Blog #10: The Digital Divide

This week's chapters we're still a little difficult to understand at some points, but much easier than most of our other readings. I agree with the authors' point of view that social policies like those related to welfare, education, health care, etc. are all interconnected when addressing the problems of people who are technologically illiterate. It's more efficient to bring ICT resources down to the level of the users rather than the other way around. There are so many opportunities for users, but they must go through universities or other institutions to even access ICT resources which clearly shows that a digital divide still exists.

The focus group for the authors was poor women (usually with children) that they thought they'd be able to help through this project. Related to their focus group, they included a 1999 report of disparities between the "haves" and the "have nots" about household patterns of Internet use. I think these disparities still exist, obviously not as great, but still present in inner-city areas, minorities, and lower-income households. As for expected outcomes, I think it was a good goal to want to introduce the women to ICT resources and have them become civically engaged, but I don't know how reasonable it was to expect it to actually happen. I think all things are possible, but in time. For example - I tihnk the belief that ICTs have the potential to change people’s engagement with government is possible, but it's not something that can happen overnight.

I think the main goal in projects similar to this should be to overcome physical accessibility barriers as well as social capital barriers. In other words, people need to have the ability to afford a computer (or have a close location to access them) plus the skills necessary to navigate it and the Internet. People need these skills because "increasingly in our society, technological and basic literacies are a prerequisite to accessing health, education, jobs, and decisionmaking processes." Little access plus low skills plus low information is a vicious circle that just exacerbates the problem poor women face. Breaking the cycle brings us one step close to narrowing the digital divide. But we can't just provide computers and then take ourselves out of the equation - we need to provide training and assistance until the people feel confident in their skills to be on their own.

I've been directly affected by the early push for computers and the Internet in libraries and public schools and I can honestly agree with the authors - we were taught how to use certain features of a computer, but we weren't really taught how to navigate the Internet and the device ourselves. We were basically just droppped in the water and told to swim. On another note, I liked that the projects were able to be changed as the situation changed - in the reading from last week the projects discussed were pretty much set in stone and didn't allow for any input or molding from the community. I feel these quotes are related to this issue and our class:

• There's a "need to recognize how different stakeholders engaged in university collaborations determine and reflect goals, outcomes, values, and organizational changes (Kinpaisby 2008). The dialogue also emphasizes that communiversity concerns often center on the power dynamics between universities and community partners but fail to reflect the university as a community with its own particular set of constituents, resource inequalities, and service demands" (Kinpaisby 2008).
• "These factors add up to blurred boundaries for identifying start and end dates, goals and goal attainment measures, resource needs and expenditures, and ultimately the sustainability of the collaborations."
• "We have advocated the position that public and policy discourses should rely on the representation of multiple constituencies with an explicit understanding of the power imbalances represented by the need for the collaboration in the first place."
• "Our use of these theoretical frameworks draws on the notion that research should have practical applications for society at multiple scales – and that knowledge is situated within the experiences of each of the collaborators."

Blog #9: Put Something Here

For my Put Something Here I posted two small ads on a billboard on Lancaster Avenue near our campus. My first PSH was an ad that stated "BLONDES HAVE MORE FUN. Take one and email me :)" and had tear off email strips for people to take with them. My second PSH was an ad asking people about their beliefs of the neighborhood and Philadelphia and what they'd say to President Obama. I set up actual emails for these two PSHs but didn't get any responses. I enjoyed putting up the ads but I'm thinking I could've put up a poster more closely related to my final project - like asking when and where people went to carnivals or other social events in the area over time. In the end, this has shown me that Drexel itself is kind of a Put Something Here - our academic community inserted itself into West Philadelphia over one hundred years ago and is a continuos PSH. It makes me wonder how the residents' opinions have changed (if at all) over time.

Blog #8: Week 7

I feel like I actually understood the Week 7 readings. As a result, my blog is quite long.

First I'd like to address the good points mentioned throughout the dialogue between Phillips and Wodcizko:

• I agreed with Foucault that true democracy can't exist without the fearless public speaker, but I also felt that some form of democracy always exists even though true democracy is a constant process.
• Public space belongs to no one and the most important speakers are the ones who haven't spoken yet. "We could give a microphone or loudspeaker to these people, but we may hear nothing." - Wodcizko
• The official record is often a "narrative of those who have succeeded at the expense of those who are vanquished" (Wodcizko). We've addressed this in class a few times and I definitely agree with the statement.
• "How do we reach a point where there will be no need for tragic memorials?" I don't know exactly how I feel about this quote by Wodcizko. I mean sure it would be nice to have art be created for happy and excited purposes, but sometimes tragic events are beyond our control and we make memorials so as to never forget the harm people had to endure.
• I feel these three quotes emphasize a good point: "...there is nothing really wrong with being used--ethically speaking--as long as there is some mutual benefit" (Wodcizko), "Collaboration can accomodate all of this richness and texture. It isn't a homogeneous notion of everyone walking in stride to some common destination" (Phillips), and "Often artists are criticized for going into a community and, either unwittingly or willfully, using a group of people to accomplish a project" (Phillips). I think they highlight the fact that a lot of good artwork is the result of partnerships, and that everyone doesn't always have to agree or get along, but they at least collaborate. Sometimes people are in it for the wrong reasons, though, too.
• I love when Wodcizko stated that he doesn't pretend to understand the situation of a community or certain people or how they feel. I absolutely hate when people come into an area they're unfamiliar with and automatically assume they know the extent of our feelings. This kind of ignorance shows that the person is missing the point of collaboration entirely.
• "...architecture is a consequence and symbol of a prevailing economic system" (Wodcizko). "We invest our hopes and desires" (Wodcizko). I feel these two quotes say something powerful. I never thought about structures this way, but it makes sense - I often see success for myself when viewing monuments that represents freedom and liberty. Looking at these structures gives me pride in my nationality and makes me want to work hard to achieve my dreams.

