It was about 1:30 Pm when Paige and I arrived at PNCA+FIVE Idea Studios at Pacific Northwest College of Art.

Dr. Saul Ostrow sat at the front of the room and began reading from a small stack of paper in front of him. He had a pleasant, descriptive voice, and his face was illuminated by a small lamp.

Behind him was a projection screen displaying a series of disconnected abstract black and white scenes. Sometimes these scenes had muted scenes of people giving speeches. When Saul spoke, it sometimes looked like these ancient philosophers was coming back to life.

While he spoke, I attempted to write down every thing I could, but some of what he said may be unclear or missing. Please excuse this.

Transcript:

“Before I begin my speech on Models of Critical Production, one of the things that I tend to do is that I need definitions.

We all tend to say — even in the titling of this — we say ‘oh, I know what that means”

I need to clarify what I mean by it.

To model is to give form to or to display.

Critical is a moment of importance.

Practice is to perform with proficiency, or to exercise in order to gain proficiency.

To train in a systematic matter to a given end.

Therefore, what I am going to speak about gives form in a systematic manner to judgment.

System — a number of elements working together in concert, in an ordered manner, to create a whole, or to accomplish a task.

Obviously, we are talking not about something singular, but a complex network of interrelated relationships.

What does one need to make a judgment or to take a position? A position is something that one uses to locate themselves relative to another thing or person.

What are some of the terms of valuation -so that they may be a guide to one’s practice — to one’s performance. What are the standards, values and criteria are to be employed –and how might these come to be.

Standards and criteria are comparable and therefore quantitative .

Values are qualitative and therefore relative.

Criteria — the terms of evaluation or appraisal.
Desirability, or comparative quality. Obviously, these reflect a system.

Ideology –a series of imagined set of relationships that guide one’s actions and guides one’s subjectivity. A sense of self, or identity.

To model a critical practice is to give form or to display one’s sense of self, but what is this sense of self?

A sense of self is how we as individuals understand our individuality and collectivity. How we collectively and individually compare ourselves to each other

It is this self that is the emergent subject that enables us to act as well as inhibiting ourselves.

———–

Let us first clarify the notion of the emergent subject -that which moves under or moves something away

The emergent subject is one who acts, or orders.

One is not fixed. Our actions in the world move us .

We possess the ability to act in an ever new and reflexive way. In other ways we are always manifesting and an ever evolving awareness of ourselves.

It is our awareness that allows us to act, and consequently, the modeling of a critical practice is the display of the awareness by which you experience the world. And how the world might be ordered to the evolving self.

The experience of the self is always for the self and the position of advancing the self — both individually and collectively –

Relative to the subject with this talk — at this point, I’ll remind you — I cannot tell you the whole of this with any certainty — because based on the position I have announced here — I do not know the whole of it.

What I do know that there is more to it.

There are three elements of this model of the self

• Self criticality.
• Ethicality
• The Aesthetic.

Neither a priority or inherent, self criticality is a fail safe as we cannot extract ourselves from our world view.

We cannot understand ourselves except for that which is done in the way of value.

That we invest in ourselves tin that that effort will render up an additional value — in that one believes one needs, or one believes the world needs.

This “putting” into the world requires an aesthetic. We must think of it as an inclusive -as well as a means by which we do things. Ourselves in the world - it is the terms by which we represent our terms of self and the ability to progress. It is the means by which the emergent sel.

The content of such a practice is always political — these politics being the economy of social power.

To revise or transform how it has come to understand. Essential to advancing its position within the world is an affirmation or a means of introduction.

—————-

Thinking of Objects Rather than Systems

This desire to categorize art as object rather than critical discourse

one ends up worrying about the market rather than the cultural effect of the things that are produced.

Art is free. It is in our galleries. We can see it.

If we choose to posses it then we worry about markets. And possessing an object rather than the art.

If all of those fields are the creation of distinctly different things, then how do these ever interact?

Answer: there is never (not any interaction - it’s omnipresent) it is the material conditions of our lives. We are born into this — there is no undoing of it?

Is there value in that? There is only value we subscribe to.

