Digital sculpting? ...
Monday, 8 March 2010
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Menji of Emperor of Japan in Western robe
In order to understand the cultural other - the intelligencia of Japan decided to immerse themselves in the Occidental. Their success of become modernised yet culturally unique testifies to the success in their belief and practice of mimiesis even in minute details.
It underscores that a primary way to understand culture is through art as a "stage in process"
2nd Visual Example of Japanese's mimesis
This propaganda by Japanese fine artists served not to only show Japanese dressed in Western clothing - rather they were manifestos with suggestions on how best the Oriental could subsume the Occidental. It conveyed through faithfully recorded details how the: [westernized] dress,behaviour code,manner of conduct,art,fashion,[intimate] lifestyle,leisure could be successfully adopted.
These images carried multiple stratifications of code and information for those to understand the unfamiliar other.
First visual example of Japanese appropriating culture
The japanese culture is rooted in the collective and mimesis. They are the best example of successful participatory exercises to understand the [cultural] other.
To promote cultural understanding en-masse - their artists studied key aspects of western culture and faithfully transcribed these into visual images for Japanese consumption. By these visual cues the Oriental was able to learn and assimilate the Occidental.
Such that in 30 years time the Japanese were able to modernise their culture to become a leading super power.
The immediacy of the visual transmussion of cultural values by the digitization of the Creative Industries offers the same potential of Cultural Diplomacy.
Fleshing it out in words ...
Making Space and Place with Social Engineering and the Dynamics of Cultural Renewal
Can architecture be used as an agent for cultural diplomacy?
Could there be architectural construct(s) of culturally affirmative archives? Is it possible to conceive sites of learning and cultural identification at the intersection between civilizations? To emancipate societies from [cultural] elitism as they re-define themselves in their consciousness and to each other within the model of the Creative Industries?
Within this lexicon, Culture taken to mean the social activity that creates, communicates or sustains social value and meaning. While Art is that cultural practice that involves the creation of a specific and definable object. Whether a traditionally recognised discipline such as a play or piece of music or contemporary permissible forms such as video for example.
The Creative Industries, that is – the forms of culture which the majority of people now use and through which they understand the world (radio, television, video, cable, satellite, records and tapes, books and magazines) supports a culture of digital social activity that creates and sustains social value and meaning. The cultural institutions of the press, publishing, digital and print media, cinema, radio, television and the record industry, are no longer marginal or minor. But, in themselves and in their frequent interlock and integration with other productive institutions [visual and performing arts, music and film industries] - are parts of the whole public social and economic organisation at its most general and pervasive.
The privatisation of pleasure driven by basic economics has become a fundamental issue challenging the traditions of civic, municipal and public cultures. Principally because in their wake are fragmented cultures. Therefore, as the Creative Industries irrevocably transform the practice/production and dissemination of Art and the meaning of culture; within this framework, lays the potential for the Creative Industries to act as an agent of cultural diplomacy to remedially engage with this process.
By their very nature, these industries engender a cultural democracy and are symbolic of democratization antithesis to the traditional inequitable social judgments of cultural objects and aesthetic values. This established value system merely transmutes to the public intervention to subsidise that which is precipitated by commercial failure. Worth is merited by recipients by its inverted unpopularity [traditional forms of high art]. Instead, of equating popularity with cultural value, the support of the Creative industries should inform the pursuit of aesthetics truly innovative or dynamic.
The popular culture is more than a “majority” culture ruled by the lowest common denominator. It can be exciting, innovative, and enriching - providing popular involvement is nurtured and stimulated so that it provides a thriving basis for diverse cultural developments. Aesthetic value and public intervention can be pursued within this framework of the public domain. So as to create cultural democracy – a society in which people are free to come together to produce, distribute and receive the cultures they choose. Consequently, promoting both art and communities ignored by the dominant culture with the aim of fostering a causal platform of respect and co-operation.
What role can architecture play in this process of using culture to explore differences and appreciate commonalities with the medium of the Creative Industries as the vehicle?
Whenever society undergoes change – there is the inevitable re-definition of cultural values and norms in the context of a reflexive model of cultural renewal. In any period of transition, society must form new roles of social and public life to ensure preservation. As social leaders - the role of the ‘Artisan’ to preserve, catalogue and advance social mores, ideals, cultural identities and artefacts are key to such periods of adjustment being achieved successfully. Therefore, the rise of the Creative Industries with their new social networking tools, evolving social media technology and digital media/ production software and equipment present an opportunity for the practice of cross-cultural dialogue and perception and a new context from which the “New Age Artisan” is to operate.