I found the Kwon chapter very interesting. I think it's a good goal to shift viewers from passive spectators to active art-makers. This idea is highlighted in the quote "...much of the work in 'Culture in Action' was defined not in terms of material objects but by the ephemeral processes of interaction between the local participants and the artists." This aligns with my perception that art can be simple and that the people in the projected community for the artwork should be taken into consideration. I found many points I agreed with in this chapter:

• Public art is based on placement; new genre public art is based on engagement.
• Artists should use art more to further social and political justice advocacy.
• New genre public art should celebrate the particular realities of "ordinary" people and their "everyday" experiences.
• Making art more familiar and accessible = art for the people AND by the people
• A sculpture should be seen as a function of a space or context, not the other way around.
• Politicians often use "community" entirely out of context and the people who physically live in a certain area should decide how the space and resources are used (to a degree).
• An artist with "home-team advantage" will usually have more trust from community members and knowledge about the area when starting a project.

Lastly, the projects in "Culture in Action" were planned out, had designated goals, etc., before any community partners were consulted. Projects discussed: Community of Mythic Unity (Full Circle), "Sited" Communities (candy bar, paint chart, pot making), Invented Communities (Temporary) (Chicago Urban Ecology Action Group, West Side Three-Point Marchers), Invented Communities (Ongoing) (Haha & Flood [hydroponic AIDS garden], Street-Level Video [making videos, block party]). Further, curator and sponsoring agency middlemen filtered out the projects they didn't like (instead of the community itself). I felt this was wrong and disrespectful to the areas in Chicago that these projects were carried out in.

Blog #7: Assignments

~I figured I should finally write about my experience doing the Invisible City assignment since I forgot to post about it when it was assigned. I wasn't able to make the neighborhood walk, and I wasn't able to do the assignment in the professors' desired neighborhood, but I had a great time doing the assignment. I spent about three hours in my hometown walking around with my iPod blaring, taking pictures of just about everything. I really made a connection on my walk, and it helped me realize how out of touch I had become with my hometown. A lot of the pictures I took represent my rediscovered pride of where I'm from and how much I really missed just being able to "take a stroll through the park."

~I also really enjoyed the T-shirt assignment we had to do. I liked how all of our interpretations of a "map" were different and helped us understand the importance of mapping to human geography (this assignment really helped me get the mapping reading after we discussed it in class lol).

~Lastly, the most recent assignments (the tag and map) weren't that interesting. I spent some time making my map but it takes too long to map everything (even to map just the big things) and I didn't really have too much creativity with my tag. I do get the point about mapping though - there's more than one way to do it (as showcased by the T-shirt, tag, and map) and it's hard to decide what to include or not include.

Blog #6: Critical Vehicles

Once again, I understand hardly anything about this week's reading. Here's what I did understand:

• Progress is inevitably linked to a legacy of destruction. I don't always think the "destruction" is as bad as the word sounds but, like one of our speakers at the roundtable said, loss always accompanies progress.
• To heal one voiceless stranger (the vanquished of today [a prophet or messenger]) is to heal the entire city. I agree with this to the extent that when you give a displaced person a voice and let it be known to others, you're helping an entire area understand where the "voiceless stranger" is coming from.
• "It is up to these newcomers, then, to transform and unbuild the cities by inserting their presense, their performances, and their histories into the collective memories and democratic discourses of the city itself." I completely disagree with this statement. I think immigrants should be able to go to any country and bring their traditions and cultures with them, but I don't believe that immigrants should restructure a whole city in the new country to fit their liking. This concept is absurd to me, but I don't agree with total incorporation/assimilation by the country of choice of the immigrants either (and yes I realize that the inhabitants of the United States have done both of these, but it doesn't mean I supported that either).
• "Design must articulate and inspire communication of real, often difficult lived-through experience, rather than operate as a substitute for it." I like this concept of interrogative design, of having art be thought-provoking. I also agree that a proposed design should be developed with the survivor or the vanquished, not be a stand in or speak for them (which is a concept we should consider for our final project).

Blog #5: Site-Specific Art

Like last week, I didn't really understand too much from this week's reading either. What I did grasp was three main points: 1) that sometimes art is made to be site-specific (Serra's Tilted Arc at Federal Plaza), 2) that art isn't always universal and timeless, and 3) that art doesn't always have to be dependent on place (Ukeles' "maintenance art"). I think this information connects to our class in the sense that when we're thinking of a project for the neighborhood around our campus, we want to create something that's specific enough to this area and this point in time to be unique but one that can also be broad enough to compare to situations similar to the one here. Again, I don't have much to say because I didn't understand most of this article, but it helped me think about what kind of project I should be trying to create.

Blog #4: Cartography

I don't understand anything about the first article. The second reading was confusing also, but much less than the first. What I gathered from the second reading was that people described as having "power-over" characteristics have tried to hide certain communities and cultures by not officially mapping them for others to see. This has, in turn, significantly diminished the lifestyle of those overlooked and is a problem that needs to be fixed. Though I was initially surprised that this type of activity (of not officially including some areas in a map) occurred at all, I'm now pondering when else and under what circumstances this has happened in other countries. It's a disheartening thing to read about, and I would be horrified if something like this were happening in the United States (or any other powerful First World country with a notable reputation). I would be open to learning more about this topic.