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UNPLUGGED Topic
by Gerfried Stocker
UNPLUGGED
Updates

Time to get rid of some famous misconceptions: Examples from the UNPLUGGED debate

Set an end to the preconceptions! The discussion around the topic UNPLUGGED at Ars Electronica 2002 could be an opportunity to get rid of some fondly nourished misconceptions about the state of the world we live in. Here are examples for such opportunities drawn from the last few weeks of UNPLUGGED Updates.

An update by Andreas Hirsch

It may at times be quite comforting to live with certain misconceptions about the world, but for a more humane and conscious form of living it would be required to get rid of those misconceptions and to open the way for a more realistic picture of the situation.

The discussion around the topic UNPLUGGED at Ars Electronica 2002 could be an opportunity to get rid of a certain set of fondly nourished misconceptions about the state of the world we live in. Here are examples for such opportunities drawn from the last few weeks of UNPLUGGED Updates.

We are led to believe that the map of the world everybody works with is perfectly suited to describe the 'globalized' world we live in. This is not the case and as early as the 1930-ies a new model was developed by the 'practical philosopher' and inventer Buckminster Fuller: the Dymaxion Map replaces our 16th century view of the world with Europe in the center with a dynamic model that allows us – by recombining its elements – to take different view points. The discussions about globalization and its criticism demand a method to remap our mental model of the world, a method that Buckminster Fuller provided with his Dymaxion Map that also gives the basis for the visual and the views of this year's Ars Electronica (see Buckminster Fuller: Re-Mapping Our Mental Model of the World

One famous misconception about Africa could be summarized as: 'Africa is unplugged'. The correct statement in that context – it turns out – paints a quite differentiated picture of a continent which still lacks a lot of communication infrastructure but that also has undergone significant changes only in the last few years. As South African Communications expert Mike Jensen– on of the speakers at the Ars Electronica Symposium this year – points out: the connectivity status is still devastating with one in 150 people using the Internet, but that in the last five years 23 million mobile cell phones were deployed over the continent, which is more than the number of fixed lines laid in the last century. Jensen’s report looks in more detail at the progress of development of the internet in Africa (see Wiring Africa. There are also interesting examples of projects that go beyond spreading Internet access in Africa but aim at promoting local cultural voices from Africa on the Internet: Tonga.Online which has also been awarded an Honorary Mention in the Net Excellence category of the Prix Ars Electronica 2002 .

There is a widening gap not only between the rich and the poor on this planet, but also between the information rich and the information poor. This understanding is at least too simplistic and ignores the facts, that 'the forces that currently integrate much of the world into one hugely complex and interdependent system – call these forces ‘globalisation’ and ‘digitisation’ -, are the very same forces that also generate new patterns of a scattered, fragmented global landscape with many conflicting and contradictory dynamics art work.' (Rüdiger Wischenbart in his analysis Cultures UNPLUGGED: Charting the Divide .

Philippe Quéau – Director of the Information Society Division at the headquarters of UNESCO – points out: 'On the one hand, UNESCO is busy to make the benefits of information technology such as cheap and easy access to the Internet available to some of the most disadvantaged populations and individuals in order to allow them to take an active role in a global exchange between cultures. But at the same time we know that these same information technologies very effectively threaten the cultural diversity of the planet.' Quéau will attend this year’s Ars Electronica Symposium Ars Electronica symposium.

Naturally, questions of cultural diversity are also an issue in this discussion that finds global cultural industries and domestic cultural traditions on a collision course. Rüdiger Wischenbart analyses the strategies of Jean Marie Messier of Vivendi in that context Global Cultures or French Exceptions. and uses Harry Potter as a 'case study on cultural diversity and economic power' (see Harry Potter – A Case Study on Cultural Diversity and Economic Power.

Of course the given examples so far cover only some of the many aspects of the UNPLUGGED topic, so watch out for more in coming weeks and give your opinion and views on the subject at the UNPLUGGED Forum.






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