We have common projects — some of us participate in those projects and some of choose not to
And we’ve determined that some of s participate in these things that we deem ed best to me in that collective.
Tom Summer: How is the possibility of communication between this intersubjective space possible? It is by consensus forming one contour of collectivity.

What does it mean to “take care of yourself”?

The fixity of the subject is not attached as an image- - is a restless activity (reminds me of Erving Goffman’s seminal book on the understanding of human existence, ”
If one presents new terms - if one is constantly seeking to unfix something - that is illicit. Once it becomes fixed - put in its place- it ceases to become a critical practice. Constantly offering up new propositions. If that worked, will this work?

Do artists ever fall prey to being licit without knowing it?

Not every artist is involved critical practice — the constant reinvention and rexamination of one’s own thoughts, ideologies, self-presence (except perhaps maybe online?).

Very often we talk of things as a singularity –as an art–as a thing- a singular thing. rather than the notion that there are artists that have little or no interest in criticality, but still culturally produce.
Not any singular practice –

the question of dialogue and intersubjectivity . the clash of these practices makes culture still dynamic.

Entering into the same aesthetic and same assumptions we would have a very structured culture, in which the practices would all be subscribed. There are some of us that unsubscribe — for instance, to say, “Oh I know that position, and I’m not interested in believing that anymore”.

Critical practice is always for something; it is not against something.

If I do away with evil - good will remain.

Theory always moves towards practice. they are interrelated.

Practice without some grounding is habit. if it has no self reflexivity. if it has no affirmation -being informed - we end up engaging in something that is habitual . the notion of theory is that I put things into the world as proposition. even the objects that one makes are always grounded in some sort of theoretical position.

You construct a theory of intuition. theory is the propositions that guide us.

The notion of artificiality - as it is with objects it is with us. They are tremendously unstable objects.

A critical practice is always illicit, but never negative.
—

A theory , in a sense -

Do not pick a meaning inappropriate to the subject.
There are just some things you can’t make a painting out of.
Which need is stronger—to make a painting about that subject or to be a painter?

A person decides to paint a picture of mars and Venus. And so they must learn everything they can about Mars and Venus—the whole story—so they can find the perfect moment in which to it.

in depth research - and understanding of relationships - self reflexivity.

Then it becomes how to represent that appropriate moment.

When models of existing practices should exceed existing structures.

Thomas Zummer: We’re always negotiating conflict.

A system network is constantly in negotiation. Constantly in practice. Constantly informing who and where we are in our positions in the world.

On Human Expiration

Productivity is dependent on death and destruction.

Some argue that what makes our human is the knowledge of our mortality.

In that we attempt to constructs things to leave behind.
The fear of death - drives us to produce the social -drives us to produce civilization.

Death is not destruction. I don’t see death as destructive! You’re talking about violence and I see violence as something else.

—————–

@paigedestroy will be going on a two week retreat with Tom Summers and Saul Ostrow. I’m letting her borrow my tape recorder who can by in multiple places at once.

A formal ind of decay or destruction to be subdued in the destruction is to be consumed in that productively is to be consumed in those forms the the transstion or production of those forms.

Those frameworks are always producing or always creating those decays.

We are dying every moment.

What I Took Away from the Lecture

Bordieu - that we are always reterritorializing things —-moving the boundaries of things. We only see it online because it is newer there – and disconnected. –
at one time you could not frame this with a new body

it is just more mechanical online, the reinvention of self — it does not mean that we do not do it in real life. the distance between spaces in which we do it online is just larger more granular — less resolution. we do not notice it in real life because it is so smooth and there are so many more systems at play — the granularity, the smoothness and the complexity of the system in real life compared to the systems online is so much more that we notice things more easily online. It is not “liquid” modernity” it is not fast and continual flux. it is slower online. much slower.

Moreover, as sociologist Emelie Durkheim said, as society matures and progresses, they flow from mechanical to organic.

We exist in space for a prolonged period and we call that time.
I’m more include to talk about entropy than decay.
These negotiations of certain processes. Things moving to a steady state.

I think its a society looking for its values and world view to be expressed and that it goes back to — reception. Those things we call artists are the agents by which we express something.

