hiDenise

Recent blog posts by hiDenise

Postmarked - A public art approach to neighborhood civics (pt 1)

Submitted by hiDenise on May 23, 2013 - 5:04am

The first day of Antoni Muntadas' class, I couldn't resist sharing my notes in tweets.

"Dialogues in Public Space" was an intriguing title for an art course. There was a similar project called Civic Studio when I lived in Grand Rapids, where university students spent a semester doing what I thought of social process art—the output isn't visual but a public service, inquiry or resource (i.e.: Viget, On the River temporary studio, etc.). It was the first time I had ever come across art as something that could live outside of a sculpture or canvas.

Distributed solidarity: how 350.org creates an intimate global movement

Submitted by hiDenise on December 20, 2012 - 5:56pm
Nathan Matias and I recently spoke to a few staffers from 350, a global climate movement organization. Especially worthy of your attention are the concept of “distributed solidarity,” making that solidarity visible to participants and—to Civic—a sort of tightrope between professional and citizen footage. This post is for background; jump over to Nathan's post for some technically based civic ideas.

Closing the first-mover advantage in digital societies

Submitted by hiDenise on December 14, 2012 - 2:32pm

A few weeks ago, Rogelio and I attended an intriguingly titled talk, "What would W.E.B. Du Bois say about inequality in digital societies?" It was part of a lecture series probing inequality and exclusion in a digital economy. Rogelio has a full write-up of the event here.

The lecturer, Dr. Ernest J. Wilson III, noted that the digital divide is still very real, but its meaning has shifted. The argument for closing the digital divide always had an economic component: Computer access and basic literacy skills would enable people to build resumes and navigate professional networking sites. Now, Wilson argued, it means that those without digital skills will be left behind as the Western world moves toward a digital service economy.

Vojo community call - Office hours

Submitted by hiDenise on November 27, 2012 - 9:43am

Last Tuesday, Vojo hosted an "office hours" session where anyone who hadn't taken off for Thanksgiving was welcome to dial in with their questions. The Vojo team met Luís Cotto, a Cantabrigian originally from Hartford, CT.

Climate change and the currencies of movements

Submitted by hiDenise on November 21, 2012 - 6:45am

I spent a quaint Friday evening in New York in the company of DJ Spooky, Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein, and hundreds of other attendees of the Do The Math tour. Like an old fashioned tour (and I mean old fashioned—think traveling presidential campaigns of the 19th century), McKibben and friends were there to rouse the audience to their feet around the biggest threat facing us this century—today and in the next 50 years: climate change.

I've been mulling over a few of McKibben's points, including what could be considered a movement's currencies and actionable media literacy. These are explained in more depth at the end of the post, but before we get there, let's set the scene:

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