Empowering vital ideas

Empowering Vital Ideas - A product thesis focused on the design of a social network site´s visual interface

Katja Gry Birkegaard Carlsen Kandidat Speciale v. Visuel Kultur Københavns Universitet IKK 11.08.11 Vejleder Ulrik Ekman

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Dansk Resume Nærværende kandidat afhandling er udarbejdet som et afsluttende projekt på Visuel Kultur studiet ved Københavns Universitet. Afhandlingen undersøger hvordan vitale ideer bliver skabt, samt hvordan et webbaseret socialt netværk som WeCollaborate.org, kan understøtte denne proces i sit design og visuelle udtryk, ud fra et teoretisk fundament bygget på Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze og Felix Guattari og tager derfor udgangspunkt i en vitalistisk læsning af idegenerering.

For at analysere hvorvidt WeCollaborate.org kan understøtte denne proces, foretages 3 undersøgelser: Først undersøges hvorledes WeCollaborates form for kollaboration støtter op omkring vital ide-generering, dernæst gennemføres en æstetisk analyse af WeCollaborates forside for at vurdere hvorvidt det endelige design viser sidens intention samt understøtter en forståelse og kommunikation af vital ide-generering og sidst afprøves websidens dynamik for at se hvorledes det er muligt at sam-skabe vha. WeCollaborates netværk og rammer.

Samlet opridser afhandlingen hvad en vital ide er og hvad der gør den vital, samt prøver at belyse metoder til skabelse af sådanne ideer. Herefter eksperimenteres der med en mulig tilgang til at designe et webbaserer socialt netværk, der kan understøtte vital ide-generering. Konkluderende kommer afhandlingen frem til at den kollaborative metode benyttet af WeCollaborate.org, kan fremme vital ide-generering og derved hjælpe projekter frem ved at skabe holdbare og gangbare løsninger og initiativer. Men for at dette skal lykkes må en del krav til rammerne være opfyldt, således at intentionen med sitet underbygges i såvel opbygning af netværket, sidens funktioner samt det visuelle udtryk.

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Table of Contents Part 1 Introduction to the Potential Motivation ......................................................................................................... 7 The current use of Face Book.............................................................................. 7 What makes Face Book irresistible?.................................................................... 8 Why am I still convinced that a Social Network Site can inspire a culture for nourishing vital ideas? ................................................................ 10 Where does the challenge then lie?.................................................................... 10 Problem area and focus.................................................................................... 11 Problem statement.............................................................................................11

Part 2 Theory & Method Introduction........................................................................................................14 The theoretical landscape..................................................................................14 Approaching the problem statement and argue for the theory chosen................ 14 Vitalism.................................................................................................................14 Deleuze & Guattari..............................................................................................15 Henri Bergson......................................................................................................15 Duration...............................................................................................................16 Multiplicity...........................................................................................................16 The methodological considerations..................................................................17

Part 3 The practical production and its intention Introduction....................................................................................................... 20 A description of the Product............................................................................. 20 A short summary of the process....................................................................... 20 Timeline............................................................................................................... 20 Defining Collaboration...................................................................................... 21

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Part 4 Investigating the Theory Introduction....................................................................................................... 23 Vital ideas........................................................................................................... 23 Affect & Percept- expressions of Art............................................................... 26 Realising the creative........................................................................................ 30 Reflections.......................................................................................................... 33

Part 5 Collaboration as a method for creating vital ideas How can this insight into vital ideas help explain the method of Collaboration?............................................................................................... 36 How does WeCollaborate.org help people to collaborate?................................. 40 How have I chosen to differentiate WeCo groups from FB groups?................... 42

Part 6 The method for designing the Interface Introduction....................................................................................................... 44 The nature of the interface............................................................................... 44 A theoretical take on the SNS interface.......................................................... 44 How does the method chosen for designing the interface relate to the theory?.......................................................................................... 45 The method- creating assemblages..................................................................... 46 Short description of the assemblages.................................................................. 46

Part 7 The analysis of the production Introduction....................................................................................................... 48 How does the design chosen for the front page relate to the theory of vital ideas?......................................................................................... 48 The use of colour................................................................................................. 48 The choice of words............................................................................................. 49 4

A critical approach to interpreting WeCo´s front page aesthetics................ 50 The stylistic references to art............................................................................... 50 Standards and tradition....................................................................................... 51 Depth and Surface, Immediacy and Hypermediacy............................................. 51 A Critical view on WeCollaborate.org and user expectations............................. 53 INSPIRE.............................................................................................................. 54

Part 8 Discussing the result and evaluating Reflections.......................................................................................................... 58 Anti-Humanistic?...............................................................................................58 Relevancy for Visual Culture............................................................................59

Part 9 Conclusion So, could an understanding of what empowers vital ideas be used to design a social network site that supports this process?........................... 62

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................ 64

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Introduction to the Part Potential

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Introduction to the Potential Motivation It is my conviction, that there exists a great potential within social network sites as a meeting space for people that can help spread vital ideas1, empower people and support a bottom to top progress2.

This is partly based on the fact that, in Denmark alone, more than 2.5 million people are spending what the statistics state to be around 22 million hours every month on Facebook (FB)3. This demonstrates that the progress in web 2.0 solutions - here meaning social web solutions, such as communities, blogs and network services, that allow many- sided engagements and communication - has an enormous capacity as a medium, opening up new possibilities and forums for interpersonal communications. Potentially, creating a forum space for enhancing agendas, which could go beyond economic, or ego-interests, like enhancing durability, sustainability and vitality.

In 2007, a student studying philosophy at Copenhagen University started the nonprofit social network site (SNS) WeCollaborate.org (WeCo). A SNS can be characterised as being a web-based service that allows members to construct a public, or semi public profile, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection (“friends”) and view the connections made by others within the system4. WeCollaborate aims at helping people meet and develop durable ideas, while motivating people who have ideas to take action. The student wanted to supply the right framework to empower collaborative projects by creating a handpicked network and a SNS for the diverse members to contact each other. The site should also support and display the new and interesting initiatives that were already out there. But why not use FB for this?

The current use of Face Book.

According to Christine Rosen, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.: “College administrators have embraced technology as a means of furthering education, but they have failed to realize that the younger generation views technology largely as a means of delivering entertainment—be it music, video games, Internet access, or television—and secondarily, as a means of communicating. 5" A notion supported by Timme Bisgaard Munk, who writes in his article, “Sent from my iPhone”, 1

Here meaning ideas that empower puissance and are durable in reality. This will be elaborated upon in chapter 2 & 4.

Progress is here meant as empowering puissance, which will be explained on p.14-15 in this thesis.

3 http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Kultur/2010/05/14/124421.htm (7.4.2011).

4 Danah Boyed & Nicole Ellison: Social Network Sites: Definition, History and Scolarship p. 211.

5 Ibid.

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that a teacher one day went in the back of the auditorium, to see what people were using their computers for and was surprised to see most students surfing the net and updating their FB, devoting their consciousness and energy to the web, instead of their current physical surroundings and the lecture, and found it to be quite a waste of education.

This is not a unique situation as workplaces and educational institutions across Europe and the States are noticing that the use of FB is finding its way into classrooms and workplaces, where the information technology was brought in to inspire research, networking and critical thinking and not entertainment and ego-casting.6 What makes Face Book irresistible?

Jacques Derrida once said in an interview about his view on literature: “Experience of Being, nothing less, nothing more, on the edge of metaphysics, literature perhaps stands on the edge of everything, almost beyond everything, including itself. It's the most interesting thing in the world, maybe more interesting than the world...7” When looking at the picture of the auditorium, I can not help thinking that if we just exchange the word literature with FB or the World Wide Web, then the statement might have come from one of the scholars of today.

Since FB works as a superficial look-book of people’s current updates and pictures, it could appeal to the “Baudelairean Flaneur” in all of us. The Flaneur of the 19th century used to stroll the streets of the big cities, voyeuring passively, much like we today ”stroll” through the updates of fellow FB’ers. It is an often passive and one-way communicative process, which an investigation of twitter (a different social updating service) also has proved: 50% of twitter users only post, but never read each other’s posts8. Even though social media and FB has the potential for interpersonal dialogue, it is often seen used as a means for one-way communication. It could therefore be acting as a surrogate for real physical communication or simply satisfying voyeuristic and exhibitionistic inclinations. Are more than 2.5 million Danish people on FB just to satisfy these needs or is there something even more fundamental and existentialistic behind the use? FB could be generating a feeling of togetherness and of community, satisfying an existential need of being part of a society or a group9. The use of FB could therefore be fulfilling a part in our lives so fundamental that we keep 6

Michael J. Bugeja: Facing the Facebook p. 2 - “Facebook "encourages ego-casting even though it claims to further 'social networking' and build communities."

7 Derek Attridge: An Interview with Jacques Derrida: Jacques Derrida- Acts of Literature, ed. (New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 47.

8 http://www.kommunikationsforum.dk/artikler/sent-from-my-iphone (10.3.2011) 9 John Quay, Stewart Dickinson & Brian Nettleton: Community, Caring And Outdoor Education. (2000)

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at it, even though most people are aware of the superficiality of FB and the communication done there.

As a growing number of people are exchanging their physical worktables, newspapers and bookstores with a web-based one, the web 2.0 solutions and SNSs like FB are becoming a dominant part of our lives and our consumption of cultural products, both during work and leisure time. Not all SNSs are the same and a growing trend of trying to employ the web for more meaningful purposes can be detected. Even so, many of the different SNSs are often economically and commercially motivated and although people can exchange knowledge and share thoughts or ideas in specific communities, it is not their main cause or reason for existing10.

WeCollaborate.org, the SNS I intend to work with as my product for this thesis, is different in this aspect. Being a nonprofit SNS, its drive and agenda is its ability to enable people, who does not already know one another, connect around a common goal or problem, so they can collaborate on creating durable ideas or projects in solving them. It is therefore dependent upon its own success in doing so. This is unique for WeCo, because most SNSs are built so as to gather and keep in touch with already existing friends. In this matter WeCo´s form of connecting resembles a dating site.

When I first saw WeCo, this was not clear to me. It did have a slogan saying: “we empower social innovation,”, but what is social innovation? What they where looking for was a way to use a SNS to help people create ideas that actually worked when applied in reality, using the strengths and possibilities within the network. Unfortunately none of the team members at WeCo had programming abilities that could prove crucial in accomplishing this task. Therefore, they used Joomla, an OS (open source) software used by millions11. WeCo had several flaws, besides being built with templates that made it impossible to tailor its main functions. It was using a layout sheet that radiated spirituality with its white and light green radiant beams, which would scare people like me away12. The SNS’s visual interface13 was a poor copy of FB´s and the whole site was very hard to navigate. Looking at it as a visual culture student, it became clear to me that the interface was not communicating the intention of the site in a proper way.

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See e.g. http://www.flickr.com/, http://www.etsy.com/, http://www.amazon.com/ (7.2.11) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joomla (3.3.11) 12 Rocket Theme – JA Purity template.

13 The term visual interface is in this thesis used to describe the screen and surface- forming the common boundary between the web sphere and the physical sphere. It is the visual expression as point of interaction between the person and the computer.

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Could FB be used for tasks like this? FB also took a step towards knowledge generation- and idea sharing by creating groups for projects, discussions and interests. However the structure of the SNS mostly resembles that of FB’s update and it is hard to find groups of interest, since the groups are mostly closed and scarcely explained14. Many of the groups are used as commercial announcement boards for the “group events” or members, or for making passive statements like joining the group stop global warming. FB has a wide range of users, however, the communication created there hardly ever gets below the surface of things. There is probably a good reason for that – e.g. FB’s business plan is not dependent upon how many good ideas emerges, on the contrary, it is more concerned with acquiring a large amount of users and commercials.

Why am I still convinced that a SNS can inspire a Culture15 for nourishing vital ideas?

