Saturday Oct. 15 was an internationally coordinated event meant to extend the momentum of Occupy Wall St. In Rome, when we first arrived at the launch point (Piazza della Repubblica), the energy was fantastic. Lots of excitement. People felt energized, but the mood was bit dour as well. The day before Berlusconi had survived another no-confidence vote. The demo was massive–I heard that it was as high as 700,00 people, though that figure seems a bit exaggerated. All I can say is that from where it started it took over three hours for all the people to enter into the march.

After about 45 minutes of moving slowly while serenaded by all kinds of sound systems blasting the protest classics, once we began seeing the hooded black block infiltrate the crowd, we decided it was time to leave. One of them even threatened to punch me when I tried to take their picture.

Trying to leave proved difficult, however. The police had cordoned off the side streets, making it impossible for anyone to exit the march. We ended up having to backpedal upstream to get out of the demonstration. I took that as a very bad sign because it seemed to me that the police were forcing everyone into a pressure point. Sure enough, fifteen minutes after we exited all the burning and smashing started.

Local articles have pieced together a confusing picture. A theory among many is that the massive riot that quickly exploded was a highly coordinated and well-planed urban warfare strategy. Various kinds of projectiles were strategically placed and hidden at different points along the streets. There was a very large group (at least 100) that cut the demonstration in half at the precise point that the front group had arrived at march’s final destination. The police did not do very much at the beginning and let the rioters go about as they wished. Some claim police inaction was out of fear of being libel, as was the case in the aftermath of Genoa (indeed, the hashtag for the militants to coordinate each other was #genoareloaded). The police officially say they held back out of concern for people’s safety. This, I find dubious, since when I tried to leave the police wouldn’t let me. There were also reports of “ultras” (soccer hooligans) entering into the fray (apparently this is par for the course–they are professional rioters, after all).

Many of the black block kids were quite young (minors) and from all over Italy. It was clear that they were well prepared and had tactics. Rumor has it that they were trained in Greece. What their goals were remain a mystery to me, because at the end of the day, the government and police are the victors: an opportunity to initiate a peaceful occupation was sabotaged and now the fascist mayor of Rome is calling for a suspension for all marches during the next month. This means that Fiat auto workers who were planning a big demo are now prohibited. Jasmina Tesanovic asks the right question, a chi giova–who bennefits? My impression is that police and the black block need each other the same way that Christians and Satanists are co-dependentent. They define each other’s actions and reality. I suggest they go have it out in the Colosseum and let the rest of us participate in something productive.

A Prezi for my presentation at the Media Education Summit, London 2011

I just returned from my first trip to London where I presented at the Media Education Summit, 2011. It was a slightly disorienting but invigorating experience. The conference itself was a success. I had a chance to network and learn from the various good folks who comprise the The Centre for Excellence in Media Practice.

One of the strangest things I experienced was when I clutched my first handful of British pounds. I had never fondled British money and it felt oddly magical, as if I was handling something from global banking’s radioactive nucleus. I’m sure others have had similar experiences handling their first dollars, but for me seeing the currency’s portrait of Queen Elizabeth–something I’m more familiar with from a Sex Pistols poster–gave me chills. I’m not sure if these were the good kind of chills, but I felt as if I was crossing a threshold into the capitalist core.

For the US, England is the motherland–for better and for worse. As such, I wanted to experience the city’s genius loci–spirit of place. My first effort failed. The hotel was at one of those conference no man’s land that is not unlike the other nonplaces that dot the planet’s web of global business centers. Yes, there were some unique architectural elements that drew upon the former industrial character of the place, but it had an inorganic feeling common to so many current developments. It was most certainly an island unto itself. The hotel, comfortable though that it was, also had the feeling of virtual quality one gets from Ikea: design-wise the elements and details of the hotel room feel fresh and interesting, but highly fragile and toxic. From the future’s perspective, the materials seem flimsy and dated.

I have mixed feelings about how my talk went (you can see the Prezi above). Only five people attended, while next door there were dozens checking out a presentation about incorporating Facebook into educational practice. When it comes to sustainability, it’s hard to compete with Facebook. I also had technical issues. Prezi behaves weirdly on the new MacBook Pro (the navigation menu disappears and you have to use the arrow keys to move around, which is really awkward when giving a talk). Towards the end, the video projector frizzled. This was a huge drag because the most important part was demonstrating how a non-linear approach to media ed can be achieved through a circular design based on a media mandala. Oh well. Maybe Mother Nature was punishing me for trying to bring technology into the process of healing the planet.