Furthermore the “New Age Artisan’s” ascent to the forefront of making contemporary space and place in cities at a time of global neo-liberal economic policies asserts the repositioning of culture as understood in the light of the Creative Industries . The dialogue between culture and the Creative Industries has uniquely articulated the subtleties of space and place. In turn, the appropriation of the lifestyle and values of the Artist and cultural practitioner is spurred into specific spatial cultural identities.
The legacy of the artist/ artisan inhabiting the precariousness and insecurity the neo-liberal economist inflicted on industry remains postulated as the aspired working model expected of the developed economy.
Creative businesses are by their nature flexible, resourceful and pragmatic. Neo-liberal work practices inherited from the artist including their extreme self focus, non-unionisation and use of free labour through speculative processes of attempting to secure projects/commissions. In short, the space of art is a concept that far from being the shorthand of urban enclaves dotted with cafes, vintage-clothes stores and new galleries. It can and should refer to the topography of modern labour governed by contingency, participation, causalisation and compulsory flexibility.
This desire to release ourselves, increase our agency over the means of production and create platforms for our creative capacities should shift the emphasis from product to the creative process. Attention, resources and research should be allocated from consumption to production and creativity. Since the focus on consumption is notably documented as a flaw that utilises culture for urban regeneration.
Rather than the traditional experience of cultural repositories such as the grand museum or the iconic opera house or gallery space tacitly remote in experience as the main vehicle to understand the cultural “other”. The phenomenon of the relationship between the neo-liberal Creative Industry intersecting the new position of culture and creativity is demanding for the artist to re-engage with the public at will. The artistic experience in this sense is not only about acquiring cultural competence but also about personal development and the broadening of horizons.
There is a commonly held notion that the pre-dominant ideas of each generation can be read in the fabric of the built environment. It is therefore argued that buildings are the physical deposits or solidification of the most potent theories or popular culture of the time. Can architecture be used to affect an agenda of communication across borders and the sharing of knowledge and information impacting the discourse and relation between cultures?
How then can architecture be used to influence space and our interaction with that space and a foreign culture so that we gain a better understanding of “other” [ culture(s)]? How will nation-states define themselves to each other and themselves in the space between two cultures?
There now precipitates the need to stimulate a mnemonic architectural response which facilitates intercultural mimesis in an immersive trans-cultural environment. To solidify the memory of other by building for the potential conversations that can happen at the meeting of other cultures. Thereby, by the power of the creative act preserve the cultural memory of the other.
A sophisticated approach is to use the “Arts” as a stage in a process to promote the values of social pleasure, diversity, and creative expression in a vital sense. The social and cultural value of the Creative Industry (CI) thereby extended as a consequence. Exploring alternate realities for the sympathetic integration of the commercial and political aspirations of the Creative Industries, while maintaining and fostering a delicate ecology of “urban community” within the public domain.
To implement such a strategy would require a specific architectural response of integrating the necessary factors for successful CI communities in a holistic urban context. But by identifying mechanisms that ensure the creation of a diverse, socially inclusive innovative environments.
The artist as a revolutionary, unifying catalyst to the existing discourse regarding the integration of the Creative Industries in the city-scape. At its most rewarding, this notion suggests that the fabric of community combines ideas for life and technology with the artist’s sense of purpose, form and character. Creating a society in which people are free to come together to produce, distribute and receive the cultures they choose gaining expression, personal fulfilment and quality of life in an enjoyable ambience in which to meet other people and have a pleasurable social experience. This is the physicality of the space between two cultures marking the intersection of each.
Since the “creative experience” is usually achieved by the participation in the artistic process itself ,an architecture of such can be an appropriate strategy to tangibly engage the individual in the cultural other with the person and the personal by activity and activity systems (concrete expressions of culture) in this era of the Creative Industries.
In a wider urban context, there is a need to address the nature and interaction of the spaces between the buildings present to engender the necessary social interaction on the street to foster safe, creative urban neighbourhoods. Fostering community as “performance” and engendering a feeling of “centeredness” rather than the artless fragmentation of the past. Thereby creating communities with functions that are culturally relevant to the geographic locale they are situated.