First of all, over time, technological systems have proven their ability to enhance performance capacity, and the current revolution in the Middle East showed that the use of social media and FB have an ability to mobilize forces for real physical action. Social media as FB can therefore potentially ignite physical action, enhancing performance. This is an option that WeCo had started to explore by creating knowledge sharing and co-creation on projects, unfortunately it had only worked when one of the team members led the process.

Another crucial reason that made me believe it is possible is that the web was created as a kind of community for knowledge and research sharing 16. The web as a tool to support research and development therefore is not a new idea, but reflects back on the very first ideas of the ARPANET17.

Where does the challenge then lie?

Understanding the dynamics needed to nourish a practice, empowering vital ideas, is a challenge in itself, and applying it to a SNS can also be problematic. Because many Joomla sites are rudimentarily built around the same functions, the challenge also lies in creating an appropriate expression that can help guide the site’s users, so the site is adopted and used for the intended goals.

The challenge is therefore, to create the right environment and framework needed for empowering vital ideas by designing the visual interface for WeCo. 14

Only the title, a picture and the number of members is given as info before joining a group, so unless you know it through previous relations you probably would not join.

15 When examining the term culture and cultivation, it reveals a dynamic and evolving process.

Stuart Hall: Representation (1997) p.2: “Culture, it is argued, is not so much a set of things – novels and paintings or TV programs and comics – as a process, a set of practices…. Also, culture is about feelings, attachments and emotions as well as concepts and ideas.”

16 http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml (10.5.11) 17 Ibid.

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Problem area and focus It is problematic that the time and resources spent on SNSs are mostly providing superficial entertainment, which rarely has a noticeable effect on performance in the physical reality. It is my aim with this thesis, to try to show a possible way for a SNS to incorporate the possibility of supporting the process of generating vital ideas by understanding the dynamics required for this.

The outcome of this investigation could have an impact on the way SNSs are used and designed in the future. It could show a new possible way of using an SNS for concrete projects. It could also reveal guidelines for using the dynamics of the web actively to help create bottom up progress by empowering puissance18.

There are currently many on-going studies of the web and SNSs, trying to concretize, define and analyze the web and the dynamics of social networks, but often the investigations are outdated before they arrive at a conclusion, due to the fast changing character of the web. I will therefore not attempt to pin down the dynamics of the web or SNS´s, but use it as a place for conducting experiments. The focus will therefore be on the dynamics of vital ideas as a possible way of working with the highly dynamical aspects of the web.

The approach chosen is not build on the model of "problem and answer", due to the scope and nature of this thesis, being a product thesis. A focus on experiments is instead chosen as a means to understand if an insight into the process and dynamics needed for vital ideas to be empowered, can be used to create a SNS that supports this in its design and visual interface.

Problem statement Therefore, my problem statement is: Can an insight into what empowers vital ideas be used to design a social network site that supports this process?

The SNS shall here be understood as a tool, which does not in itself contain the agency to achieve change. So, it is through interaction with individuals that this is considered possible. My focus will therefore not be on the nature of technologies, the code or software itself, but rather on the aesthetics of the design, the visual appearance of the interface and its ability to create an effect. The

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See p.14-15 for definition

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thesis is therefore not an argument for or against using SNSs, but focuses on how they might add usefulness to the physical activities in society.

Since my background is within Art History and Visual Culture, I will not be approaching the human computer interaction (HCI), in particular the interface, from the traditional cognitive and psychological perspective. I will instead be seeking to approach the design of the visual interface from an aesthetic perspective on experiencing; Searching for a link between the expressions of art, the dynamics of creating vital ideas, the possible functions and appearances of a Joomla SNS and how this combination could be helpful for WeCollaborate to reach its goal. The project and production related to this thesis is a re-design of the visual interface of the SNS WeCollaborate.org, so in order to test, in reality, the boundaries and implications involved in creating a SNS that nourish vital ideas.

I presume that by looking into the nature of vital ideas, an understanding of why they are necessary for empowering puissance and how this kind of progress is related to the collaborative method of WeCollaborate.org will emerge. I also presume that the theory of vital ideas will supply an understanding of how the visual interface of the site can be designed to support vital ideas. It is therefore my theses, that an understanding of the nature of vital ideas can offer an understanding of the conditions and dynamics needed to empower them and that this can give an insight into how a design of a SNS that wants to support this process could be created.

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Theory & Method

Part 2

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Theory & Method Introduction In this chapter, I will clarify the choice of theory in relation to the problem statement and scope of this thesis and explain the various methodological approaches chosen to reach the result.

The theoretical landscape Approaching the problem statement and argue for the theory chosen.

When choosing to work with the sphere of web 2.0 today, we are working with a form of media and mediation that is not passively proclaiming but allowing an evolving engagement and creation of information in a global sphere19. We are dealing with a medium that is in a constant state of becoming and flow20, which can display multiple mediums as music, film, magazines, books etc. It raises the access to information and opinions from a great diversity of sources, displaying a growing complexity of voices. This calls for new ways of approaching problems since the determinate, mechanistic and reproductive ways of e.g. the assembly line from the industrial revolution are no longer durable. Scott Lash, a professor of sociology and cultural studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London, argues that it is this uncertainty and shift that has made the concept of vitalism re-appear21. Why is vitalism so essential and what does vital ideas mean, as written in the problem statement?

Vitalism In order to explain what is meant by vital ideas in this thesis, a distinguishing between whether ideas are reproductive or productive is necessary. In vitalism there is an implicit power struggle22, dividing the idea of power into two often-intertwining notions, puissance and pouvoir. Puissance is the power to do something and pouvoir is power over something. Pouvoir is the kind of power dictated from above, thereby creating a reproductive system, reproducing an all ready established system. Puissance is a kind of life energy and force that is self-organizing and therefore not reproductive, but productive. It is only through the practice of puissance that, what is termed progress in this thesis, is possible through a kind of artistic creation23. This does not mean that the two kinds of powers are not related. Nietzsche’s puissance, the will to power as life itself, often

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Web 2.0 is a term said to be invented by Tim O´Reilly, to describe the kind of web services and software that is based on human interaction and network, it is the kind of software where a network of people is the core. http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 (15.6.11) 20 This point is inspired by Scott Lash article: http://roundtable.kein.org/node/126 (13.4.11) 21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

23 G.Deleuze: Cinnema 2 p.141

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ends up in pouvoir24. Puissance can therefore turn into two forms, the life enhancing and selforganizing or the life-destroying mechanistic forms. The focus of this thesis, and what best describes what is meant by vital ideas in the problem statement, is ideas that support the lifeenhancing forms, working with empowering life as puissance.

This is chosen due to consistency with the wishes expressed by the WeCo team. Vitalists, such as Bergson and Deleuze, are theorists of puissance and they approach vitalism through sensation, percept and affect. In this thesis Gilles Deleuze and Bergson will therefore be used to understand the nature of vital ideas and what dynamics enhance and create them. I am aware that Gilles Deleuze in Society of Control (1990) was not fond of the web and the computer, due to its ability to pacify people. He however also recognised that what is wrong with computers is not that they are machines of code, but the mode of use they become part of (in this case the society of control, of pouvoir): “--not that machines are determining, but because they express those social forms capable of generating them and using them.” One of the tasks will therefore be to make sure that the redesign of the front page’s appearance is one that empowers puissance.

Deleuze & Guattari I have chosen to work with Deleuze and Guattari´s What Is Philosophy? (1991), because it can offer a link between art, form and vital ideas, needed to understand how the visual aspect of the interface can be used to empower vital ideas. More importantly D&G do not look for universals but try to discover the dynamics of creating progress and puissance, which is important for understanding WeCo´s form of collaboration25. Since vital ideas are ideas that are not reproductive but productive, the reading of D&G will be focused on how they propose something new might be produced. There is a great debate on whether D&G´s writing is vitalistic, but in this thesis it will be viewed so, and D&G will therefore also be read in relation to H. Bergson.

Henri Bergson Henri Bergson (1859-1941) proposed the unique theory of duration, which will be used as a key to understanding D&G’s conception of vital ideas. An explanation of duration is therefore necessary.

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http://roundtable.kein.org/node/126 (13.4.11) The term collaboration will in this thesis be used to describe WeCo´s specific form of collaboration unless else is stated.

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Duration Duration is a theory of time efficacy and consciousness that also introduces Bergson’s understanding of multiplicity, which is later taken up by Gilles Deleuze. Bergson sees knowledge as relative to the intelligence that gathers it, he proposes that the knowledge we gather is always of use for our survival and it is therefore build on an external logic, different than the logic we use for thinking. We therefore never see the “thing” as it is, but a concept of it, as an analysis based on the synthesizing of all the previous different perspectives of it, meeting in the now. Our different ways of perceiving are therefore a normal part of our habitual ways. This does not mean that we cannot know the things we encounter, just that we cannot know them through the intellect alone. It is through a kind of intuition that we can gain access to the creative dimension of life, that, which lies within the virtual possibilities and understand time as duration. He demonstrates this by the use of a cone:

Henri Bergson Matter & Memory chapter III p. 197 figure 4

The cone can be seen as our entire experiences, where S is the point of the present, where our body meets and acts in the world. Our past is contrasted with the present sensation (S) and that provides us with the selected perception (P), the perception we get of it in the present. This is an unconscious and always on-going process, meaning that P then gets added to the cone and helps form the new S and the new P the next moment. It is not only our perception that gets added to our past experiences, but also the bodily sensation in point S, our memory therefore is constructed by both our perceptions and our affections which are two separate modalities. So all of our past is found in the point S, where the previous experiences contract into one bodily habitual action. The cone shows the previous and virtual, opposite that which is the now, the actual, but because the virtual in its multiplicity is generated from the real, the representation we hold of it is not opposite its matter.

Multiplicity Here we must also acknowledge that Bergson´s use of the word multiplicity when referring to the virtual is based on a qualitative rather than quantitative understanding, meaning that the normal spatial understanding of the one and the multiple, is replaced by an understanding of “one” as never 16

being the same, surpassing the way of thinking “one-multiple” and rendering the multiplicity always immanent, thereby overturning our dualistic way of thinking. This differs from the classical phenomenological account of a unifying consciousness, because Bergson’s immediate data from consciousness stays a multiplicity26. It is this virtual multiplicity within memory that Bergson describes as our connection to duration. Bergson distinguishing between qualitative and quantitative multiplicity can also demonstrate why Bergson wishes to distinguish between space and time.

Acknowledging that matter is at home in space and energy or life belongs to time and the intellect mostly thinks through space, so our access to becoming and time as duration must happen senses and intuition - a notion of intuition that have also inspired Deleuze. Unlike Darwin´s evolutionary theory of natural selection, Bergson’s Creative Evolution has its roots in the creative impulse of elan vital, which shapes all life.

The methodological considerations Given the nature of this assignment, being a product thesis, untraditional methods of testing and experimenting have been used. I am aware that the scope of the thesis requires years of scientific testing in order to fulfil the scientific criteria, involving a diversity of fields as e.g. cognitive science, social science, web design and artificial intelligence amongst others. Since my knowledge of these fields is limited and the extent of this thesis is broad, the concretisation is created by being case oriented. This could prove problematic for the result that is inevitably context dependent. This thesis is therefore built trying to balance the theoretical role as an investigator with the tools that visual culture and art history has given me, and the self taught creative role as a web designer.

There are several problematic issues in doing this. The answer and conclusion could likely be affected by my personal judgement and understanding of the aim of the production, and the thesis can only be based on a small selection of the many issues involved. The theory chosen could prove difficult to implement, due to its very abstract and philosophical basis. Building the bridge between theory and practice and turning the nonlinear creative process of creating the product into a linear thesis may also prove problematic.

