Bad notes, scattered, but here for my own fleshing of the Digital Genres conference, first set.
Molly Wright Steenson, Imaginary Architects: From the Crystal Chain to the Blog
Research in Weimar, Bauhaus, etc.
Last decade working in online community and internet
Quote regarding building of online: Bruno Taut "there is almost nothing left to build and if we can build somewhere we build to live... " 19 Nov. 1919, founding letter of Glass Chain
Delved into expressioniist arch and crystal chain. Currency while nothing (physical) was being built. Similar in tenor, but not much visionary discourse in contemp online building.
Begeistunt - to be excited by ideas.
Bruno a boundless idealist, etc.
Founder of architectural worker council. Exhibition for unknown architects 1919. Replaced by Gropius as leader of council. In split, he invited 14 archs to join "the crystal chain", using pseudonyms. Set of letters. First letter laid out a set of regular communication in letters of ideas, using language of obfuscation (at first). 18 months of letter exchange.
Ties to expressioinism, in the integration of arts in dynamism and expression. The 'call to build'. Carl Schoenberg (writer, associated with 'storm' artistic group. Glass architecture.
Others less delighted with younger architects, concerned with feasibility. Group very utopian, though over time more looking at reality as well as this fantasy - clarity of concept in presentation. "unbelievably understandable". It is at this point that the exchange ends.
The Crystal Chain Letters is a book/translation. Will have cite at girlwonder.com/digitalgenres, as well as paper.
Norman Foster, building in london, echoes the glass pavillion of Taut.
Cites various online communitarians, corporate-expat designers, etc.
Derek Powaczyk "design for community"
marginwalker.org
But not enough conversation about stretching the boundaries. IA based on big vs small infra, rather than blogs being defined by tools and activities )"we are united by our tools" - Meg H.)
Wising up of utopians of 1995 beliving that design and community can save the world.
[need to track down paper for this...]
[previous speaker, Galloway, asked by Weinberger about virtual past]
A flow from past to present. Memories are reconstructed each time they are brought forward. Thus they are virtual. "a limnal space"
"Deleuzian time and space"
"I've got all these ontological hangups because I'm a theologian about things like touch and stuff..." - Trevor
Are road signs augmented reality? Consensus of yes.
more discussion
Alex contends that the weimar was elites. Steenson disagrees, and generally discussion that grassroots and top (elites) are in a cross-pollinating interaction.
Debate between Steenson and Weinberger about whether there are any big questions being debated.
Alex: are the big questions not about the web anymore?
??: most people are engineers, not big thinkers. Artists in their technology, not in general realm. Cite of General Good license.
Of course (following on to utopianism) we do sometimes have to be wary of utopianism in the unanticipated effects.
Question in head: grassroots is being discussed by Rheingold, is it not?
Weinberger: wiki as small-scale utopianism.
Others: GPL as bigish idea utopianism, but the other licenses provide incremental reflections off this utopianism.
Sollsass citation by Steenson as thinker in line.
