culturalboundaries

Lots of amazing presentations jumping off throughout  Social Media Week, however I started my Valentine day off with Digital Voyeurism panel held at the Hearst Magazines Urban Theater.  Much like the early onset of food bloggers revolutionized blogging—now design/lifestyle bloggers are making huge strides blogging about what’s chic and using social media— all has changed the way people decorate there spaces. Speaking on the what’s chic Bryan Batt,  Jeanine Hays, and Christiane Lemieux, each shared stories of about their blogs, shops and products. Now design bloggers are taking the lead with decorating magazines following suit and featuring eclectic colorful home decor photography from a more humanistic perspective rather then sterile sparse decor of the past.

Bryan Batt

Living in NYC ones days tend to be overloaded, so this weekend was no different with events from ICFF (International Furniture Fair) to Socialmedia weekend at Columbia School of Journalism organized by Sree Sreenivasan the dean of the School of Journalism and host of volunteers. And this event was organized in just two weeks. At first I wanted to play spin the bottle to choose, but  instead opted to try something new after all I’ve attended numerous ICFF’s over the years. Despite recouping from tumltous two weeks of finishing my second Masters in Design Criticism at the School of Visual Arts, I managed to stay alert through several informative sessions, chat up lots of exciting new people, and tweet about the proceedings throughout the two days. Luckily, things paid off, Doug Cret one of the attendees followed my tweets, wrote an article on Fastcompany blog about Socialmedia Weekend and mentioned my culturalboundaries blog. Totally unexpected, but much appreciated hit from Douglas Cret. More on the wonders of tweeting.

Here’s an excerpt by FC expert Blogger Douglas Cret.

We Are Content. We Are Curation. Open the Doors And
See All the People
Does the headline sound familiar? It’s a play on that funny nursery allegory they used to do with their hands when you were in day school. “Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors, see all the people.” It amazes me that as a tow-headed latchkey kid, I thought that little rhetorical device was magical.

The tools of discovery really are multiple on the web, and in a real way, the tools are its people.

After spending hours tweeting, listening in on social media forums and connecting with some really intelligent media people, I spent a few minutes inside the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Saturday evening and contemplated the full day’s data stream.

Read more:

Fellow SVA Alumni Emily Lutzker has launched OPENINVO an innovative  online community for businesses that bridges people from the arts and creative fields with corporations.

If you have a brilliant idea for a new product or service, then join as an Idea Provider. We then present your ideas to corporations looking to innovate. The system protects your intellectual property along the way and we make it our job to get you the best compensation for your ideas. OpenInvo is an R&D resource for open innovation where individuals submit ideas for new products and services and companies gain access to those ideas for innovative new solutions

For more information link to: OpenInvo: unexpected innovation. unexpected opportunity. openinvo.com

Coming in March
Black Studies in Art & Design Education Conference at the The New School

March 26th-27th 2011. Two Day Conference on interdisciplinary conference on Black Studies in Art and Design Education, featuring speakers from art, fashion. architecture, urban planning, art and design history and theory. Organised by Coco Fusco and Yvonne Watkins, Parsons The New School for Design, New York. Presenters include: Craig Wilkins, University of Michigan; Mabel Wilson, Columbia University; Noel Mayo, Ohio State; Carol Tulloch, Chelsea College of Art and Design; Jennifer Gonzales, North Carolina State University; Michele Y. Washington, School of Visual Arts; Kim Piner, School of the Arts Institute of Chicago; Noliwe Rooks, Princeton University; Clyde Johnson MICA are amongst the list of designers, cultural and design critics, and educators presenters.

The conference is intended to be a forum for reflection on the troubling gap between the notable significance of Black creativity in global culture and its lack of presence in art and design education. The goal of the conference is to elaborate and assess strategies of reform that would diversify curricular offerings and thus improve education for all art and design students while simultaneously generating a more supportive environment for Black students and faculty.

Scholars and practitioners in Fine Arts, Industrial Design, Fashion Design, Architecture, Urban Planning and Art and Design History and Theory will engage in an interdisciplinary discussion about the challenges involved in rethinking  curriculum, engaging with historically disenfranchised communities, and recruiting and retaining Black students and faculty. The conference will also feature two keynote speeches by prominent members of the fields under  figures whose efforts have been central to diversifying the many fields that comprise art and design studies. Panels will address the following topics: rethinking art and design theory and history courses in light of the global influence of cultures of the African diaspora; curricular reform in practical courses of art and design; strategies of engagement with black communities; Black student experiences in art and design schools; and the specific challenges of recruiting and retaining Black students and faculty in school of art and design.

photo credit: http://www.blackstudies.ucsb.edu

GLIDE10: Fabiola Berdiel + Cynthia Lawson Development through Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, and Design presenters brings us up-to-date on Parsons School of Design ongoing mission of incorporating social responsibility in to learning processes as applied to several design disciplines such as product, architecture and more.

One great aspect of Parsons School of Design  program is there hybridity of bringing students together from various disciplines to share information to build stronger coherent knowledge bases. The challenge is instructors function as facilitators, this mode of teaching forces the students to take a more interactive role to immerse themselves fully in there projects, and learn new platforms of studying beyond formal and informal methods of learning.  Students also have the opportunity to acquire primary research through traveling to developing/emerging  countries and explore various modes of practices while interacting with local people,  investigating new materials and methods to enhance new ways of design thinking. This provides the student with practical and hands-on experiences to build a diverse dialog rooted  in social and cultural constructs not available by just sitting in a classroom or surfing the internet.

 

Questions:
I’m curious how the outcomes are measured by the students each semester? When the students interact with other cultures through travels, how does this figure into the collaborative process? How do these other ethnic cultures respond to the presences of your students?

I love the concept of students taking on the role of facilitators as a shared experience with this projects. How does this method evolve from semester to semester? Do the students view themselves as real agents of change? If so what are some of the outcomes?

What are the draws backs of the participatory process in this model of learning?

For more information click on: deed.parsons.edu

Featured above is Cornel West, Professor at Princeton University with talk show host Tavis Smiley.

The fusion of this dynamic duo Smiley & West is slotted to hit the airwaves this coming October with the launch of Tavis Smiley’s  Public Radio International (PRI) an energetic radio program covering thought provoking, intelligent and stimulating dialogue on every subject from news and politics to entertainment and culture. Tune-in one-hour for this weekly show that promises to bring listeners a broad spectrum of compelling guests and I’m sure some juicy debates will jump off between Tavis Smiley and Cornel West.

Just out.  While media moves through space quicker than superman, this new updated version of Social Media Revolution 2 differs drastically from last years outdated video, this version is fresher with new stats and graphics.
Social Media Revolution 2 is a refresh of the original video with new and updated social media & mobile statistics that are hard to ignore. Based on the book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman.
As reported by the SocialTimes Blog:
Socialnomics Revisits ‘Social Media Revolution’
Last August Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics, introduced ‘Social Media Revolution’, an infographic video chock full of social media statistics.  The original video was a hit, with over 1.8 million views, but in the 9 months since it was released the world of social media has changed quite a bit and many of the statistics represented in the video have become outdated.  Yesterday, Socialnomics released a refresh of their video, new and improved with up-to-date social media and mobile statistics, facts and figures.
For more read the SocialTImes.