Holotopia
Contents
Holotopia
Imagine...
You are about to board a bus for a long night ride, when you notice two flimsy, flickering streaks of light emanating from two wax candles, placed in the circular holes where the headlights of the bus are expected to be. Candles? As headlights? You rub your eyes in disbelief. What sort of nonsense is this? A weird joke? An art project?
Well of course, the idea of candles as headlights is absurd. So why talk about it? The reason is that, as we shall see, on a much larger scale—where the things such as our society, and the way we handle information, are so large that we cannot see them with naked eye—this absurdity has become reality.
By depicting our technologically advanced and fast-moving society as a bus, and the way we handle information as a pair of candle headlights, the Modernity ideogram renders our contemporary situation in a nutshell.
Our proposal
The crux of our knowledge federation proposal, which is detailed on this website, is to change the relationship we have with information.
What is our relationship with information presently like? Here is how Neil Postman described it:
"The tie between information and action has been severed. Information is now a commodity that can be bought and sold, or used as a form of entertainment, or worn like a garment to enhance one's status. It comes indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, disconnected from usefulness; we are glutted with information, drowning in information, have no control over it, don't know what to do with it."
Suppose we handled information as we normally handle man-made thing—by suiting it to the purposes that need to be served. What consequences would this have? How would information be different? How would it be used? By what methods, what social processes, and by whom would it be created? What new information formats would emerge, and supplement or replace the traditional books and articles? How would information technology be adapted? What would public informing be like? And academic communication, and education?
The substance of our knowledge federation proposal is a complete and academically coherent answer to those and other related questions; an answer that is not only described and explained, but also implemented—as a collection of real-life embedded prototypes.
Seeing things whole
The Information ideogram, shown on the right, explains how the information we are proposing is different from the information we have.
The ideogram shows an "i", which stands for "information", as composed of a circle placed on top of a square. The square stands for the details; and also for looking at a theme of choice from all sides, by using diverse kinds of sources and resources. The circle stands for the function or the point of it all—which might be an insight into the nature of a situation; or a rule of thumb, pointing to a general way to handle situations of that kind; or a project, which implements such handling.
BottomUp - TopDown intervention tool for shifting positions
The BottomUp - TopDown intervention tool for shifting positions, which was part of the Holotopia's pilot project in Kunsthall 3.14, Bergen, suggests how this proposed information is to be used—by transcending fixed relations between top and bottom, and building awareness of the benefits of multiple points of view; and moving in-between.
We call the various practices that are needed for implementing our proposal knowledge federation.
Political federation brings smaller units together, to give them higher visibility and impact. Knowledge federation does that to information. Its purpose is to turn disparate "pieces of information" into effective information (the information that fulfills core purposes; which gives us the knowledge we need); and to restore knowledge to power.
We here refer to the proposed 'lightbulb' by the pseudonym holoscope, to highlight its distinguishing characteristic— that it helps us see things whole.
The holoscope uses suitable information in a suitable way, to illuminate what remained obscure or hidden, so that we may correctly see the shape and the dimensions of the whole (correct our perspective).
The holoscope complements the usual approach in the sciences:
Science gave us new ways to look at the world. The telescope and the microscope enabled us to see the things too distant or too small to be seen by the naked eye, and our vision expanded. But science also had the tendency to keep us focused on things that were either too distant or too small to be relevant—compared to all those large things nearby, which now demand our attention. The holoscope is conceived as a way to look at the world that helps us see any chosen thing or theme as a whole—from all sides; and in correct proportions.
We depend on information to be able to see things whole. We cannot see that the Earth is round. Our planet is too large for that. But someone else is living on the other side. Someone else has traveled around the globe. And some people have traveled to the outer space. When we put those pieces together, with a bit of reflection, we can see even very large things whole just as clearly as if we could see them with our own eyes.
And sometimes we can even correct the way we see things with our eyes.
A proof of concept application
What difference will the holoscope make? The Holotopia prototype, which is currently under development, is a proof of concept application.
An assessment of the general condition we are in, which has been produced by The Club of Rome, provided us a benchmark challenge to put the holoscope to test. Based on a decade of this global think tank's research into the future prospects of mankind, in a book summary titled "One Hundred Pages for the Future" a half-century ago, Aurelio Peccei issued the following warning:
"It is absolutely essential to find a way to change course."
Already at its inception, The Club of Rome addopted the strategy that they wold not focus on any specific problem or issue, because they are all inextricably related with one another, but on the overall condition or "problematique" that includes them whole. And on our civilization's condition's deeper causes, and remedies.
Peccei's diagnosis included also what needed to be done to "change course":
"The future will either be an inspired product of a great cultural revival, or there will be no future."
This more detailed assessment, from Peccei's book "Human Quality", will also be relevant:
"Let me recapitulate what seems to me the crucial question at this point of the human venture. Man has acquired such decisive power that his future depends essentially on how he will use it. However, the business of human life has become so complicated that he is culturally unprepared even to understand his new position clearly. As a consequence, his current predicament is not only worsening but, with the accelerated tempo of events, may become decidedly catastrophic in a not too distant future. The downward trend of human fortunes can be countered and reversed only by the advent of a new humanism essentially based on and aiming at man’s cultural development, that is, a substantial improvement in human quality throughout the world."
On the morning of the last day of his life (March 14, 1984), while working on "The Club of Rome: Agenda for the End of the Century", Peccei dictated to his secretary from a hospital bed
Can the 'headlights' we are proposing help our society "change course"? And if they can—what new course will result?"Human development is the most important goal."
Here we have a design challenge—to begin, and streamline, a course of action that can make a large-enough difference. Anything less than that may be worse than doing nothing—because it may make us feel that we are doing something; and keep us too busy to pay due attention to this truly pivotal strategic question.