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PROPOSAL :: Networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art)
(a) Name, address, URL, email and one page CV of author. John Hopkins 1120 South Yellowbrick Road Chino Valley, Arizona 86323 USA (this is a transitional base address good until 02/2009) http://neoscenes.net/ John Hopkins is a networker, artist, and educator occupied across a wide swath of techno-social systems with an extensive global network presence. He is active in numerous global creative networks beginning with the Cassette Underground and the Mail Art networks in the 1980's and merging seamlessly into the propagating telecommunications networks of the present. He has engaged in many individual and collective dialogues concerning the facilitation of collaborative creative situations, and has facilitated or participated in numerous distributed projects. http://neoscenes.net/info/cv/ (b) A 1000 word proposal that should be accompanied by an abstract of no more than 250 words and a list of keywords to indicate the subject area of the chapter. [Each of the commissioned chapters will contain text, images, videos, and/or audio.] ABSTRACT Tapping into a substantial personal network, one which, as a nomad, I sustain through a range of both distributed and f-2-f encounter, I will explore the roots of creative action arising from collective, collaborative, and networked be-ing. This exploration will start from the essential elements of be-ing in the world as expressed through presence and will range through the affects of the techno-social system in which that be-ing is immersed impresses itself on the collective creative (art-making) process. It will dance around the concept of creativity, its sources, and how it arises within human encounter. It will play at circumscribing the potential of a networked life in our time. KEYWORDS networks, networking, networker, presence, be-ing, energy, flow, creativity, collaboration, participation, dialogue, techno-social systems, mediation, continuum of relation, resonance PROPOSAL Exploring the extent of the energized bi-directional dialogues that make up a network, I will circumscribe widely the flows that are necessary to create a sustainable and viable network presence, presence which is the core of creative collaboration. The expression of presence is an essential characteristic of the self-organized body-system. Presence is the announcement of be-ing and viability and requires first an inflow and then an outflow of energies from the body system through the conversion of energies from one form to another. This conversion process alters the entire fabric of local existence. A viable network requires that there be tangible flows of energy running between each node: shared presence is manifest through these distributed exchanges of energy. These flows may not necessarily be constant, consistent, nor complete, but they need to be balanced by open-ness, reciprocity, and attentiveness. The networking of the embodied and energized organism changes everything around it. Shared presence is a dialogue of transformation and change. It is the crux of be-ing and the crux of a network. When there are reciprocated flow, a network becomes the site for unlimited creative potential. Facilitating the desired collaborative outcome, I will draw into the process the voices of my wide collaborative network for a variety of reciprocal reflections, provocations, and instances which will contribute to the generation of the final text. Depending somewhat on the precise technical framework conceived by the editors, this extended dialogue can contain a variety of media -- my own work is generally some permutation of text-image-audio-video. (c) Four networked writing samples. 1) http://www.neoscenes.net/projects/eight/index.html "eight dialogues" This project was about live text-based dialogue production with a variety of networked partners (see http://www.neoscenes.net/projects/eight/text/d1.html as an example dialogue). It was part of the PORT: Navigating Digital Culture exhibition at the MIT List Visual Arts Center. 2) http://www.neoscenes.net/travelog/weblog.php "neoscenes travelog" This is a 13-year-long self-constructed project in text-image-audio-video documents my nomadic travels and human encounters necessary to engage and sustain my network f-2-f across 30 countries. The almost 1800 entries explore a wide variety of subjects and situations with a substantial set of reflections on my work in 'networked art.' 3) http://www.neoscenes.net/hyper-text/text/pixel.html "In The Presence of Networks: A Meditation on the Architectures of Participation" This text was written for the Pixelache 07 Festival and Conference publication (http://www.pixelache.ac/2007/pikseliahky07-english/) where I also ran the workshop "Remote Presence: Streaming Life" (http://www.pixelache.ac/2007/neoscenes-workshop). It is a meditation on the vagaries of individual presence in juxtaposition to collective be-ing. 4) http://neoscenes.net/hyper-text/hyper/silke/silke01.html "the silke text" This short sequence of meditations on networks and creative energy was a hypertext addenda to a flash project that some of my students did some years back. Hypertext links lead to early fragments of the travelog project. |