Finally, the proposed site of learning is an agent of personal expansion, cultural citizenship and social cohesion, with the production of the [indigenous] Arts as the driving vehicle of the social centre. The architecture of this living community as cultural signifier: supporting the Artisan to live authentically yet retaining human experience and engaging the people.
By an architecture of systems and rituals, the creation of a social centre which embodies the symbolic democracy of the Creative Industries can be conjectured. A site of learning where the Artisan will study, live and work as a way to encourage and diversify the approach to sustaining cultural diplomacy.
The “New Age Artisan” wilfully engaging and disengaging with the general public and this conscious act of creating to foster respect.
Can architecture be used as an agent for cultural diplomacy?
Could there be architectural construct(s) of culturally affirmative archives? Is it possible to conceive sites of learning and cultural identification at the intersection between civilizations? To emancipate societies from [cultural] elitism as they re-define themselves in their consciousness and to each other within the model of the Creative Industries?
Within this lexicon, Culture taken to mean the social activity that creates, communicates or sustains social value and meaning. While Art is that cultural practice that involves the creation of a specific and definable object. Whether a traditionally recognised discipline such as a play or piece of music or contemporary permissible forms such as video for example.
The Creative Industries, that is – the forms of culture which the majority of people now use and through which they understand the world (radio, television, video, cable, satellite, records and tapes, books and magazines) supports a culture of digital social activity that creates and sustains social value and meaning. The cultural institutions of the press, publishing, digital and print media, cinema, radio, television and the record industry, are no longer marginal or minor. But, in themselves and in their frequent interlock and integration with other productive institutions [visual and performing arts, music and film industries] - are parts of the whole public social and economic organisation at its most general and pervasive.
The privatisation of pleasure driven by basic economics has become a fundamental issue challenging the traditions of civic, municipal and public cultures. Principally because in their wake are fragmented cultures. Therefore, as the Creative Industries irrevocably transform the practice/production and dissemination of Art and the meaning of culture; within this framework, lays the potential for the Creative Industries to act as an agent of cultural diplomacy to remedially engage with this process.
By their very nature, these industries engender a cultural democracy and are symbolic of democratization antithesis to the traditional inequitable social judgments of cultural objects and aesthetic values. This established value system merely transmutes to the public intervention to subsidise that which is precipitated by commercial failure. Worth is merited by recipients by its inverted unpopularity [traditional forms of high art]. Instead, of equating popularity with cultural value, the support of the Creative industries should inform the pursuit of aesthetics truly innovative or dynamic.
The popular culture is more than a “majority” culture ruled by the lowest common denominator. It can be exciting, innovative, and enriching - providing popular involvement is nurtured and stimulated so that it provides a thriving basis for diverse cultural developments. Aesthetic value and public intervention can be pursued within this framework of the public domain. So as to create cultural democracy – a society in which people are free to come together to produce, distribute and receive the cultures they choose. Consequently, promoting both art and communities ignored by the dominant culture with the aim of fostering a causal platform of respect and co-operation.
What role can architecture play in this process of using culture to explore differences and appreciate commonalities with the medium of the Creative Industries as the vehicle?
Whenever society undergoes change – there is the inevitable re-definition of cultural values and norms in the context of a reflexive model of cultural renewal. In any period of transition, society must form new roles of social and public life to ensure preservation. As social leaders - the role of the ‘Artisan’ to preserve, catalogue and advance social mores, ideals, cultural identities and artefacts are key to such periods of adjustment being achieved successfully. Therefore, the rise of the Creative Industries with their new social networking tools, evolving social media technology and digital media/ production software and equipment present an opportunity for the practice of cross-cultural dialogue and perception and a new context from which the “New Age Artisan” is to operate.
Furthermore the “New Age Artisan’s” ascent to the forefront of making contemporary space and place in cities at a time of global neo-liberal economic policies asserts the repositioning of culture as understood in the light of the Creative Industries . The dialogue between culture and the Creative Industries has uniquely articulated the subtleties of space and place. In turn, the appropriation of the lifestyle and values of the Artist and cultural practitioner is spurred into specific spatial cultural identities.