Several methods have therefore been used. The method for the production bears resemblance to a design oriented approach27, using the process: define, research, ideate, prototype, choose, implement and learn. Also, as a method for researching and developing the practical products

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Henri Bergson http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/ (15.5.11) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_thinking (15.4.11)

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unique potential in relation to its members and testing the final results, questionnaires28 along with “one on one” interviews have been used.

For approaching the theory an explanatory analysis of D&G, drawing on Bergson have been chosen to investigate what vital ideas are and how they are created, this is due to the difficulty of D&G´s theory.

To analyse the production three issues have been chosen: First an investigation of whether the method of collaboration can comply with the method proposed by the theory for creating vital ideas, after which an aesthetic analysis of the front page will be conducted. Along with this, I will explain how I have gone about implementing the insights gained through the theory in the final product and the practical implication found in doing so.

Interfaces are most often analysed from a cognitive, social or technical perspective, which does not fully envelop the notion of the interface as a cultural and aesthetic design29. The implied focus on cognition and social mediation could also limit the insight into the sources of dynamics, thus limiting the design to follow a fixed line of behaviours or work patterns and not opening it up for multiple uses30. The analysis of the visual interface will therefore be conducted with a focus on the experience it provides and will be looked upon as an aesthetic discipline, drawing on the theory of D&G´s aesthetical experiencing and the method of O. Bertelsen & S. Pold: Criticism as an Approach to Interface Aesthetics (2004).

Lastly, an experiment of co-creating the magazine INSPIRE focusing on the dynamics of the SNS have been made, to test if something new can be co-created from the network WeCollaborate.org.

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See PR. p.7 O.Bertelsen & S. Pold: Criticism as an Approach to Interface Aesthetics. (2004) 30 Ibid. p. 2.

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The practical production and its Part intention

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The practical production and its intention Introduction In this chapter, we will focus on the practical product of this thesis. A presentation of the work process, along with the productions intent and an introduction to the term collaboration, will be made.

A description of the product First, I would like to clarify what parts of WeCo I have been working with: the WeCollaborate site is based on two sets of software: Joomla and JomSocial31 -it is Jomsocial that delivers the functions of a SNS. In Jomsocial, I have worked with customizing the profile functions32. The sites frame and functions are set and therefore unchangeable. The Joomla software works as the content management system (CMS). Here, the ability to place and vary a module’s position, type and colour within the gantry structure, as well as building the menu structure33 and the individual menu pages, have been my work field. The design and choice of template, along with the background, is devised within the constraints of the template34. Basically, WeCo´s old Webmaster helped me install the new template (Crystalline) from Rocket Theme and the rest was up to me- a workload that also included creating and choosing basic content.

A short summary of the process Drawings on the process similar to design thinking35, a nonlinear process including these seven fields (shown in the figure), have been used to create the current product.

Timeline Feb-Jun 2009 Internship at WeCollaborate.org -

Gathering information about the team and the site’s intention.

Aug-Oct 2009 The WeCollaborate.org dream design 31

See PR p.4 Ibid. p. 17 33 Ibid. p. 18 34 Try the color chooser at http://demo.rockettheme.com/ (Crystalline) (15.4.11) 35 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_thinking (15.4.11) 32

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Together with another intern, a design proposal was drafted. This draft was continually tested and improved, based on critique gained within meetings attended by the WeCo team and some of its core users. The final draft was discarded due to its lack of possible implementation in Joomla.

Jan- Jul 2010 New task- learning to work within the restrictions of Joomla - To create a design that could work within the constraints of Joomla required me to attain the skills of operating the Joomla administrator panel.

Aug – Dec 2010 A model of a Joomla based design is created using Pages (a Mac based layout program).

Jan –Mar 2011 The design is attempted implemented in the Joomla software.

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First tree version get hard critique, I am struggling to get the result I wish for, and technical issues also prove this to be a hard task.

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A result that is somewhat satisfying is created and tested using questionnaires and “one on one” interviews.

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Many changes have been made due to the restrictions and problems with the software.

The current design of WeCollaborate.org is the result I have managed to establish, drawing on the whole process.

Defining Collaboration In order to understand the intention of WeCollaborate, a short introduction to what collaboration means must be made. The difference between cooperation and collaboration is summed up by Roschelle & Teasley in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (1995): “We make a distinction between ‘collaborative’ versus ‘cooperative’ problem solving. Cooperative work is accomplished by the division of labour among participants, as an activity where each person is responsible for a portion of the problem solving. We focus on collaboration as the mutual engagement of participants in a coordinated effort to solve the problem together.”

Collaboration, therefore, implies the need for a mutually dependent, less hierarchical co-creation, which means that several people are working together towards a shared goal, not knowing the result in advance, but developing it on the way. Using the dynamics and differences of the team to create something that works when applied in reality.

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Investigating the Part Theory

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Investigating the Theory Introduction In this chapter, the theoretical ground for understanding the notion of vital ideas will be created, based on an interpretative analysis of D&G´s radical approach towards understanding aesthetic experiencing in relation to H. Bergson’s theory of duration. The focus is on what vital ideas are, why and how they are vital, what dynamics empower them and how they are created.

Vital ideas D&G only write a little about vital ideas in WP, I have therefore, in order to get a better grasp of the theory, chosen to use Ronald Bogues’ book about Deleuze and Guattari (RB), which draws on the philosophy of G. Simondon and their previous works. In Difference and Repetition Bouge says that Deleuze characterizes thought in terms of ideas and the intensities of sense experience36. Here, it is necessary to know that what Deleuze describes as ideas, is not in the Platonic sense of “essence” or “divine mould”, but refers more to the Kantian understanding of ideas as problems without solutions37. Problems are here characterized by creating a structure within their established domain of solutions, while still remaining transcendent to these38. This makes the idea occupy a rather paradoxical space between existence and non-existence that Proust describes as “real without being actual, ideal without being abstract39”. What is this space? If we recall the figure describing Bergson’s duration in the “theory and method” section, the actual is that which happens now, in time, and the virtual is the potential that “hides” within the lived, in the figure symbolized by the cone as the multiple past experiences.

The idea therefore inhabits the space of the cone (the virtual), it is real, because reality is constructed in the point S, in a contraction between an accumulation of the previous experiences and the actual sensation, and ideal without being abstract, because it establishes a domain of

36

RB: p. 58 RB: p. 59 38 This is a distinction made by Albert Lautman, said to be D&G´s inspiration in RB: p. 59.

39 Proust: Le Temps Retrouvé, chpt. III and RB: p. 59.

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possible outcome. Let me explain further as we take a look at the process from the virtual to the actual, a process D&G also call the process of individuation40.

To be able to describe what this means, one must consider the virtual as being in a pre-individual, metastable state, withholding potential and energy to be potentialized (like a kind of seed) into an actual “stable” shape (e.g. a plant), when being actualized in an external milieu. This process is termed crystallization by Simondon41. Crystallization begins with an amorphous seed crystal, which, when in contact with the surrounding milieu, communicates its shape to the molecules of the surrounding substance, where after the crystal parts are formed individually through the process of individuation. It is this individuation, as a product of the intensity, which allows the virtual to pass into the actual. It is this intensity, which will eventually help give it its form and its expression when providing pressure on the surroundings. Only a part of the potential within the seed is expressed, the shape would be different if the surroundings were to change. Therefore the virtual, like the problem, withholds a field of potentials. As Bergson says, it is a multiplicity, unfolding when it is actualized, and one could say like Proust that it is “…ideal without being abstract42”.

Let’s look at this process and compare it to Bergson’s figure of duration. What we can acknowledge through our senses is the individuation as an experience. In other words, it is the individuation as intensity that gives it the qualities by which we can acknowledge it through our senses and therefore also its form. The form becomes directly linked to the intention. If you think of a colour as a wavelength that hits the eye, it makes sense that it is the intensity, that when met by our senses, gives it what we can acknowledge as its qualities (red, soft, heavy). The intensity is more a kind of symphony than just a set of qualities, expressing e.g. its style, form, kind, but the point is that the intensity can be seen as a basis for communication through sensible signs. Keeping in mind that these signs and expressed qualities only provide a limited view into the multiplicity that lay potentially within it.

How then, are we to understand Bergson’s virtual as a field where our many sensuous experiences and images are kept as a multiplicity? A rough way of describing this could be to imagine what would happen if we take a significant amount of pictures of different “sides” of a “thing” and load them into a 3D program in a computer. Enough images from different angels would make it possible to see the whole “thing” in 3D. So, slowly, through our experiences, we gather a more fulfilling acknowledgement of the “thing”. Of course, the process we are speaking of is more 40

From Gilbert Simondons L`Individu et se genese physico-biologique, RB: p. 61.

Ibid.

42 See footnote 59.

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complex than 3D animation, that only shows us an outline of the shape, and when we experience something, we are also subconsciously acknowledging the thing’s nature. The example gives an insight into why experiences, in their noticed and unnoticed details, and knowledge gained through experiences, are of a different nature than the knowledge we adopt from others, or are taught. In experiencing, we attend to the differences, as our way of acknowledging these imperceptible, sometimes little and yet gathering, differences that script the world in academically less familiar, but in no less real ways. Only through experience can we see into the depth of the differences43 and gain access to the “bigger picture”. This process also helps keep us in a constant state of becoming.

Thus, the relation of the virtual and the actual is not a one-way process, but an on-going dynamic, spitting out actions and expressions and taking in experiences. Let’s look at how this can help explain what is meant by the idea.

The figure above shows how the idea is related to the virtual, this being the virtual within past experiences. The virtual is symbolized by a triangle, made to resemble Bergson’s cone. In the virtual is the metastable state of chaos and potential. The sensation in the now is a product of the accumulated past experiences that together form the perception of the thing, when met by its sensation in the now. Within the virtual becomes a space that withholds the previous in its multiplicity. Here it is demonstrated by dividing the experiences into their singular, unique elements, the differences, symbolized by the black dots. In their relation to one another, they can make a formation, e.g. the qualities of water or a species. The idea can be seen as consisting of the conditions of actual experiences and as a combination of the dots - the internal differences in itself, which creates such an intensity that the virtual pass into the actual. This rarely just happens and is therefore often provoked by a confrontation with reality. An example could be, that you are driving and that you see a woman falling onto the road in front of you. In your mind, subconsciously, all your past experiences accumulate and the idea of stopping gets so intense that it proceeds to 43

RB p. 62: In Deleuze´s term, a metastable substance is a difference in itself.

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become a concrete action, actual, in as far as you push the brakes. The stopping of the car becomes the expression of the idea, the current outcome of the problem that succeeded to manifest itself into something we can acknowledge with our senses, e.g. a form, cry or symphony. The idea is therefore like the “seed” that can be individualized through the given situation, when passing from the virtual to the actual, but unlike a normal seed, it consist of the internal differences in itself and is therefore not organic or stable. If the ideas are not of an organic compound, then how can we know if it is vital? Is not life and vitality normally bound up to organic material? How are we supposed to understand the ideas’ vitality?

Affect & Percept- Expressions of Art In order to understand the link between the sensory signs, the sensation of expressed ideas, life and vitalism in WP, D&G introduces us to the notion of art and the artist: “...The work of art – is a bloc of sensation, that is to say a compound of percepts and affects.44” It is necessary to know that sensation is not the same as the material45. The material can preserve a sensation, or be used as a means for the idea to be expressed, to help mediate it, yet it is not necessary for the sensation to occur. Take for example a piece of music, it has no material but it is still a sensation. So the sensation we are speaking of cannot be grasped and defined through the laws of space or the investigation of the material, but must be of a different nature, one consisting of affect and percept.

What is meant by affect and percept? D&G describes the artist’s aim as: “By means of material, the aim of art is to wrest the percept from perceptions of objects and the states of perceiving subjects, to wrest the affect from affections as the transition from one state to another: to extract a block of sensation, a pure being of sensation”46.