——-

I don’t believe in a Zeitgeist -because I don’t know when that time is.
if I could predict what would touch those million people. For instance, I could say, ‘what people really need right now is hope’ — but I don’t really know what hope looks like.

At the end, he pointed out something along the lines of the time cost of painting, adding “It’s better to work in film”.

And in similar vein of Artists are force carriers of culture.

—-

About PNCA+FIVE Idea Studio

————————
This lecture series was part of the PNCA + FIVE Idea Studio: Models of Critical Production
Saul Ostrow will be at Pacific Northwest College of Art from October 13–16.

————————

Event Schedule

Models of Critical Production
October 13 – 16
PNCA Campus
Free and open to the public

October 13
Tom Zummer workshop | Commons | 4 – 5:30 pm

October 14
Saul Ostrow lecture | Commons | 12:30 – 1:30pm
Tom Zummer workshop | Commons | 4 – 5:30pm

October 15
Tom Zummer lecture | Commons | 12:30 – 1:30pm

October 16
Saul Ostrow lecture | Commons | 12:30 – 1:30pm

More at PNCA Lectures occurring this week.

New marketing is the creation of events, experiences, content, products, and services in collaboration with the consumer. It is the creation of products and services that fill an actual need while creating a community that shares that need.

Google, Twitter and Facebook were initially created by people to fulfill a need. Google was created to manage information, Facebook demographics, data and connection, and Twitter, conversation. Software and hardware review sites emerged to protect consumers from false advertising. Blogs emerged because traditional corporations didn’t listen to their customers, leaving them to fend for themselves. Because of this, it’s much more difficult for traditional corporations to have a voice. It’s been drowned out by more valuable services. And the traditional communication channels have been severed.

In the new web there is no longer one platform to speak from. Social, economic, brand, and lifestyle realities are constantly fragmenting, reorganizing and combining in new ways. Products are easily adopted and easily thrown away online. Additionally, each culture is constantly creating its own dialect, and unless a business understands that dialect and is extremely diplomatic, an online community will be able to see right through a marketing campaign.

There are tools out there that can be used to dive deep into these content networks such as Facebook and Twitter to secure information. Consumers have the power - both to create and destroy. But they also have a very helpful voice, and it’s important to listen to them. Often, they can’t create the products, services, and experiences they need. But companies can, and consumers want to help.

Web vs. Brick

In the brick and mortar world, most businesses have a front door and a loading dock, as well as finite hours of operation. Web designers originally built websites in the same way. But a website is always open, and every page a front door. Thus, each and every page on a site counts. Each page is a representation of the entire company, and must hold its own if accessed out of order and context.
One might think of the Internet as a vast ocean of noise with islands of content on it. Search engine optimization is a process that can bring an island closer to land…often close enough so that visitors can walk onto it. Visitors will generally use a website as a solution if they don’t have to navigate an ocean to get to the data they need.

Search engines can bring in traffic, but there is no guarantee that the content on a site will match what the user searched for. This can be helped along by having a site display items similar to what the user searched for. For instance, Amazon.com and the New York Times both have related posts and products that appear on almost every page.

Interfaces

As more and more companies turn to online software solutions, user interfaces become increasingly important. This is especially true when online collaborative software is used across great distances.

To quote the Urban Planner Paul Elek,

“The point is that our daily existence is normally filled with short walks and passing through interfaces. It is not the number that we remember but rather the poor quality of them and the time spent in moving through them”.

A principle to follow in designing an online experience is the time and number of clicks it takes for visitors to access data. If there is no flow, no calls to action, and no relevant content, then the user will generally move on — and click “no”, or the “back” button.

Users will generally take a route with the least interface changes to fulfill their needs. A good interface blends into the background while maximizing relevant user actions. The interface should also compress together similar steps so that actions do not have to be repeated uselessly by the user. Flickr’s image uploader and title/descriptions fields do an excellent job of this.

A website should contain no unnecessary code, styles, or content. A speedskater has different muscles developed than does an tennis player. There is no “one social media strategy fits all”. A website’s content/structure/links should be developed according to the type of products/services it provides. Conversation, community building and ease of use minimize consumer effort and can be achieved in different ways. It is imperative to pay attention to what communities/demographics need the services/products a site provides. Which avenue is best to play in - is Twitter more appropriate than Flickr? Examining the social media sites a community is drawn to says a lot about how they interact the most comfortably.

