOULD NOT
> HAVE
> BEEN FUNDED. CATCH 22
>
> 5. Whether small or large groups - formations need structure,
> mutual clarification of goals, and how to best meet specific group
> needs. Assumptions about how projects may get funded by
> participants
> in respective groups can be problematic and would best be detailed
> within each. Also addressing how grants can / should be fairly
> disseminated if received when individuals apply for project
> funding
> and are awarded?
>
> PER MY DISCUSSION ABOVE RE OPEN SOURCE NETWORK STRUCTURES=YES=THE
> STRUCTURE CAN DETERMINE WHAT KINDS OF OUTCOMES ARE POSSIBLE
>
> 6. Personal aspects - Although numerous snags abound when
> initially
> cross-connecting myriad cultures, uncovering ingrained biases,
> intense
> egos that non-cyborgs nurture, that we all succumb - I found
> flying
> with my teams very valuable to my personal and spiritual
> growth and
> growth for the future of the planet in general. I look forward to
> more.
>
> THE INTERPERSONAL TENSIONS ARE PERHAPS PART OF THE CONTEXT OF
> CREATIVE
> FRICTION ? IT MIGHT
> HAVE BEEN USEFUL TO HAVE A GROUP SOCIOLOGIST OR PSYCHOLOGIST
> ON THE TEAM !!
>
> Nina (Yankowitz)
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> --
> Kerry Tunstall
> hvkerry@gmail.com <mailto:hvkerry@gmail.com>
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