Though I was a little dispirited, I also saw it as a growth opportunity. I think one lesson for a talk under any condition is to keep it simple, find a good narrative to tell the story and try to focus on one take-away message that can fit into a sentence. Using a presentation tool like Prezi can encourage all kinds of intellectual mischief. Maybe it’s better to not lean so much on presentation tools so much.

Some of the feedback was interesting and unexpected. One gentleman who teaches production said that he simply had never made the connection between his work and sustainability. This view was confirmed by another attendee. This probably explains why so many people prefer to think about Facebook than greening media practice. I half suspected a low turnout since my current crusade (bad word, I know) to green media education has gotten so few bites. I have never felt so lonely. Either I am totally insane and what I’m talking about is useless, or I’m part of a minority of visionaries that the world hasn’t quite caught up to. I hope it’s the latter. But if I can plant the seed in one person that the connection is important, then I feel like I have helped evolve our species.

London was a little more surreal. I had only two nights and one full day while there, which made exploration limited. The weather was beyond fowl, but at a certain point the wicked winds and pelting rain blew away and I had a window of a few hours to see central London. First things first, I ate a good curry and drank a few pints (had my first hangover in over a year). Then I entered into the famous Underground and sailed into the city’s dreaming mind.

The tube really felt like a tube. Unlike NYC’s subways, it’s intimate and enclosed as I imagine a spaceship would feel. I entered central London through the portal of the Underground’s Leicester Square station. At first this was a little disappointing. I exited into a corridor of brand stores, video screen walls and tourist shops that had a slightly different flavor than Time Square and done on a much smaller scale. London should not try to outdo Americans with this kind of ostentatious display of capitalism. It’s way too tacky in the wrong context. Even Banksy was reduced to t-shirts in tawdry tourist shops

I did my best to get lost. I searched about for the genius loci but a mantra kept running through my mind: corporations destroy the spirit of place. This is, it seems, is their essence. A corporation cannot be successful unless it obliterates a sense of the local. For example, when a Taco Bell replaces a taqueria–as I have witnessed in some communities in New Mexico– this is a sure sign that the natives have been banished. I’m sure this has a little to do with London’s wildcat riots in which the inhabitants of culturally specific neighborhoods asserted their identity, albeit in a way most Londoners felt was unpolite.

I ranged through SoHo and Covent Garden, but could not quite get the gist of the place. I know two hours won’t do the trick, but there are other cities where one immediately gets a much stronger feeling for the local spirit. Most Italian cities, for example, have that affect. I suspect that because they emerged within such specific bioregional limits Italian cities are so particular. Maybe it’s because London peaked during the age of colonialism and grew according to an outward expression of ecological imperialism. It has a bold and fortresslike presence, as if it were a kind of command and control center.

My night closed with a descent back into the tube, where I entered into a sonic bath of Pink Floyd’s “Breath.” A busker at the bottom of the escalator noodled along to a Karaoke version of the track as if he were one of London’s many threshold guardians reminding its visitors that the city’s soul does express itself… through music. Pink Floyd, Sex Pistols, The Clash, and Radiohead are just a few of the great artists to emerge from the English dream that has so permeated my lifeworld.

Maybe this was the genius loci I was searching for.

“Decolonize the Media argues that in the 21st Century, the global economic system’s most precious resource is human consciousness. From social networks to popular culture, corporations use media to exploit and colonize our attention. But with insights drawn from grassroots activism, sustainability, ancient wisdom traditions and media literacy, we can create sacred media that defies the parasitic strategies shaping planetary communications.”

If you are interested in reviewing the book or interviewing me as part of the launch, I’m compiling a media list to be submitted to the publisher. They will send you a preview copy when it is ready (after x-mas, probably). Please send me an email: info@worldbridgermedia.com

Thanks in advance for your support and interest.

Media Is… from Lori H. Ersolmaz on Vimeo.

A few years ago I was interviewed by Lori Ersolmaz for a documentary project about media literacy. Here is a new video,”Media is…,” that she made featuring some sound bites from our original interview. I’m honored that she considers me an “expert”! The video is a nice meditation and I hope you will take a few minutes to watch it and support Lori’s work.