The legacy of the artist/ artisan inhabiting the precariousness and insecurity the neo-liberal economist inflicted on industry remains postulated as the aspired working model expected of the developed economy.
Creative businesses are by their nature flexible, resourceful and pragmatic. Neo-liberal work practices inherited from the artist including their extreme self focus, non-unionisation and use of free labour through speculative processes of attempting to secure projects/commissions. In short, the space of art is a concept that far from being the shorthand of urban enclaves dotted with cafes, vintage-clothes stores and new galleries. It can and should refer to the topography of modern labour governed by contingency, participation, causalisation and compulsory flexibility.
This desire to release ourselves, increase our agency over the means of production and create platforms for our creative capacities should shift the emphasis from product to the creative process. Attention, resources and research should be allocated from consumption to production and creativity. Since the focus on consumption is notably documented as a flaw that utilises culture for urban regeneration.
Rather than the traditional experience of cultural repositories such as the grand museum or the iconic opera house or gallery space tacitly remote in experience as the main vehicle to understand the cultural “other”. The phenomenon of the relationship between the neo-liberal Creative Industry intersecting the new position of culture and creativity is demanding for the artist to re-engage with the public at will. The artistic experience in this sense is not only about acquiring cultural competence but also about personal development and the broadening of horizons.
There is a commonly held notion that the pre-dominant ideas of each generation can be read in the fabric of the built environment. It is therefore argued that buildings are the physical deposits or solidification of the most potent theories or popular culture of the time. Can architecture be used to affect an agenda of communication across borders and the sharing of knowledge and information impacting the discourse and relation between cultures?
How then can architecture be used to influence space and our interaction with that space and a foreign culture so that we gain a better understanding of “other” [ culture(s)]? How will nation-states define themselves to each other and themselves in the space between two cultures?
There now precipitates the need to stimulate a mnemonic architectural response which facilitates intercultural mimesis in an immersive trans-cultural environment. To solidify the memory of other by building for the potential conversations that can happen at the meeting of other cultures. Thereby, by the power of the creative act preserve the cultural memory of the other.
A sophisticated approach is to use the “Arts” as a stage in a process to promote the values of social pleasure, diversity, and creative expression in a vital sense. The social and cultural value of the Creative Industry (CI) thereby extended as a consequence. Exploring alternate realities for the sympathetic integration of the commercial and political aspirations of the Creative Industries, while maintaining and fostering a delicate ecology of “urban community” within the public domain.
To implement such a strategy would require a specific architectural response of integrating the necessary factors for successful CI communities in a holistic urban context. But by identifying mechanisms that ensure the creation of a diverse, socially inclusive innovative environments.
The artist as a revolutionary, unifying catalyst to the existing discourse regarding the integration of the Creative Industries in the city-scape. At its most rewarding, this notion suggests that the fabric of community combines ideas for life and technology with the artist’s sense of purpose, form and character. Creating a society in which people are free to come together to produce, distribute and receive the cultures they choose gaining expression, personal fulfilment and quality of life in an enjoyable ambience in which to meet other people and have a pleasurable social experience. This is the physicality of the space between two cultures marking the intersection of each.
Since the “creative experience” is usually achieved by the participation in the artistic process itself ,an architecture of such can be an appropriate strategy to tangibly engage the individual in the cultural other with the person and the personal by activity and activity systems (concrete expressions of culture) in this era of the Creative Industries.
In a wider urban context, there is a need to address the nature and interaction of the spaces between the buildings present to engender the necessary social interaction on the street to foster safe, creative urban neighbourhoods. Fostering community as “performance” and engendering a feeling of “centeredness” rather than the artless fragmentation of the past. Thereby creating communities with functions that are culturally relevant to the geographic locale they are situated.
Finally, the proposed site of learning is an agent of personal expansion, cultural citizenship and social cohesion, with the production of the [indigenous] Arts as the driving vehicle of the social centre. The architecture of this living community as cultural signifier: supporting the Artisan to live authentically yet retaining human experience and engaging the people.
By an architecture of systems and rituals, the creation of a social centre which embodies the symbolic democracy of the Creative Industries can be conjectured. A site of learning where the Artisan will study, live and work as a way to encourage and diversify the approach to sustaining cultural diplomacy.
The “New Age Artisan” wilfully engaging and disengaging with the general public and this conscious act of creating to foster respect.
Saturday, 6 March 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)