The ratio of good vs. poor content online makes filtering necessary. A website can only stand out among the crowd if it offers new and consistently reliable content. Additionally, that content must be accessible by both humans and machines (search engines). The online landscape only allows consumer’s limited time to make decisions. In these kinds of environments, one must alway focus on data accessibility, calls to action, and extremely clear direction. Information that is buried too deep into the site’s structure is more difficult to get to, and runs the risk of not being indexed by search engines. Products should be focused on providing value.

PR 2.0

Some of the first industries to capture digital data real-time were hedge funds and other financial firms. They used something that I’ll call an intelligence dashboard — where different streams of data were needed to make complex decisions. The dashboard allowed users to see many different stocks at once, and companies were able to create a sort of proto-feed that showed many different ecosystems of data at once.

Data Mashups

Services like Netvibes and Yahoo! pipes can be mixed together to offer companies real-time intelligence feeds that show what their competitors are posting on their blogs, what people are saying about them on twitter, and their overall online presence — all in one place.

Making these intelligence dashboards takes time and research, but the value added (not to mention the time saved) by the implementation of a centralized data source is immense. Also, it’s powerful enough for agencies that manage multiple clients, because the entire system fits into one browser window with a series of custom, labeled tabs.

All brands have an analog version of this, and some have a digital one — but all brands need it. Google Alerts is a quick and Intelligence dashboards are capable of handling the data generated by global and local brands as well. They can monitor Flickr photos, news items, blog posts, ect. Anything online, and anything in motion. Companies who do not monitor their own brands run the risk of their brands

Community

A websites’ user base should be voluntary - it should be providing a comfortable nesting ground for user actions. Youtube allows its users the space for their communities to interact, and does not force them to interact in a specific way. New tools should be created to move forward the voluntary community’s ability to reach their goals. In doing this, the creator must be able to understand what the user’s needs are, and then help the user to get there step by step. Instead of major site redesigns, tools should be being found by the user during normal routine actions. This will allow the user to ‘discover’ that tool for themselves and then determine, over time, the best use of that tool.

Explicitly stated actions or rules for the user to follow are confining and dictatorial. Suggestions are better (See Tumblr - a user-based and created space to post quotes, pictures, and videos (a sort of microblog with media…but with less interconnectivity than Twitter). The database/user experience must expand more from the side of the users and the system must be mutable enough for the to move with the space of the user.

About

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and New Media consultant living in Portland, Oregon. You can find her on Twitter @caseorganic, or may contact her via E-mail at caseorganic at gmail.com.

photo credit: Martin Pettitt

Today there was a Lunch and presentation at Nemo on using Ning for customized social networks. Dave Allen, Director of Insights & Digital Media at Nemo, introduced Rachel, who demonstrated the customized functions of Ning.

Dave Allen:
The purpose of this lunch and demonstration is to create a sort of town hall meeting.

Nemo is a 11 year old company that is unique in that it has managed to develop itself professionally without any sort of Press Releases or major media at all.

We have 5 blogs that function outside of Nemo, as well as an Private internal networking that we’ve been using to demonstrate the capabilities of blogs to our employees. It is a place for experimentation and messages.

We feel that in Social Media everyone is running around on different race courses. All are doing their own thing, but no one knows where the finish line is.

The five outside blogs are not integrated with each other. We hope to use Ning’s capabilities to create PR 2.0 and Social Media for Nemo.
We’ll be releasing the new version of Ning in September that will network all of these blogs together, and will serve as a force to expand Nemo’s online presence and capability.

BLOGS:

• Pampelmoose

• Social-Cache

• StudioNemo

• Strangebeautiful

• NubbyTwiglet

We hope to add:

• Ink Show

• Yourblog.com

And:

NemoHQ.com (coming soon)

In addition, other blogs will be linking to Nemo, and these blogs and our own will run through Ning, which provide linking to everyone in the world.

The Ning Presentation:

Rachel:

I’d like to talk about how you or a brand can use a social network. People are currently using social networks to connect with other people. The Internet can be used to replicate any sort of media. Newspapers, television, art exhibits and flyers can be duplicated and be functional online.