The Handbook of Sustainability Literacy: Skills for a Changing World

Hands down this is the most practical book on sustainability education available. It consists of 32 short five page chapters with concise concepts and activities. Topics include (but not limited to) media literacy, culture, systems thinking, technology, ecocriticism, economics, commons, permaculture design, community gardening, ecological intelligence, materials awareness, complexity theory, and so-on. The book’s Website has additional downloadable chapters. If you were to get one book on sustainability literacy, I would get this one.

Mediactive

A very practical book for any media practitioner. It combines both useful advice for promoting alternative and independent journalism, and is an excellent primer for “crap detection,” or media literacy. You can download a PDF for free from the book’s Website. This is an accessible book that can be assigned to undergrads.

Greening through IT: Information Technology for Environmental Sustainability

I assigned chapters from this to my digital media culture class. It is clearly written and looks at IT from various perspectives. It is both critical and pro-active, with excellent conceptual tools for thinking about how to convert power-hungry IT to a greener future.

Making is Connecting

I admit that I haven’t read too much of this book yet, but based on blurbs and some of the videos from the book’s Website, this is very promising. In particular David Gauntlett connects DIY crafts activities with the Internet, featuring a lengthy chapter on Ivan Illich. I like the approach. As an old punk who got into media and online publishing from my experience of DIY, connecting the online and off-line worlds through the discussion of appropriate technology tools is a good way to connect the dots.

Language and Learning in the Digital Age

A new offering from James Paul Gee (co-authored with Elisabeth R. Hayes), this book is a very accessible discussion of the debates around language and digital literacy. In particular it argues that digital media are indeed examples of oral cultural expression. It also takes the perspective that literacy is a technology. I would recommend this as an excellent and accessible introduction to the highly contested debate about the impact of digital media on learning.

Digital Ground: Architecture, Pervasive Computing, and Environmental Knowing

Although old in terms of Internet years (it was published in 2004), Digital Ground remains a truly prescient book. Written from the perspective of architecture and design, the book approaches the emergence of pervasive computing from outside the tech bubble. It has the best explanation for why humans ultimately rejected virtual reality, and challenges some naive assumptions about interactivity. I got the book on a tip from my friend and mentor Kathleen Tyner, who is one of the top media literacy scholars in the world. If she says this is her favorite book, then I take that as a five-star recommendation,

Design Literacies: Learning and Innovation in the Digital Age

Recommended by blog reader Davey, this has turned out to be a wonderful find. For me design is where it’s at in terms of really understanding why things are made to do the things they do. This book focuses largely on interactivity, and comprises interviews with some of the key innovators of Internet Web design (here we are not talking about the aesthetics of design, but rather the usability of it). The authors interview business people, artists, educators and techies. An excellent example of ethnographic research.

Films:

Objectified

I stumbled upon this while looking for a documentary about computer design for my digital media class. Though the film focuses mostly on industrial design, it does features interviews with people from the computer industry, including Apple. Made by the folks who brought us Helvetica, this film was a big hit with my students. It does a good job of going into the minds of designers and describing the kinds of decisions they make as they develop their projects. It even nods to sustainability.

Manufactured Landscapes (US Edition)

Based on the work of photographer Edward Burtynsky, this documentary takes a troubling look at how our demand for consumer goods has transformed the Chinese landscape. The film impacted my students greatly, giving them a deeper sense of how our media gadgets directly impact the environment. Bonus: here is a link to a short video about Burtynsky’s latest project on oil.

For more, go here.

Thanks for all the love and support, and if you are so motivated, please share with likeminded folks in the network. Peace! Antonio

Mediacology: Green Media Education Website:

The Mediacology: Green Media Education Website connects media literacy with ecoliteracy. By filling a gap between media and environmental education, this resource offers sustainable and ethical media education tools for educators, community activists and cultural citizens engaged in transformative planetary change. In the spirit of sustainable communication, the final product will be open source and freely available to the global community via a Website portal. The resource will consist of free downloadable curricula, community space, online multimedia lessons and access to online trainings. This project requests help in developing a unified identity for all its materials: logo, print and Website.

What is happening is that I’m finding my natural Net rhythm, which is like settling into the orbit of Pluto instead of Mercury. From afar I’m seeing more and more spinning at the Internet’s center, and finding myself as if I’m in a centrifuge spun out to the edge. This partially explains the recent slower pace at Mediacology. For the moment I’ve lost the drive and enthusiasm I had when I first started blogging five years ago. Back then I was excited and energetic to post everyday, and was pretty prolific in the beginning. I also had dreams of blog fame and a second income. Having let go of these delusions (and hence the simplified design of my current layout), I’m feeling more comfortable letting things come when they are ready, and resting when I need to.