Pure sensation is here a sensation so pure that it is not coloured by our human differences, it goes beyond the perceiving subjects. A relevant thought experiment that can show us what this means in practice, is if we takes Bergson’s duration model and instead of the virtual only withholding one person’s past experiences, withholds the field of all possible experiences in its multiplicity. Not just that of the past but also that of the future. This is the kind of virtual that would intensify into a pure sensation in the actual, when met in the now. A model of affect could look a bit like this, where every circle represents a possible affection in relation to a given “thing” and at the point where they all over lap, where there is a zone of indiscernibility, affect appears. The affect is therefore in a way a “common ground” for all the different affections and therefore beyond the individual person. Not meaning that all affection can be reduced to a given affect, nor used to predict its affection, because 44

D&G: WP p.164 D&G: WP p.166 46 D&G: WP p.167 45

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the surroundings and the uniqueness of the now in which it is potentialized, always plays a part that is unpredictable.

The same model could be used to demonstrate the wrestling out of percept from perceptions. The goal of art is therefore to eliminate the individuality in the human way of experiences, so as to capture something beyond this, and get the pure, not coloured by human, expression of the forces.

Interestingly this could explain why some artistic expressions stay beautiful and relevant through time, growing and evolving with life, apparently according to D&G because of art’s ability to offer affect and percept. Other works create an impact when they are made or years after, but seem to fade and pass in relevance, due to the influence of affections and perceptions. Real artistic expressions have apparently succeeded in creating a sensation that expresses a depth of reality that goes beyond that of a single man or a given time, something durable across time and place.

How do we tell “real” art from “fake”? D&G divides it like this: “Art does not have opinions. Art undoes the triple organization of perceptions, affections, and opinions in order to substitute a monument composed of percepts, affects and blocs of sensation that take the place of language.47” Opinion is something most of us have. We have an experience or we read about others’ opinions in the news and believe we know something of the issue. In other words, opinion tries to mentally safeguard us from chaos, but it is also holding us from realizing the real depth of things and issues.

If we try to create art based on opinion, memories or clichés, then it could only express affections and perceptions. This kind of art might win the hearts of others, recognizing their opinion48 being mirrored, but it would never survive in the long run through generations and D&G would not describe it as real art, art that can offer a kind of free indirect discourse.

Interestingly blocs of sensation can, according to D&G, take the place of language. We are therefore dealing with a kind of thought that is not based on our normal conception of language and 47

D&G: WP p.176 A biological explanation to this could be that we secrete dopamine when we recognize something, which gives us a sense of meaning, making us happy to recognize the already made. Christian Have: Drømmen om Berømmelse p. 29.

(2010)

48

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words, but on a sensation e.g. form, style or symphony. Actually, you could say that it is not even acknowledging through thought, but through aesthetic experiencing. Because as D&G writes: “To think is always to follow the witch´s flight.49” It is bound to take us away from that, which is the complex now of reality.

Why is this so interesting, what is so different about this kind of sensation-based “language”? Why does that make art vital? A dive into this statement can give us an insight: “It should be said of all art that, in relation to the percepts or visions they give us, artists are presenters of affect, the inventors and creators of affects. They not only create them in their work, they give them to us and make us become with them, they draw us into the compound.50” Recalling Bergson’s duration figure and the previous debate about how we slowly, through experiences, gain knowledge of the “thing”, it only makes sense that if we truly must communicate an insight in its internal raw difference, then we cannot do this by describing it with our normal use of words. Because that would already have taken away some of the depths and unnoticed details and therefore it must be done by providing an experience as a sensation that can give this insight.

That is what true artists can; through the creating of affect and percept, they can offer us an indirect way into seeing, what we normally turn the blind eye towards. That is also why we become, along with them, the ideas and visions, and they draw us into their compound. Because as soon as we have “seen” and experienced it, then the vision lives on in our minds, like a seed being planted, a new step in our becoming. The artist can therefore render chaos sensible, seeing the potential within the virtual, the artist creates a compound of percept and affect that through its style and form, can show a new mode of being, within the virtual field of possibilities. Creating this form of style or mode is also called creative fabulation51. It has nothing to do with memory or fantasy, because memory is based on old perceptions and fantasy on personal imagination. It is a process that calls for bringing forth the impersonal act of creation furthest away form the subjective sphere. It therefore calls for the neutrality of the collective52, to create a composition of forces, which can give birth to and call fort the people to come.

D&G also writes: “Art is not chaos but a composition of chaos that yields the vision or sensation, so that it constitutes, as Joyce says, a chaosmos, a composed chaos - neither foreseen or

49

D&G: WP p. 41 D&G: WP p.175 51 D&G: WP p.171 52 Here collective is refered to Guattaris defenition in Chaosmose (1992) p.9 : ”The term”collective”should be understood in the sense of a multiplicity that deploys itself as much beyond the individual, on the side of the socius, as before the person, on the side of the preverbal intensities, indicating a logic of affect rather than a logic of delimited sets.”

50

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preconceived.53” It is this composed chaos into a chaosmos, which as an assemblage of forces brings forth a potential found in the virtual field, taking the form of a creative fabulation, which can make people become along with it54. The forces of life, which passes through us as individual human beings, can give us access to the virtual field and yield a new mode of existence through a creative fabulation, which can help spread the vital idea.

A co-dependency is here implied between the forces of nature in the enterprise of co-creation, between the artist and the receiver. The co-dependency goes further than this and is elaborated: “The emergence of pure sensory qualities is already art, not only in the treatment of external materials but in the body´s posture and colors, in the songs and cries that mark out the territory.55” Art here becomes the key, the relation, the link between the infinite virtual and the finite actual.

Form, symphony, sensation is therefore in direct relation and a combination of the forces of nature.

Man is no longer the creator of art that spring from our animal expressions and marking of territory: “But if nature is like art, this is always because it combines these two living elements in every way: House and Universe, Heimlich and Unheimlich, territory and deterritorialization, finite melodic compounds and the great infinite plane of composition, the small and large refrain.56” We can therefore say that we are dealing with aesthesis as a way to understand the essential ontological dichotomies as actual/virtual, determinate/indeterminate, concrete and the abstract. A demolition of what is unique to humans is made and the dynamics that create vital and durable ideas and their expressions are generated by a non-human nature, which seem to be accessible only to humans as indirect experiences of art that can render the chaos sensible. The artist’s ability to have visions that go beyond a normal human capacity, is what makes this possible, but how are normal people suppose to use this in practice to generate vital ideas?

Realizing the creative Let’s try to examine the way art is created and see if we can find a method in order to gain access to the “language” that can help create vital ideas. How is this proposed done?

If we consider the knowledge we have so far, of the vital idea, then we know it springs from a kind of problem that, apparently, is without a solution. Reconsidering this in the light of the new knowledge of the vitalism of the idea, it being without solution, can be understood as the “seed” 53

D&G: WP p.204 D&G: WP p.171 55 D&G: WP p.184 56 D&G: WP p.186 54

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that keeps on expressing its multiplicity in the always new situations proposed, so that it forms more of a tendency, than a finality57: A tendency that is beyond human and can live on inorganic matter. Through experiences, the virtual would accumulate, creating a (in)tension that helped give it form as a creation, a new sensation. The vital idea can therefore only be of the real, as Bergson also concludes “Action cannot move in the unreal.58” How do we defeat the safeguarding opinions and open our eyes to the unknown depth of our surroundings, in order to become with that, which goes beyond us? In order to become with what creates the tendencies, so we can wrest out percept and affect and bring it forth, potentializing it in the new of the situations, creating something durable? Cézanne proposes a technique: “Not a minute of the world passes, says Cézanne, that we will preserve if we do not ’become that minute’. We are not in the world, we become with the world; we become by contemplating it. Everything is vision, becoming.59” As we earlier discovered, we cannot create something vital by using our spatial understanding of its surface; that would only lead us to a knowledge of the surface and hardly give anything but a degrading copy. No, in order to bring forth the vital idea in action, we must become with it, with its vitalism and then through our becoming, our actions would naturally show it in their expression.

How do we become a minute, become the world when it is not something we can think our way to?

What does contemplation mean? Bergson might have an answer in his book Creative Evolution: “The intension of life, the simple movement that runs through lines, that binds them together and gives them significance, escapes it. This intention is just what the artist tries to regain, in placing himself back within the object by a kind of sympathy, in breaking down, by an effort of intuition, the barrier that space puts up between him and his model. 60“ The (in)tension, the seed, the vitality of the idea escapes the expression, even though it is what gives it its significance, just like the shape of the “DNA” escapes and bears no resemblance to what it creates. What is interesting here is that a kind of transduction is created from the virtual to the actual. So in order to gain access to it, we cannot rely on our spatial observations of it, but must place ourselves within it by what Bergson calls “a kind of sympathy”: Creating a path by the use of our sensibility, allowing us to become with the “other” and being within that, which just is. This kind of knowledge is not gained through thought and space, but can only come to us as duration.

Through intuition we can therefore gain access to the duration, the “real time” of our mind. Just as we cannot imagine, or use thinking, to learn how to swim, but must throw ourselves into the water 57

See also H. Bergson: Creative Evolution p.18.

H. Bergson: Creative Evolution p.8.

59 D&G: WP p.169.

60 H. Bergson: Creative Evolution p.124.

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to learn. So must the artist throw himself into the situation’s “deep water” and use his intuition to get through. It is therefore first and foremost a need for recognizing that the situation is not that of a known and already familiar kind, but one of exploring and experimenting with new territory, not just of the other but of oneself.

This empowers life as puissance. We must enter into a state of freedom from the past, to awaken the awareness and sensibility that let us become with what is (the chaos), going beyond our current selves or as D&G describes it, become non-human. A state of freedom that does not come easily, as D&G writes: “The painter does not paint on an empty canvas, and neither does the writer write on a blank page; but the page or canvas is already covered with preexisting, pre-established clichés that it is first necessary to erase, to clean, to flatten, even to shred, so as to let in a breath of air from the chaos that brings us the vision.61” Our mind as demonstrated by Bergson draws on our previous experiences to think, conclude, draw reasons and make decisions, sometimes based on others opinions. Thought is therefore not free of the past, but always a product of it. When we encounter something, we are not free in our minds, but often draw on recognition and memory to navigate through the situations, limiting our selves and maybe even imprisoning our selves to respond through recognition and representation. This does not set us free, so in order to be free we must first, as D&G write, clean, flatten and erase what is on the canvas. Can we become free of our thoughts and just be sensible, aware, and attentive to that which is? Can we quiet our minds, judgments and opinions and just listen, so we can see clearly what is our own noise, erasing our desires to conclude, understand and master the world, so to shield us from its chaos? If we can, then I believe this is what Cezanne means by contemplation, and what Bergson means when he speaks of intuition through sympathy. Maybe this is, for him, a way of gaining access to an intelligence beyond that of our normal thought and logic, but which belongs to the symphony of life, the intension of the expressions or actions and thereby we become with it. The reason a kind of sympathy must be important is so as not to paint ones own feelings, based on opinion or presumption, but fully to express that of the sensation coming to one, when one dares to look beyond oneself and listen.

If we look more closely, then it describes a process where we are aware of the becoming and the flow of time (as duration). By letting ourselves become with it, we change with it, therefore it can be seen as the creative process of progress. As Bergson says; “When we put back our being into our

61

D&G: WP p. 204.

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will, and our will itself into the impulsion it prolongs, we understand, we feel, that reality is a perpetual growth, a creation pursued without end.62 “ What Bergson here means by will, is not our normal way of willing something by creating a goal, an ideal or seeking a satisfaction. All this would prescribe our future and make it dependable and captured by our past. No, the will Bergson mentions is our inner will, not that which we have defined, but that which is. Never the less it does take will to go there, because depending on intuition, trusting ones inner self and daring to change, brings opposition in the mechanism of the mind. We naturally fight progress, because it is unknown and therefore “unsafe”, but this is basically our constant way of defending ourselves, our beliefs and actions, by creating a false sense of security. D&G have an interesting way of describing this: “The three disciplines advance by crises or chocks in different ways, and in each case it is their succession that makes it possible to speak of ‘progress’63.”