The truly native behavior of the Internet is two-way. So is a social network. In media terms, the Internet is the only place where people have a depth conversation of two way in many forms of media. In photos, media, discussion forms, and blogs.

Because of this, people are responding to social networks in huge numbers.

The early days of the Internet saw two major services; AOL and CompuServe. AOL was a fantastic service for the general public because it taught people how to be online — how to use chat and E-mail..

And when a company like Nike wanted to be on the Internet — it would post its page on AOL.

Then Netscape came around and allowed people to jump on the Internet from site to site without constraints.

Now we have Facebook and other applications that teach us how to be social online. They allow us to post videos photos, news feeds.

Ning is a platform for the creation of your own branded social network.

It allows you the opportunity to control and expand your brand to your biggest fans. When you have a Myspace page, that page’s community is comprised of Myspace members and friends, but the data is owned by Myspace. You don’t get to keep data on your own community, and your visitors are constrained to Myspace’s look, feel and format.

By having your own social network, you can show what your features will be and your member’s social information. You can have your brand really expanded.

You can thus have your own online hub. If you think about a brand, it’s really spread across the net. It allows the people who are talking about you on Youtube, and those who have found you through promotions with companies like Eventful, Facebook and Myspace.

General online fan groups comprise a very fragmented image. You don’t have any centralized space to really collect your tribe.

Centralization of data allows them to meet each together while connecting with you. It eliminates the barriers that divide fans up into different social services.

You can then use those different touch points across the web, on those different blogs, to gather them into a tribe on your own social network. Then you can give them access to RSS feeds, embed codes, and they can spread your image across the web as your own personal street team .

We’re three years old, based in Palo Alto California.

We raised 60 million dollars back in May. If you build a social network on Ning you’ll know that you’ll be online for a long time. We’re not just going to evaporate. We have about 65 employees, almost of which are geeks. Your network is up fast, and runs smooth. We have a large engineering team. This team is always thinking about what social networking features you need in order to have the most social network for your brand.

—-
Case Study: The ImSaturn Social Network.
Saturn simply went to Ning.com and created their own social network without even calling us. Saturn has really created their own social universe.
Events and Bloggers

They have a lot of events they sponsor. For instance, they’re a sponsor of Project Runway. They recently sent one of their advertising directors out to blog about the experience. They have a Saturn blog/event/picture of the day. They’re running many different groups. There’s the Saturn Tuners Club, which was actually started by Saturn blogger. His blog is advertised on the front page.

The Saturn community space is really respectful of the Saturn community and helps them to get their own words out. They’re very respectful of the universe of different bloggers and clubs. How can they take these different groups who are part of different parts of the web and bring them all into this world.

Saturn sponsors a lot of events. You can see these events “Rally Customer Appreciation Day” on the event calendar.

At this point a freelance designer sitting next to me said, ” ‘Have a Saturn experience!’ That’s marketing right there.”
Widgets

Then there is a page to give their members all sorts of different widgets. Photo, video, and music players can be added to your site as well. These allow your brand’s supporters to share your videos on Facebook, or add them to MySpace.

——-

Case Study: AskPatty.com

Kiss my Astra (Patty is a women’s car dealer blogger. She’s pretty popular, so you can start to create news about what you’re doing on your own social network.

–

Case Study: Greekster.tv

Greekster is a Pizza Hut branded social network. It’s just targets to college students and those who are a part of fraternities and sororities—the ones most likely to order pizza. It’s very event focused. There’s a Hot or Not section for that allows members to become stars on the front age.

—-

Case Study: The Good Charlotte Network: Beating Paparazzi to the Punch

Good Charlotte’s main website is actually built on Ning. Two members of Good Charlotte are using their blog while on the road. They are also currently dating Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. This means that they are constantly getting harassed by camera crews and media.

To combat this, they’re blogging and taking pictures themselves and posting them on the social network in order to control their own stroy. By controlling media first, through Ning, they are beating Paparazzi to the Punch.

Now news outlets like Press Magazine are going back to the Good Charlotte to get the news, instead of taking the news themselves.