I’ve been a Web explorer since the early Mosaic days, which seems like a century ago in Web time (I think I first surfed the Web in 1993). I’m now starting to feel like the Internet’s Wild West is about to be settled by the telegraph, railroad and empowered sheriffs who have the might of international treaties to start clamping down and moving folks who don’t conform to the old paradigm of intellectual property onto reservations.

Not surprisingly, this mirrors many other struggles going on as the public good faces an amped up process of enclosure. For example, last week I facilitated a panel that looked at the neoliberal threat against the cultural commons and could see how similar the fight for the commons is across all sectors of society. Among us we discussed the enclosure of food and water systems, public spaces like parks, homelessness, and education. You could add to the list DNA and GMOs. The theme was consistent: we have faced a radical turn in which more and more of our shared spaces are being privatized in the name of what Marx called “primitive accumulation.” The “state of exception” which allows democratic societies to violate their own principles in the name of wartime emergencies (such as excluding Native Americans from the same rights afforded to whites) is increasingly becoming the norm as rights are quietly whittled away in the name of national security and intellectual property.

In terms of the Net, my biggest concern is the use of anti-piracy/counterfeiting laws to privatize civil complaints. Rather than go through the legal system to request warrants and to file official complaints against so-called pirates, entertainment companies are requiring Internet providers to police their customers and to cut off access when violations are detected. The Economist reports that there is piracy detection software in beta that can identify a single frame of a copyrighted film. With such detection bots roaming the net, will they be able to distinguish between fair use and legitimate piracy? I think not. It’s a return to Napoleonic law in which you are guilty until proven innocent. And who has the might to fight Comcast or Time-Warner? A while back I posted a short clip on YouTube from Saturday Night Live that I wanted my students to comment on for class. YouTube pulled it because it violated user terms. To Google’s credit, they have an appeals process in which I could make a fair use claim. As a result, in the end the video was restored, but I imagine it took a human to intervene. What happens when we automate the policing of the Net, let alone the tracking of people’s behaviors and relationships? Facebook anyone?

I continue to use the Internet for teaching and often post copyrighted media for students to comment on. I’m thankful that this has made teaching more interesting and accessible to wider groups of people. In the past year, however, I have found it more difficult to do so. My YouTube channel has dozens of playlists with videos I use for teaching. Often I create playlists as I’m teaching a course, only to find out the following semester that half the videos I posted are no longer available. As a fallback position I use the Firefox plug-in Easy YouTube Downloader to get “hard copies” of the videos so that I have access to them for later use. This has saved me on several occasions. So though I appreciate the plethora of media available to me (far more than five years ago), I feel like the moment is very tenuous. I don’t know how much longer this will go on.

I’m also feeling agnostic about social networks. I have Twitter and Facebook accounts, but have not been able to develop the habit of engaging them. I’ve heard all kind of praise for Twitter, but it simply makes my eyes go cross. I understand and appreciate why people like it, but I think I’m too old school to really get it. Facebook is the same. I dip my toe in it here and there, but the stream mostly passes me by. Sometimes I like the linkages it makes for me, but for the most part I feel pretty disengaged. In all honesty, I’m not into getting poked all the time.

The same goes with the Web in general. For a writer, researcher, activist and educator it is, of course, invaluable. But I also find that I don’t use it that much except when there is something I need. Unlike the early days of the Web when surfing was a novel experience, I get overloaded very quickly. But then again, the same goes for museums and galleries. I can only look at art for an hour before my brain gets fried. Literally. Processing nerve stimulus takes energy, be it art or the umpteenth Website on ecological pedagogy (though when I’m less tired, I’m sure glad these sites are there).

Additionally I find that I don’t like to chat too much with SMS, though sometimes I find it very convenient. The thing is, when I’m on the computer I’m either reading or writing and I don’t like to be interrupted. For the life of me I don’t understand why people post their Skype names on their Websites. Who in the world wants to get so many phone calls? And when it comes to texting, I’m all thumbs.