In WP, this process of throwing oneself into the “unknown” is not only that needed for art, to gain access to vital ideas, but also that practiced by philosophy and science and therefore the sentence includes three disciplines. This quote gives an insight into the almost brutal, violent and uncomfortable ways of progress that demands that the “old” ways of thinking and picturing is replaced by a new, in a kind of creative destruction or deterritorialisation64.

Most have experienced something like this by loosing their loved ones, being left by their spouse or getting seriously ill. Life as we known it crashes and we are left in the ruins of our previous goals, no longer being able to direct or legitimize ones habits and actions65. It is also typically in these situations that we realize how inept we are at listening to our selves, how little we know our inner lives and will and how dependent we were on the automation of previous notions. Of course, this does not have to be as dramatic, but the example gives a good insight into the forces at play and the reason people try to defy it. It is my impression that people, who have experienced many transitions, are no longer as afraid, but know how insightful the process is and learns to open themselves up to challenges in less dramatic ways, because they gain the ability to reconnect to “themselves” and to advance.

One of the milder ways of advancing or progressing, proposed by D&G, is through art. Where the artist, poet or musician awaken the intuition in us by fabulation, so we gain a sense of the 62

H. Bergson: Creative Evolution p.164.

D&G: WP p.203.

64 In D&G: WP p. 180-181: this process is also describes territorialisation, deterritorialisation and then reterritorrialisation (the new image, way of thinking), implying the animal/nature aspect of progress.

65 In H. Bergson: Time and free will p. 131-132: it is explained as the way our language interferes with our sensations, making us, through repetition, believe that they are the same, as a way of objectifying our inner world.

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superficiality of the ideas we have received ready made and become curious to see the depth of reality66. Therefore, D&G also write; “..what suffices for ‘current ideas’ does not suffice for ‘vital ideas’- those that must be created.67”. This is actually quite interesting, because here we really draw a line between the normal notion of an idea and the vital idea. Normally, the idea is something already constructed, something we act in accordance to and that can build a domain for our actions and justify them to others and ourselves. It therefore dominates us and limits us, so we are not free, it empowers pouvoir. Whereas the vital idea helps set one free, because it needs to be created. It opens up instead of closing down, because it is alive and within the living now, not like the normal idea that is based on the past. Therefore, when we become with it, it creates, not in the form of planning, because the unknown can never be experienced through the already known and planning can only be based on the past or the future, never the now, but by doing in action, for the present is action, becoming, and the only action there is. This also describes the vital idea’s connection to culture and why culture is not just products, such as pictures and films, but can also be defined as practices and actions, although what D&G propose is more a theory of nature. Showing us how intersected and intertwined these two are.

To see the simplicity in the complexity and understand its potential within its multiplicity, requires us, according to the theory proposed, to go beyond thought and become with the world, awakening our intuition. This can be caused by shocks in life or through the inspiration and affect of art or we can access it through contemplation, through that which just is, that which has ceased to be useful and is inactive. Therefore D&G also write: “Vitalism has always had two possible interpretations: that of the Idea that acts, but is not - that acts therefore only from a point of view of an external cerebral knowledge; or that of a force that is but does not act- that is therefore a pure internal awareness.68” Reflections To sum up I have now tried to interpret what it is that makes vital ideas vital, so as to understand the dynamics of the forces at play and how we as humans might have an ability to tap into these forces, to become with them and create something vital. To create the interpretative analysis, I have drawn on elements from both Bergson and D&G. The importance of Bergson for D&G is pronounced, but their theories are not to be seen as identical. For D&G vitalism and vitality comes from the ability to connect with the pre-individual world. John Marks also writes that Deleuze 66

H. Bergson: Time and free will p. 135-136.

D&G: WP p.207.

68 D&G: WP p. 213.

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proposes a kind of practical vitalism, because it enables thought to come into contact with the forces of life69. D&G´s focus in WP is mainly on the brain and what happens in the brain. Whereas Bergson vitalism is one coming from Êlan vital and Bergson also implies a kind of bodily intelligence in his conception of intuition, in the process of sensing all the imperceptible little differences. This is just some of their differences, but they will not be explored further in this thesis due to the limited space.

I chose to work with both of their theories to establish a solid ground for shedding light on how vital ideas require a process of puissance to establish the ground for something new to take form and since vital ideas are not the focal point for either of the theoreticians, an inclusive approach has been taken.

69

JM p.31

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Collaboration as a method for creating Part vital ideas

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Collaboration as a method for creating vital ideas Introduction In this chapter, the relation between the theory of vital ideas and the method of collaboration practices by WeCollaborate will be explored. The theoretically based proposal is rather abstract, and it is therefore necessary for me to draw several conclusions. Thereby reducing the complexity of the theory, to use it on the specific case of WeCo´s collaboration.

How can the insight into vital ideas help explain the method of Collaboration?

First of all, collaboration is a collective process that would, if I had to describe it in D&G´s terms, be a method for creating mutual becoming. The process of collaboration is based on teamwork across a diverse set of members, with the aim of creating a durable “solution” to a current “problem”. As with vital ideas, collaboration also springs from a problem domain, since the solution is never known, the process is motivated and activated by a common interest to solve a mutual problem.

Creating vital ideas by composing a kind of fabulation that can unveil the hidden potential within the virtual, is according to the theory a process that calls for bringing forth the impersonal act of creation, furthest away from the subjective sphere. I will argue that this process could prove hard for one person alone, because of the risk of ending up using imagination to create a fantasy, seeking to mirror ones own opinions or simply letting one turn the blind eye, due to human nature. The process can hardly be done solitarily, unless the person has the ability of the artist. The theory also opens up for it as a possible collective70 process. In John Marks book Gilles Deleuze Vitalism and Multiplicity it is written that: ”The production of a new way of existing is not the production of a subject, but of a ”specific or collective individuation” which is divested of interiority or identity: It’s a mode of intensity, not a personal subject71”.

So, the intensity that creates the individuation is a collective mode or way of doing (method becomes style). Killing off the myth of the lone creative genius, this can maybe also explain why Deleuze chose Guattari as his collaborator for writing WP, amongst other works.

I will therefore argue, why I believe that WeCo´s collective process of collaboration could be a possible process for creating vital ideas. Every collaboration I have been part of during my internship at WeCo have been different, but there are some overlapping actions. When a group collaborates, they discuss and share their insights to understand the problem and act together to reach the “solution”. This process could also roughly be understood, using the metaphor of the 3D 70 71

See footnote 48 and page 28.

JM: p.1-2.

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figure. In this case every person would supply their “picture” of the problem’s domain and the group would investigate the issue(s) of the problem. Often an understanding of what seems to be the problem or a vision into a hidden potential is at the beginning of the process. I have made a simple model that can show the process, each coloured circle symbolizes a field or a person in the process of collaboration, it is therefore not a static but dynamic process of what could, if we were to use the terminology of the theory, be described as unlocking and adding to each other’s virtual fields.

What happens, as shown on the figure above, is that, potentially, some of the opinions become eradicated and the more collective and less subjective creation appears, bringing forth a collective creation.

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This is of course often a long process, where the current problem’s domain is investigated and tested in reality and new problems appear that have to be acted on, before a solution can emerge. It is consequently not a process that can be done solely on the web by knowledge sharing between people, but involves a lot of team and fieldwork. The focus is on the action and its effect, as D&G also write: “Communication always comes too early or too late, and when it comes to creating, conversation is always superfluous.72” I will not fully agree with this. My experience is, that keeping each other aware of what one is doing and updating on one’s situational observations, along with using each other to connect and get a result, have been of great importance to coordinate actions. The process D&G refers to in the quote, is one of creating concepts and it seems to be a process they prefer to do solitarily, due to the ressentiments that often shape and dominate the communication73. This is an important observation and hidden desires are problematic, especially if people are working within a company and have pre-established positions, as in a normal social network or within a group of friends. The more individually shaped goals, like getting a promotion or assuring oneself the greatest amount of money, can therefore easily become an impediment for successful collaboration. This could also give an idea of why the network of old friends and family on FB might not be the best place for collaboration.

With WeCo, the work frame is different. Most people do not know each other in advance and only join together in the short span of time it takes to co-develop the solution, e.g. an event, an initiative, a mode of doing or a new kind of business model. In the successful collaborations I have experienced during my internship, there were no remarkable salaries involved. The people worked in their spare time, out of a common interest to open up for the potential, they mutually believed was there, to solve the problem. This way of working does not fully eliminate what there might be of ego-interest and hidden agendas, which seems to be ruling most people’s decisions. Because the choice of joining the group is made freely and the involvement is not built on the normal logic of profit, a kind of mutual respect for and agreement upon each person’s autonomous actions and choices for reaching the mutual goal is accepted. A different set of values become relevant, such as trust, reliability, honesty, courage and decisiveness. This is also because the focus on honest, instead of “strategic” or “political” communication, becomes the key to assuring real situational awareness, needed for success. Also, everyone knows that they cannot reach the “goal” alone, but are mutually dependent on the group for the project’s success. Another aspect is that when only 72 73

D&G: WP p. 28 D&G: WP p. 28-29

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very few know each other (and the aim is not making new friends), the only way they learn about each other, is through their actions, putting the focus on whether the actions work and what the actions express, instead of the person’s previously established identity (title, money, position etc.), creating a kind of equal ground to work from.

I will also argue that WeCo´s form of collaboration could help: “to erase, to clean, to flatten, even to shred, so as to let in a breath of air from the chaos that brings us the vision.74” The fact that the network engages in projects that go beyond their individual educations has several benefits, according to the theory. One is that the people engaged in the project are usually not following a habit, to solve the problem, but are open towards seeking knowledge and learning. The negative side could be that the knowledge of the problem needs to be built up along with the process, raising constant uncertainty. Because of this, they stay alert towards the current situation, thereby helping to flatten the “canvas” and open up for the unused potential. Another aspect is that by engaging in an experiment, they must throw themselves into the “deep water”, which could provide the shocks needed for vital ideas to appear. Where they normally depended solely on their own judgement and therefore would take it very personally if they failed, they now act in accordance to a more collective judgement and it is not just them, but the whole team that is being “tested”, which makes it less scary to take action and creates a feeling of safety and confidence.

Comparing the insight into vital ideas and how they are formed, with the process of collaboration, leads me to interpret that collaboration could be a possible method for creating vital ideas and their expressions. In collaboration, the whole aim of creating something durable also includes it to work within the discourses and parameters of the different systems, cultures and the people’s psychological aspects and motivations, which the theory, proposed by D&G and Bergson, does not focus on. The theory proposed draws a line from nature to the products of people, where collaboration turns it around, focusing on the people and how their products can be durable within nature as well. The reason I believe the theory is appropriate, is due to the fact that WeCo´s collaboration aims at creating durable events, projects or business models that can actually work in reality. Like the creation of vital ideas, the process of collaboration must cut through the chaos and use the potential within that, which is. That both processes are created by a bottom up, instead of top down process, is also of significant importance.

The dynamics and resources needed for the process of collaboration largely relies on the people engaging in the process. Comparing the theory with the method of collaboration, three general steps 74

D&G: WP p. 204

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can be drawn from it. The important aspect of being inspired or shocked, so as to gain access to the idea or the vision provoked by the problem. To “battle” opinions in the expression, a form of nonsubjective creation was needed, which in collaboration called for a diverse group of people, before the action and co-creation could bring forth the vital ideas and express them. A proces of creating vital ideas by collaborating could roughly look like this:

The SNS of WeCo should then highlight the tools from the joomla and jomsocial software that can help support these stages of action and the design should also support this process. Let’s see how this is accomplished on WeCollaborate.org.

How does WeCollaborate.org help people to collaborate?

