Tom Boelstroff's office in Second Life
I was preparing the next Metanomics session featuring the anthropologists Tom Boellstorff and Celia Pearce (pdf file), when I stumbled upon a great interview Dusan Writer had with Tom about Culture, Techne and Virtual Worlds. It made me think about what we do in Second Life, on the internet and about the Information Age.
The last 50 years or so there is this tremendous emphasis on knowledge and the importance of information. It is interesting to see how we think in general about concepts such as “knowledge” and “information”, how we use those words. Often, whether we are aware of it or not, we are influenced by dominant ways of thinking which are not always adequate.
As Tom says in the interview, technology is rooted linguistically in action, in the term techne, meaning something like craft or arts.
We tend to think about knowledge in terms of objects of the mind which we can contemplate. This practice can be distinguished from or even opposed to “craft” which has more to do with actually transforming parts of the reality we live in.
Tom:
And so that was interesting to me, that techne is about art or craft. I immediately started thinking about how important building and making things is in Second Life. And then I started looking at – there’s as whole range of philosophers and thinkers who for a long time now have been talking about how in the original formulation, techne’s opposite is knowledge, or episteme.
I personally would be very cautious in claiming that in ancient Greek thinking techne and episteme are opposites (I shudder remembering my all-knowing professor in Greek philosophy, usually destroying such claims very easily), but anyway, there is at least a fascinating distinction at work here, which continues to influence how we think even today.
I do agree with Tom that what we do in Second Life helps us think more clearly about what is happening in this so-called Information Age:
And then it got me thinking what’s happening here where in what’s supposed to be the age of information, we’re getting all of this stuff happening in virtual worlds about craft, not about knowing about houses in Second Life, but about building a house in Second Life. Building relationships and all the crafting stuff seems to be so important.
It becomes more obvious than ever that gathering information, contacts, communicating is also a craft. This is not something we experience only in Second Life, it is the experience we have when using social media in order to develop our networks and “information”.
We build our presences and networks on the net, using Twitter, Flickr, Friendfeed, Facebook, virtual platforms, trying desperately to integrate stuff etc. These craft-like activities are not just accidental, something we have to do because the internet is still “under construction”.
I guess being “under construction” is pretty much what the internet is all about. In my newsroom I am involved in organizing social media workshops. Often people ask me to integrate all the stuff in one easy package, which people can switch on, and just see all the information and contacts they need.
Of course we could to something like that, up to a certain point. But in my opinion, building networks, ways of communication and crafting online relationships is something one needs to practice because it is a crucial part of this “Information Age”.
One cannot really escape a certain level of technological craft here, and in fact, accepting this level of technology helps one understand the world we live in – a core mission for a journalist.
The third part of Tom’s book Coming of Age in Second Life is the Age of Techne where concepts are discussed such as creationist capitalism. a kind of Second Coming of Capitalism which does not alienate workers but where workers create their own worlds – an ideology which puts creativity in the center rather than just “producing”.
Here is more about Monday’s Metanomics show (Noon SLT/PDT, 9 pm CET):
This Monday, from the exotic to the mundane, Metanomics explores avatar culture. Anthropologists Tom Boellstorff and Celia Pearce are developing new methods and theories about human relationships in virtual worlds. Join us as we discuss how the traditional practice of ethnography is being adapted to the study of online immersive environments and how virtual worlds shape identities, economies, communities and societies.
To attend the event live in Second Life® visit one of the Metanomics Event Partners, or teleport to our event partner landing.
To view live on the web, visit our Watch Live web page. If you would like to participate in the live chat join and log in to the Metanomics website.
During the show you can meet my avatar, Olando7 Decosta, at Malburns’ Metahub in Chilbo, Second Life.
Roland Legrand