As I’m writing this I get the sense that maybe I’m coming across as a bit of a selfish netizen. I’m aware of the spiritual precept that manifestation follows intention and attention. You get back what you put in. I certainly cherish the interactivity and exchange that has facilitated new friendships on the Net, many invaluable. It doesn’t have to be either/or, but this and that. Nonetheless, remaining centered in the cosmos is hard enough; maintaining an extended self in the Net is that much more to deal with.

Finally, I like walking and riding bikes without the electronic tether. I enjoy unpredictability and minor amounts of chaos that comes along with not knowing everything about everybody at every moment. Sometimes there’s a benefit to opacity.

I know I’m particular and of a certain age which makes me un-enamored with these digital tools. As an old punk, I tend to prefer zine making as an early form of Web publishing and blogging. What is different for me now is that I miss the tactility of tabletop publishing. I like getting glue and ink on my fingers, and cutting things with scissors and holding something in my hands. I admit that blogging and the community around WordPress does remind me a bit of the zine days, and there are times when blogging and networking does get me excited like the good ol’ days of Xerox lore. The thing I love about blogging is that I can instantaneously publish what I’m thinking about, which gives me a sketchpad for longer, more thoughtful passages that end up in long-form essays and books.

No one is telling me to do any of these things, though I do feel a little peer pressure that I should like Facebook and Twitter. I’m not trying to be a village atheist, but rather am finding a middle way in which the tool is here and available, but at the same time without attachment. This constitutes my current thinking about what it means to be a Net agnostic.

I don’t mean for this missive to be solemn or sad, just a respite from an exhausting information haul. I’m still here, I still care. I’m just taking my time, pacing a long walk, slowing down a bit so as to not get too caught up in the frenzied tornado of the Network Society.

BTW, if you read past the fold and got this far, thanks! I certainly no longer have the patience to read this far.

Photo by me

As we watched the events unfold at Copenhagen, many of us felt powerless to infuse wisdom into the process. It seems as if the globe’s political leaders cannot transcend their own momentum, and remain stuck in a reality that defines everything in the context of numbers. One thing that Jacques Ellus points out in The Technological Society is that a consequence of the technological mindset is establishing a set of perimeters on how to think about and categorize the world, and to make taboo human scaled relationships that result from organic processes.

Consequently, this year the theme that keeps knocking me over is to scale down. In my work and professional/activist ambitions I have felt the need, like many of us, to change the world as quickly as possible. The task often feels existential and too massive to contain– our system seems like giant robots trouncing the earth and often I feel like a Lilliputan trying to pin it down.

As a colleague reminds me, complexity theory shows that all system change happens at a local level. Perhaps in our desire to see a massive global political shift many of us have disregarded another option, which is to scale down our thoughts to the local level, and to work within the means that we have available to us. For me that translates to living a certain kind of low impact lifestyle, and also re-dedicating my work in the classroom where I have a lot of one-on-one contact with the next prototype of human, our youth. And of course spending more time with my family.

My sustainability education mentor, Pramod Prajoli, has the following guidelines for moving into the next phase of transformation:

1) critique to regeneration

2) ideologies to ideas

3) discourse to design

4) global thinking to local thinking

Some ideas I have for the coming year include editing a textbook for media educators that incorporates a sustainable framework, and to develop a green curriculum that can be used as part of media literacy work.

Meanwhile, I want to rededicate myself to eating well, relaxing more, taking it a bit slower and remembering to breath. Now is not the time to panic, but to become grounded and rooted again in our life work.

I’ll close with these thoughts from Tricycle Magazine:

Caring for Each Other

The Buddha has suggested that we are without a mother and father to take care of things for us. Mother Earth, once thought to be all-forgiving and capable of absorbing any abuse we could heap upon her, is not the infinitely benevolent resource we thought she was. As we learn of our own mothers at a certain point of maturity, Mother Earth can and does get worn down by giving and forgiving in the face of our persistent demands. And our Father who is in heaven, though perhaps immensely old and lord over a host of devas (as the Buddhists view him), is nevertheless subject to the laws of karma and is not sufficiently omnipotent to make it all work out for us in the end.

If we do not care for one another, who else will care for us? Who among us has the right to say of another, “He is of no use to us?” For better or worse, whether we like it or not, we are all in this together. Learning how to care for one another is a central part of the path and of the practice.

- Andrew Olendzki, Ph.D., “Medicine for the World,” from the Summer 2008 Tricycle. Read the complete article.