WeCo is a platform for people to connect across sectorial networks. This gives the people wanting to start a collaborative project a place to find others, who could be interested in supporting such a process. The diversity of the network is crucial, because it lowers the chances of opinion being mirrored in the process of knowledge sharing. It can also help supply different angles and insights, so as to gain a better understanding of the problem. The notion that the diversity is important for the ability to co-create makes sense, when we consider that the virtual field, that could provide affect and percept, was so pure it included all virtual fields, future and past. In relation to Bergson´s theory of duration, this aspect is relevant, because the insight into the field of the “idea” was expanded qualitatively and not quantitatively. Letting more minds work together could therefore help to bring forth the potential within the virtual. If the diversity is lacking, the process could elapse towards consensus, the ultimate safeguarding from chaos.

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A way of assuring that this does not happen, would be to stress that collaboration calls for continuous testing of the outcome in reality, making sure the idea´s expression can “move in reality” and therefore is created from reality, as Bergson said. This can, in theory, sound simple, but in practice we are dealing with having to communicate across sectors, fields and discourses, a challenge that can prove problematic. If we also consider that the aim is to unfold an idea, not yet known or fully created, then the ability to communicate becomes even more crucial. Even though the theory, proposed by D&G, offers a very abstract way of encountering how to communicate something new and not yet established, their proposed method for overcoming this can possibly be of use: “…we must make use of fictions and abstraction, but only so far as is necessary, to get to a plane where we go from real being to real being and advance through the construction of concepts.75” It should here be said that concepts are the constructions created by combining vital ideas from the different fields of science, art and philosophy76. This does not make the method less important and abstractions such as a model or picture could possibly awaken the intuitive knowledge of the possibility. Tools for making or displaying abstractions and fictions could therefore prove important for communicating the new.

Within WeCo the closest a function that comes to doing this is the “groups” function. In the “groups” the ability to communicate through videos, pictures and words, enables expressions to be created in different ways77. The capacity to combine different media, to create the right sensation or expression, can have the benefit of communicating across the different sector’s discourses, as we acknowledge in the theoretical chapter above78, when describing the sensation based language. This is not a unique feature for WeCo and neither is the ability to post events, so as to meet in reality and test some of the issues. The reason that meeting in reality is crucial, is to gain access to the little details like facial expressions, tone of voice and body language that could be neglected in a debate done on the web79. The force of the “group” function on WeCo, is that it allows anyone with a good idea to post it, share it, and attract a group around it, while keeping the member’s up to date on the process, not just through WeCo, but also with many other networks, due to a sharing button on the groups. This aspect helps to test the idea in the social reality, within the web and attract partners or collaborators, but the first move and idea is always constituted by the experiences people have in the physical reality.

75

D&G: WP p. 207, it should here be said that the concept is a more stable construction of many vital ideas put together.

76 D&G: WP 77 See PR. p. 16 78 See p. 27 79 The ability to use Skype or video would help, but it is never the same as interacting face to face.

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To support and communicate the process needed for creating vital ideas through collaboration, I decided to add a “process” display to the upper part of the front page, linking to the most important tools and aspects of WeCo that can support the different “stages”.

How have I chosen to differentiate WeCo groups from FB groups?

When entering a WeCo profile, the person’s groups (the ones they are part of) appear, making it possible for people to traverse the list of groups, while creating easy access to the groups80. The groups can also be accessed directly from the front page, if co-create is chosen from either the “process” display or the main menu81. The Co-Create page is not the same as the Groups page from Jomsocial. This is done deliberately, due to an acknowledgement made in one of the physical interviews, where the person explained that it was to hard to find the “create new group” button on the normal group page, provided by the Jomsocial software, but also the need for an introduction to using a “group” was stressed. The co-create page was therefore built, so when the ”start a new project” button was tabbed, a manual would also be provided82. On the Co-Create page is also placed modules that display the latest discussions and announcements from the groups, allowing all members to comment, adding new elements, insight’s and more feedback to the group, hopefully helping to battle opinion and creating part of the dynamics needed for creating vital ideas.

The standard group page is also different than FB’s, though not necessarily better, due to the set software supplied by Jomsocial and therefore not my accomplishment83. WeCo and FB is of course not to be seen as competitors, their aim goals and size are different and a form of cross-use with other SNSs would be preferable, due to the greater amount of traffic on these sites.

An emphasis has now been made on how WeCo, being a SNS, supports collaboration by connecting people and providing tools for sharing ideas, but how does WeCo, in its appearance, create the sensation that can support this process and thereby communicate its unique identity? How does the method of collaboration and the insight into how vital ideas are created turn into a style?

80

PR. p. 17 PR. p. 12 82 PR. p. 15 83 PR. p. 16 81

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The method for designing the Interface

Part 6

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Method for designing the Interface Introduction This chapter focuses on the method used for creating the visual expression of the interface, in particular WeCo´s front page. A short introduction to the nature of the interface and how the theoretical knowledge of vital ideas can help explain the method used for designing the visual expression will be provided.

The nature of the interface Designing a SNS interface calls for knowledge about the interface’s nature. By this, I am not referring to the code structure that lies behind the expression on the screen that meets our senses, but to an understanding of the SNS interface as a conjunction of various functions. The visual expression provided by the screen is much like a flat surface, a canvas or a page for displaying the content, but since the interface is also the control panel or tool for engaging in the SNS, it has to be intuitive and usable. This is also due to the fact that webpages have to be navigated without a manual. In addition to this, the interface can be viewed as a set of doors or windows into the link created architecture of the site. The interface in itself can therefore be seen as withholding the dichotomy of the surface of the screen and depth of the web sphere, the limited territory of the webpage and the limitless possibilities of expressions. It is also the contact surface between the user’s physical and concrete sphere and actions and the webs non-physical, but endless sphere of expressions. In the light of the theory, I would argue that the dynamic described, of where art meets nature resembling the House and Universe, Heimlich and Unheimlich, territory and deterritorialization84, is there due to the interface nature.

A theoretical take on the SNS interface Through the theory of duration, it was implied that the depth of something could only be experienced. When designing the front page, it is therefore necessary to give the user an experience that resonate WeCo´s core values and identity, the intention of the site. The connection between the idea and form, expressed in the theoretical chapter, cannot as the artist’s stroke or the birds cry, be traced directly back to physical forces, due to the web’s ability to liquidate reference. Nevertheless, I believe it to be of substantial importance that the design chosen for the interface is coherent, merging the content of the site, the site’s expression and its intention. As acknowledged in the previous chapter, method becomes style. When dealing with a SNS, the expression will always be a combination of the software, the design and the users and therefore partly of my realm, but I can try

84

D&G: WP p.186

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to assure that the design, within the restrictions of the software, is an expression of the sites intention.

The theory also implied that the site’s expression should encourage people to take action and explore the forces and dynamics within the problem domain in real life, so they were in accordance to reality and not just on the web. This can be backed up by Bergson´s duration model that shows how access to the virtual field cannot come from the indirect (web) communication and functions, but must come from the person, experiences or the members that have experiences to draw on. The design should therefore aim at creating the right frame for people to dare open up to the unknown85.

This would call for trust and a feeling of security, so the members would dare contact the other people in the network.

Exactly how this can be done is difficult to read from the theory, due to D&G´s focus on the preindividual nature and not what motivates human beings, but the theory does open up for how sensation or expression can lead to action and help inspire the process.

How does the method chosen for designing the interface relate to the theory?

I have no claim to being an artist but I do believe the theory proposes an abstract way of understanding the dynamics of the vital energy, as an energy formed between the irreducible tension in the duration model, between the virtual and the actual, between the time of our mind and the spatial conception of matter. It seems to be the dynamic combination and tension between these two fields that allows for something new to be created. As written in the theoretical chapter, the place where human expression can reach the pure expression of nature is in the combination of two elements: “But if nature is like art, this is always because it combines these two living elements in every way: House and Universe, Heimlich and Unheimlich, territory and deterritorialization, finite melodic compounds and the great infinite plane of composition, the small and large refrain.86” Later, it is also written that in order for something to become, to change, to progress, two opposing elements are needed: “Philosophy needs a nonphilosophy that comprehends it; it needs a nonphilosophical comprehension just as art needs nonart and science needs nonscience.

They do not need the No as beginning, or as the end in which they would be called upon to disappear by being realized, but at every moment of their becoming or their development.87” I do not believe that D&G conception of art, non-art should here be seen as an oppositional88, but read 85

See p.31-32 D&G: WP p.186 87 D&G: WP p.218 88 Here we must again remember that D&G, like Bergson denounce the dialectical way of thinking.

86

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more like a dynamic, like a magnet where the difference in the poles (that are equally important to the magnet) creates the energy, then we might understand the essential relationship89.

The method- creating assemblages In the attempt to turn the method into the style, I have chosen to work with the method of assemblage. An assemblage can refer to a way of solving a problem in a new context90, by using the existing components found and refiguring them into a new meaning, opening up the potential within the component’s multiplicity. On an abstract scale it could be seen as a kind of territorialisation, deterritorialisation and re-territorialisation of the components, by appropriating them into a new context. Physically creating an assemblage could also be seen as moving the process, happening in the virtual field, where the components are assembled to create the vital idea, into the actual. Just as the vital idea’s core could form a species when individuated in the actual, the assemblage of components amount to a new expression.

Short description of the assemblages Attempting to create the right dynamic in the visual expression, two assemblages became my way of creating a visual and abstract association on the dichotomies proposed by the theory91. The first one is made to illustrate the future, the potential, the virtual, time, the abstract and the technological, surface, liquid, the Unheimlich (universe) and deterritorialization 92. The other; the now, the actual, space, the concrete, the living, the soil and nature, depth, solid, the Heimlich (house) and territory.

Together they are meant to form an abstract way of picturing what the dynamics, needed for creating development and progress, could look like. Trying to render what I have understood sensible. Of course the expression of the assemblage also bears a subjective dimension, running the risk of mirroring myself, instead of expressing WeCollaborates identity. I have therefore sent out questionnaires to test the final expression93.

89

This could also explain D&G´s way of writing, by finding a dynamic balance between structure and the dissolution of categories and structure.

90 Johndan Johnson-Eilola & Stuart A. Selber: Plagiarism, originality, assemblage.

91 p. 45 92 PR p. 5-6 93 PR. p. 7

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The analysis of the production

Part 7

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The analysis of the production Introduction The first part of the analysis will concentrate on the stable elements, such as the use of colour, words, genre and styles and the second part of the analysis, on the site’s dynamics as a web-sphere.

First an explanation of how the elements, colours and the expression of the front page, are chosen in order to create the tension between the actual and the virtual in relation to the assemblages, is elaborated. Followed by an aesthetic analysis and interpretation, focused on whether the design of the interface succeeded in expressing the intention of the site. A critical view will be taken on the product and the flaws explored, followed by the second part, exploring the dynamic and co-creative abilities. This will be done through an experiment, trying to engage people to co-create and connect on WeCo. Here, the focus will be on the co-creation of WeCo´s first web-magazine INSPIRE. Firstly WeCo will be looked upon as a site and then as a sphere.

How does the design chosen for the front page relate to the actual and the virtual assemblages?

The use of colour The use of colour refers back to the two assemblages, created to express “progress”. The first upper part’s background is grey with a texture resembling wood or paper, the grey is taken from the actual assemblage and expresses the concrete, the texture is chosen to emphasize this and add depth94. At the top, you find the latest, logged in members. For they are the foundation of an SNS, as we acknowledged through the thesis, the members are the key to creating progress and vital ideas and therefore also the first thing displayed and they are the actual network. In this upper part, we also have the name and logo, both in white. The white is taken from “the virtual” assemblage, it is chosen because the logo and the name are the “potential”, the intension that is created for the SNS, but not what is actually there yet. WeCo is also placed in the technical sphere of cyberspace and therefore not rooted in the actual as physical. Underneath is the process line, also with a white background. The first arrow and circle is minty green, the green is chosen from the “actual” assemblage, but without texture, to create a bold surface, this is due to the function of the “button” that takes you to the share knowledge & Inspire section. The section holds actual knowledge, but also the potential for something new, thereby needing a balance between the two assemblages, the green is chosen to symbolise growth and “the actual”, but the hue of green is there to resonate something antique, due to the vitalities ability to endure through time. The white colour of the 94

See assemblages PR. p. 5+6 and the front page PR p. 12.