The latest blog pot is about a move about the Bra Boys, a epic about Australian Surfers. They use the Ning portal to point to the Bra Boys website from Ning, thus acting as a promotional interface.

Merchandise

They use the social network to sell all of their own brands, like the DCMA Collective, and band merchandise is linked to their Ning Site.

Good Charlotte’s page uses Ning’s capabilities to form the questions that one can asks their members when they set up their profiles. You can ask certain questions to really let he members to express themselves.

People are allowed to modify their own CSS on the page.

Then there’s the Good Charlotte Facebook page. This page links back to www.goodcharlotte.com, and a Ning photo player shows the GC’s photos on the Facebook network page. They work in unison to for more powerful promotion.

Case Study: Maloof Money Cup

Maloof Money Cup, the World’s Greatest Skateboarding Competition, is based in Orange County.

They embedded a bunch of YouTube videos come from their social network which runs on Ning.

And there’s my.maloofmoneycup.com that only allows people who are competing in the skateboarding event to become members of the page.

There’s the latest activity feed. Just like on Facebook you can see what your friends are up to.

Case Study: The SXSW ‘08 Insiders Guide.

Those who were attending South By Southwest were able to use the website I created by Ning as a community device.

Another good part about the database is that you can export all member data by .CSV and import it into a php email database.

People fill that out and you can export it into you own CRM database.

http://www.SXSW.ning.commain/feature/add

There are tons of featured widgets that allow you to bring pretty much anything into the applications. From the main page, a widget can be edited or modified.

In the end it adds up to a very concrete CMS.

It really gives you the ability to make your own experience online and really bring people into your own space.

—-

Questions from the Audience

CMD Agency:

You look at the big sites like Myspace/Youtube/Fllickr. That’s where the eyeballs are. Lots of clients want their own community, but there’s a question of how to balance the control you get from a privately branded site like on Ning vs. the social focus that is available on Myspace (which is where all of the visits are focused).

Rachel:You have to think about what’s most appropriate for your client. They are using our photo player here to populate their Facebook page.They have 67,000 pans of Good Charlotte on their Facebook page.

This makes Good Charlotte capable of gathering an audience on their Facebook page and gather their audience which also happens to be on a Facebook page.

A lot of Saturn members are blogging. Saturn found some Saturn members that were good bloggers, so then they featured the blog posts of these members. Ning allows you to use your community to generate content for you.

AlphageekTV: Why did the skateboarders lock the community to members of the competition only?

Rachel: I imagine they anted to make the competitors be the celebritities of the site and have hte members forcus in on them ..

Big Deal PR: What I’m always curious about is the flexibility of a system. What kind of programming help do you need in house in order to adapt it, and how adaptable is it? Is it at all possible to optimize it for search engines/?

Rachel: We’re constantly updating all of the tabs and widgets like so that search engines can always find it. When we upgrade we don’t just do it once — we constantly improve it, so that because search engines are always changing.

If you know a little or a lot of CSS, or you’re a PHP developer, you can use our API’s get access to our source code and really ad in your features.

That’s our job, to really help link you into your community through a completely customizable interface.

Angie, Freelance Designer: How long does content remain up and live, and the space parameters?

Rachel: Content goes up as long as you want to. Not sure of the dimensions, bur can ind out that information for you.

Question: Bandwidth limitations on your site?

Rachel: Secret: We’re not charging for bandwidth and storage right now. Everyone will get 100 gigs of free bandwidth and 10 gigs of storage. After that, you’ll be charged $9.99 a month for an additional 100 gigs of bandwidth and 10 gigs of storage.

Question:
As an Admin can you limit the size of uploads that users can upload?
Do you also have the ability to link back to other sources to use their bandwidth?

Rachel:
We give you 10 text boxes, and you can embed in any third party information in them. We’ll be putting our fill weight behind OpenSocial. We’ll be supporting third party social applications. The members of your social network will be able to add an open social app onto the first page.

Question: Can you do custom Javascript in those text boxes?

Rachel: Yep — custom javascript, custom hacks … hack away!

—–

That was the event. Overall, I learned a great deal about how brands can use multiple sites to set up campaigns/communities across formerly disparate social networking sites.