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letters is chosen to symbolise the potential. The next “button” is the find partners and connect section. Here a deep pink is chosen to symbolise passion and power, as people connecting is the power of the SNS. The pink is a mixture of the two red colours from the assemblages, again seeking to balance both, due to the fact that you might connect with new potential partners, therefore the connect is written in white, but you can also find already existing relationships, referring to what actually is. The last button is the co-create and realise dreams section. This is brown taken from the “actual” assemblage, the reason this is brown, instead of a colour from the virtual assemblage that would show the not yet created, is because of the need for the co-creation to be based on the real, in the real. To battle opinion and fantasy, I have deliberately chosen a colour to emphasize this from the start, indicating that you should bring the ideas down to earth. Again, the letters are white because of the potential and the button is in bold text, which also, like the other buttons, refers to them as the “door”- the surface- of the place where this can be accomplished. The grey upper part ends with the main menu, which is also what is the actual on the site.

The main body´s background is the antique minty green with a texture of wood. It is the same colour as the Inspire button, but the texture adds depth and solidity. The texture added to all of the background colours is deliberately chosen as a way of balancing the nature of the interface, it being a surface and already in the technological sphere. Here, the wooden texture adds a hint of nature and a feel of quality to the background. Chosen to motivate people to read the content and promote the main content as chosen for its quality. The content background is white. This is partly due to the readability of the colour, but also to show that the content is based in the web-sphere. Therefore, this part also has the login section to the SNS, access to WeCo´s FB, YouTube and Twitter, along with the web-based magazine INSPIRE. The bottom part is brown as the co-create button and textured like concrete or soil.

This is the foundation for WeCo: its nonprofit organization that links it to the real and the actual, already accomplished projects. The headlines are green, to show that some of them are links and that they are there to inspire others or show what can and have “grown” from WeCollaborate.org.

The choice of words The use of action words (adjectives), both in the title We-Collaborate and on the buttons share & Inspire, find & connect, realise & co-create is there to emphasize and motivate the members to take action and embark on the journey of creating vital ideas and projects. The title says what people are here to do, but also lets people who join know what they are signing up for. Elsewhere, as content only little bits of texts and, if possible, questions, are used to open up for curiosity, creativity and 49

the reader’s own virtual field. The use of questions could also be a way of creating puissance, instead of reproduction and pouvoir.

A critical approach to interpreting WeCo´s front page aesthetics Does the expression resonate with WeCo´s intention and inner seed, core and values? To explore this, I have been inspired by the interface criticism guide’s95 components.

The stylistic references to art By looking at WeCo´s front page´s solid and unchangeable parts, the colours and the background textures, a stylistic reference to the artistic period of romanticism can be noted96.

How is romanticism related to vital ideas and the theory chosen? D&G, in many ways, recover romanticism by seeing the aesthetics as a philosophy of nature and nature’s self-expressive forms97.

Romanticism places great importance on using the senses and intuition, to navigate ones decisions, an importance also found in Bergson´s theory of duration, where intuition was the key to open the boundaries between what was human and that which goes beyond human. The focus on romantic originality in creativity that opposes plagiarism is also useful to express the site’s method as style. It could, for example, emphasize that people should not trust and adopt the opinion of others, but only what comes from the origin, so as to create what is original. If we consider that 18th century romanticism was a counter move to the rationalization and industrial mode, this reference could also make sense, because WeCollaborate not only has a wish to empower puissance, but in its form of collaboration, it also wishes to provide a mode for action that does not depend upon the hierarchical and rationalistic mode, dominating capitalism. The background textures and the site’s reference to nature as a way of stylistically implying the ideals of the romantic period, could therefore coincide with WeCo´s core intentions and the theory proposed by D&G and Bergson, concerning the dynamics and nourishing of vital ideas.

The romantic references are not to be seen as nostalgic and therefore mixed and balanced by the use of colours, fonts and clear references to it as a webpage and SNS. Is it clear that the textures refer to the stylistic genre of romanticism? The intention with the textures can be misunderstood, although the textures refer to nature, they do not show nature in its wild and

95

O. Bertelsen & S. Pold: Criticism as an Approach to Interface Aesthetics (2004).

PR. p. 10 97 A comparison also made by Catarina Pombo Nabais in her article Affect, Percept and Micro-brains: Art according to Gilles Deleuze.

96

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untamed forms, such as e.g. the painter Casper David Friedrich or J.W.M Turner would portray it98.

Instead it is the texture of processed wood, which could oppositely imply a kind of rationalization of nature, which is not the intention. The choice of textures is provided by the template and therefore predesigned, these were chosen as the best ones to create the expression99. The benefit of the choice could be that the paper- wood- soil could be seen as a story line, from raw nature to composed product, or from composed product back to the raw nature. The natural patterns, mixed with the hue of colours used, could also imply the connection of nature to culture, also provided by D&G´s theory, that resembles more of a visual nature than culture. Creating a dynamic, showing the importance of both.

Standards and tradition The more traditional use of composition for a web site has been used, where the upper part portrays the most important or the new stuff, followed by a “how to use” guide of some sort, a menu line, main content and at the bottom relevant links concerning the site100.

However WeCo is not as other SNSs, e.g. FB, Twitter, MyChurch, Blackplanet, Hyves, 350.org, mainly blue coloured, combined with white, a combination that could resemble the “open sky” in its cross-cultural reference, which could seem to be a more collective and indirect expression, as sought by the theory, but the blue also gives a cold and somewhat anonymous and functional feel.

Instead, a more specific and personal look, with more warmth like at a “café”, house or place is created. This is done on purpose, so as to provide the Heimlich and safe environment needed for people to open up and dare initiate projects and contacts with strangers. In this way it can also resemble a habitat or territory, balancing the fact that it is already loaded with the opposite due to its web-based nature.

Depth and Surface, Immediacy and Hypermediacy Since the interface has no materiality in itself, it draws on the experiences of materiality of other media, this can create a feel of immediacy and transparency that almost draws you in, like in the movies or it can create an awareness of the screen and the interface and as a computer-interface creating a hypermediacy. How has this been used to emphasize the core and intention of WeCo? The most important aspects of WeCo are the members and it is therefore crucial that they are shown on the front page. That their real pictures are shown, gives a sense of immediacy and transparency, 98

PR. p.10 PR. p. 10 -11 100 Variations of this structure are seen used by e.g. Myspace, Basecamp, Flickr, Momondo, Mailchimp. PR. p. 9 99

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also implying that they are real and concrete101. They are placed beside each other, to give a feel of equality and companionship. The title, which is written in a computer font, provides a literal insight into WeCo´s core purpose We-collaborate and the computer font chosen, century gothic, is wide and simple, without references to schoolbooks or news papers, bringing awareness of the site’s nature as a website, created on a computer. The process-line underneath, explains what WeCo is about and is created in such a style that draws attention to the site’s mission as a process, but also brings, in its expression, a hypermediacy, that allows the acknowledgement of the site as a tool or service. The use of “buttons” emphasizes this and their names are broad in their associations, which could open up for an experimental use of the site (important, to ensure a mode of puissance), while still providing a notion of what you can do there.

The content’s headline of “vital ideas” is meant to be inspiring and indicate what kind of projects WeCo finds ideal. The style of the headline could resemble a quality magazine, thereby giving it a kind of materiality and substance. By reading the examples of projects provided in the main content section, a clear idea of what initiatives this SNS supports can be conducted. It is no coincidence that what WeCo aims for, as the main content of the whole SNS, is also exemplified in the “main content” section on the front page.

The main content section is constructed as a “Christmas” calendar, where each “door” holds a new project or initiative. This is done in order to build on the previous experiences the user could have had, making the content seem like a little surprise or gift, awakening curiosity. The boxes showing cases are the same size so none are deliberately favoured.

The way the site is divided into three main areas, along with the use of lines and boxes, helps the user know that the modules have different functions or is of a different character. It also creates a hypermediacy by showing multiple windows, which is the mode of the computer.

The depth, being simulated by the patterns and the shadows in the surface, creates immediacy, but still as a webpage - surface and tool. Immediacy and hypermediacy is therefore used to communicate the site’s mixed components and create a balance between surface and depth.

The design is created to express WeCo´s core, but did I succeed?

I have not had the tools to measure affect and percept, but in order to test the visual expression, I

101

PR. p. 12

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sent out a questionnaire asking people what they thought about the aesthetics. People answered that it was creative, engaging and one even understood that I aimed at an expression that signals engagement and diversity on a high educational level102. Which I believe most people interpreted as “the professional look”103. That the creativity resonated was delightful to hear, since my wish was to open up for creativity and provide a space where it was allowed, but also to backup the romantic view on originality and creativity. Hopefully the professional look would provide a form of trustworthiness and nobility that would help people open up and respect each other’s abilities. This could be promoted by the fact that the people are at the top, showing that WeCo is proud of them.

One of the points, emphasized by D&G and Bergson, was that we must take action to learn, create, express and become the medium for vital ideas. The many “action words” used on the front page are there to encourage people to take action and also prepare people who enter the site that they should be willing to collaborate. They also provide an expectation of action. An action that is not only essential for the site´s name WeCollaborate to comply with the expectations, but also fundamental for creating vital ideas and testing if the right dynamics exist within the site.

Unfortunately the traffic needed to fully test the site’s new expression is not there yet and creating it would take more work104.

A Critical view on WeCollaborate.org and user expectations First of all WeCo´s process line shows tree main actions, the first two sets of actions are possible on most SNSs, but the last is more rare and shows that this site’s uniqueness is projects and cocreation. This means that the collaborative tools are of much importance. If we go back and take a look at the groups, they could be lacking the right combination of functions, due to their more “general use” design. A possibility of incorporating different tools, like Freemind, PowerPoint etc.

by API, could prove useful and will be explored in the future. My impression is that the more you can use and build bridges to software the network is acquainted with, the better, not just to provide flexibility, but to save time and give freedom of expression. The fact that Jomsocial is new software for most people to engage with, can also keep their action and initiatives away. This is one of the problematic issues with WeCo, another is the search- connect function. If people have to create new connections, an excellent search function is needed. Because WeCo almost resembles a dating site in this respect, this is a crucial function for getting people interested in collaborating and using the handpicked network provided. This kind of search-function does not exist with Joomla or Jomsocial and should therefore be created, together with a professional programmer. The search function 102

PR. P. 7 PR p. 7+8 104 This will be pursued in the future.

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provided by Joomla gave only content search results and I therefore chose to delete this function from the main site and only leave the Jomsocial search function on. This is an Achilles heel for WeCollaborate, and the people who answered the questionnaires also requested a similar function.

There are therefore problems to be worked out in the future, if the whole site is to resonate the core of WeCollaborate. These issues could currently be keeping people away or creating the wrong experience.

The site has, however, worked several times during my internship, due to one of the team members of WeCo, who led the process and put together the teams from the network and I therefore engaged upon a last experiment.

Until now I have mainly focused on the web site as a site and not as a sphere. With this final experiment, I will try to work with the dynamics of the web-sphere. A web-sphere is here meant as a collection of dynamically defined digital resources that can span multiple sites, relevant or related to a central theme or object. In this case, it is centered on the co-creation of a web-based magazine, which becomes the focal point for studying WeCo as a dynamic and collaborative platform.

INSPIRE Since the vital ideas can live on the surface of things, I embarked on creating a web-based magazine called INSPIRE105. The idea was to bring WeCo´s members into play, while enhancing the focus on the network as a way to encourage members to connect and spread their knowledge and ideas. From the questionnaires, I also learned that the members were very interested in what other members were up to and that a greater focus on the projects already out there was needed. This could be a possible way of meeting those demands, while empowering people and their projects. To get the right balance for empowering puissance and not pouvoir, the magazine could not be made top down. So this is what I did: First I contacted several members from WeCo, asking them what they were up to right now, and then I chose 7 members and asked them each to supply me with a short article. On the background of the article and my knowledge about the people who had written it, I created a layout for it and had them approve it before publishing. This way, I could use my strengths with visuality to bring

105

PR. p. 20

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out a potential expression and sensation from their ideas, thus, the magazine was a kind of cocreation, where I acted as the center of all the different members106.

I chose to work with Issuu.com, a web service that lets anyone publish articles and magazines for free. The great thing about Issuu was not just the nice layout that simulated a high quality magazine quite realistically, but also the functions Issuu provided. Issuu lets people embed the magazine into their website, sharing it and building a bridge between Issuu´s readers and WeCo. At WeCo, I placed the magazine under the Inspire button and made sure that there were direct links to the people who contributed, along with relevant articles and groups107.

To engage upon an analysis of a web sphere, I faced several problems. Firstly, I did not have the tools to measure, if the ideas in the magazine affected anyone. However, I did have the possibility of seeing the statistics, stating how many people had read the magazine and, due to the fact that the first issue of the magazine had mistakes, another was created and sent out. Because people had already used the embed code for the first magazine on their websites or FB, it could not be deleted and so another version was uploaded, which left me with two sets of statistics, clearly showing that the version, which people used and embedded, got twice the amount of readers than the later and corrected version.

From the statistics, I can see that there have been 804 readers of the first version and 426 of the latter108. Together, it amounts to 1230 readers and 7513 unique page views, meaning that the average reader has seen at least 7 pages, which I find satisfying, considering that the magazine is only 28 pages long. The amount of people who have read the magazine has given it the status of what Issuu calls “hot”109. The interesting thing is also that the first version has a continued reader interest, where the latter mostly topped in the middle of March. This could indicate that the autonomous social linking is of great importance to creating the dynamics and traffic in the websphere. The continued traffic (see statistics) also shows that the expression of the magazine cover must have had some ability to draw in the readers and create curiosity. In addition, 134 readers came from Issuu and must have found and read the magazine, mainly due to its appearance. Here it can be said that the act of opening the magazine must have been the visuality of the front page of the magazine’s ability to affect the readers.

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I am aware that this does not comply fully with a collborative process , that would require a greater goal and a longer period to work.

107 PR p.13 108 PR p.19 109 PR p.19

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For the layout, I tried to create references to the same dynamic dichotomies as used for the website, while also drawing on a cover layout that would resemble a quality magazine such as Wallpaper.

The content circled around some of the issues that could be relevant for understanding how to create vital ideas.

The overall feedback, supplied by the co-creators, was positive and due to the web, it was easy for me to involve people beyond my physical reach. The process was also faster than I thought it would be and the product turned out to have some measure of success. I will therefore conclude that the potential for working collaboratively on the web, using the ability to connect via WeCo is there and can evolve into a product, something new. I am aware that I have only seen a small part of what is possible and that this field deserves much more experimentation, research and attention before a real evaluation can be conducted.

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Discussing the result and evaluating Part

8

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Discussing the result & evaluating Reflections When reflecting on the process and the theory chosen, several aspects need to be considered. The vitalist theories of H. Bergson and D&G have proved difficult to apply in practice, due to their focus on a third kind of consciousness, as a pure non-subjective, impersonal and qualitative durational consciousness, which is far from the personal, subjective members WeCo has to work with. It did, however, help to give an insight into the strength and weaknesses of the collaborative as a “collective method” to create projects and ideas. It emphasized the need for the problem to go beyond the personal and subjective sphere and for the result to be rooted in reality. Aside from introducing us to affect, it did not say how to motivate people to co-create.

Anti-Humanistic?

Some would interpret D&G´s theory as anti-humanistic, due to their focus on going beyond the humanistic and personal perceptions and affection in search of affect and for describing vitality as not dependant on organic matter and creativity, as belonging to the forces of nature and therefore not a human achievement110. I will argue that it is humanistic in the way that it opens up for the human ability to compose chaos and access the vitalistic forces, the multiplicity within the virtual.

And, through the use of aesthetics and assembling these forces, invent new modes of existence and practices of doing. Thereby not rendering human actions predictable, but on the contrary appealing to the freedom and the possibility of taking responsibility, by showing us we can access that, which is and thereby the ability to make a response111. An ability that is necessary to prove, for WeCollaborate to make any sense and therefore the theory has proved useful in this matter, while also giving WeCo an ethical dimension112.

As a way to understand what empowers vital ideas, the theory chosen worked on an abstract plane, which showed the force of opening up for the potential of working with “problems”, but did not apply easily as a method for designing a SNS´s interface and offered no real ways of testing the results either.

110

C.P.N. & J.M p. 27 Of course, here acknowledging that we never completely can predict an outcome that is always new.

112 Where ethics is the ability to act in accordance with a collective nature, instead of ego-interests.

111

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Being theories of puissance, they did, however, offer a way to engage with progress, not as led mainly by reason and technology, as proposed by the enlightenment113 as a cultural movement, but as led by intuition and transparency in accordance to what is, as a product of nature and ethical actions. When it comes to including technology as a means for progress, the thesis shows various aspects. Bergson’s theory could, when used on the web, imply that the mediated knowledge we get from the web, has the possibility of giving us a false feeling of knowing something, due to its ability to keep us posted on many different affairs on a superficial level. This could eventually keep us from gaining the deeper understanding of the affairs real nature, and therefore we could risk building our understanding of the world on opinion. If we return to the thesis introduction, where Derrida implies that literature is more interesting than the world, then D&G´s theory of fabulation can give us an insight into why this could be, due to the arts’ ability to call forth the potential and vision of the new, not yet lived possibilities and of modes to come. The web’s ubiquitous, multi media nature would here seem to have an advantage of spreading such visions, especially because affect is collective and universal and therefore goes beyond cultures. Unfortunately, mass media has proven to spread all kinds of visions, not just those that seem to empower puissance, but also pouvoir and opinion, so there is still the possibility to use affect, so as to spread ideas of pouvoir, ego-interests, politics and economic agendas and opinions. Here, the web can serve to display multiple understandings and agendas and create awareness of the multiplicity that lies within our world and maybe ignite a search for something beyond relativism, which as Scotts Lash pointed out, could provoke a resurfaced interest in vitalism114.

Relevancy for Visual Culture The relevance of this thesis for Visual Culture can be seen from different angles. The theory introduced by D&G for understanding visuality, breaks with the traditional way of understanding visuality through the constructive approach of semiotics, where the symbol has a concrete meaning115. This is because D&G introduces the visual form as a possible direct transduction of the vital idea, in the form of a compound of percept and affect, opening up for visualities’ multiplicity of meanings as a possible window into the depth of reality. A reality that, as D&G pointed out, holds contradictory forces. The visual therefore shifts from being a representative tool for communicating an often-simplified and already established version of reality, to opening up for the 113

Here referring to the 18th Century movement. http://roundtable.kein.org/node/126 (13.4.11) 115 Found with Ferdinand de Saussure.

114

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visual and art as an insight possibility into something we cannot even explain with mere words.

Exactly because we cannot explain this insight, this becoming, with words or categorise it, it opens up (is of puissance), for the not yet known, by inspiring. A feeling so life affirming and great in vitality that it has value and meaning in itself, beyond reason and rationality.

D&G´s theory introduces a kind of visual culture that melts together with a visual nature, placing the efficacy of visuality beyond the means of human culture. Thus making the interface not just a bearer of culture, but possibly life and nature. Breaking away from it, as only relying on representation and opening up for the possibility of presentation, since the vitality they propose, exists without materiality.

This is important because sensing and the influence of aesthetic experiences are not something rare, we do not realise this because we subconsciously are exposed to visuality all the time. With the growing amount of time spent on SNSs and the web’s ocularcentric nature, the field of Visual Culture (nature) and an understanding of how visuality can nourish vitality and puissance, as opposed to exercising pouvoir, are of great importance to creating the SNSs of our future.

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Conclusion

Part 9

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Conclusion Could an understanding of what empowers vital ideas be used to design a social network site that supports this process?

My theses was that an understanding of the nature of vital ideas could offer an understanding of the conditions and dynamics needed to empower them and that this could give an insight into how a design of a SNS that aimed at supporting this process could be created.

If we are to assess whether the theses can be confirmed upon the evaluation of the present thesis, several aspects should be taken into account: Due to the abstract, theoretical and philosophical foundation in the thesis, it required an interpretation and therefore a reduction of the theory’s field, in order to focus it on the concrete example of designing a SNS. Also, the theory provided no real way of testing the result. The result can therefore only be seen as an experiment, conducted through my personal interpretation of the theory. Here, it is also necessary to take into account that the scope of working with SNSs involves a great diversity of fields that I have limited expertise in, such as social science, web-design, cognitive science, network theory etc. So, only restricted and somewhat untraditional approaches have been used. I will however, advocate that approaching the design of a SNS interface from a critical, aesthetic perspective is in compliance with the expectancies within the field of Visual Culture.

As far as this is taken into account, it is reasonable to point out several discoveries concerning the experimentation with applying the theory in practice. Concerning the particular case of WeCollaborate.org, the theory proved relevant as a way of engaging WeCo´s form of collaboration and demonstrated the potential in working together around a common problem. I therefore find it reliable to deduce that WeCo´s form of collaboration could be a useful method for supporting the process of creating vital ideas. WeCo´s method of collaboration implied communicating via different modalities, including mixing offline and online interaction and it should here be noted that the design of the interface therefore implies this to support the process. Still, it was not without problematic issues. For a SNS´s design to support the process of creating vital ideas, several aspects are of importance.

For the vital ideas to take form, an inspiration or a collective process amongst its members was needed. This could be supplied by the method of collaboration described in this thesis, but only if the members were not too close friends and of a qualitative diversity and that the common problem

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they worked on were one beyond their personal or economic interest. Another aspect of the SNS´s potential for supporting this process was expressed, when it came to spreading the vital ideas. When the vital idea had the form of a fabulation or art, the experiment with INSPIRE showed a potential of spreading it via the use of social linking and the web’s multimedia.

From the experiments on several ways of using and applying the theory in practice, I would say that it is reliable to conclude that an understanding of vital ideas did give an insight into the dynamics needed for creating them. Through my interpretation and experimentation applying it in practice, some guidelines for the interface design of an SNS, meant to support this was provided. However since WeCo is not fully developed, it is hard to determine if it to a full extent supports the process of creating vital ideas - and whether they are vital, only time will tell. So there are still issues unresolved.

Regarding the visual expression of the front page, applying the theory gave an indication of the importance of the visual expression, the content and the intention of the site to be in alliance.

Combined with the aesthetic analysis, a way of transforming the mode to a style was tested.

The theory also implied a different aspect of why the visuality of the interface is so important. Due to the aesthetic experience’s ability to offer an insight into something beyond the subject’s perception, which is vital in itself, it could provide the feeling of being part of something, of connectivity. Implying the collective and adding a feeling, essential for creating the atmosphere of togetherness, which seems to be a driver for SNSs to work116.

Conclusively, however abstract the theory might have been and the results difficult to test, it provided an insight into the dynamics of vital ideas that, through interpretation and experimentation, proved useful in order to create guidelines for the interface design of the SNS for WeCollaborate.org, aiming at empowering this process.

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Because this is not created by the “keep in touch with your friends or family” service of FB, another way to generate this was needed.

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