The English National Ballet was evidently commissioned by some Football (soccer) organization to create a short ballet documenting the top ten plays in Football (soccer) history. The result is so stunningly awful….. Here are a few images, and a link to a video montage from the piece.
The video was created by the Times, so I can’t embed.
If you click on this link you can see the video.
I just found out that an idea that I had in 1996 will now be a book. My Masters thesis, which had been my undergraduate thesis, is being published. Here is a brief summary of the idea:
The fight to protect our natural environment can be usefully connected to a reconsideration of the human body. The body is more than corpse, and more than adjunct to the mind. Somatic Ecology states that there is a parallel between the way that we relate to our bodies, and the ways that we interact with the natural world. In fact, how we relate to our bodies is representative of how we relate to the natural world.
Somatic Ecology states that if we want to influence how we relate to the natural world, the most direct means to do so is not to take long walks in the woods, but to invite ourselves to encounter our own human nature – our bodies. Finally, Somatic Ecology argues that the environmental crisis is caused not by too much knowledge, but by too little, and that dance can be used to increase our human knowledge.
We are taught today that the only way to “know anything is through the use of the mind. The complete devaluation of empathic, embodied, sensual knowledge in polite society has sealed over the natural in our selves. What some have called the mechanization of the body (see: modern medicine) is part and parcel of the development of modern society (see: skyscrapers and airports.) Challenging the domination of science over true reason requires challenging the domination of mind over body. The first step is to validate, seek, and encourage somatic knowledge.
Empathy is at the core of somatic understanding, and encompasses the feelings by which we know life. We usually think of empathy as somehow a shared feeling – that one feels empathy for another. Empathy is actually a solitary experience. Its importance to the study of the body, and the natural world, is that empathy is the core of knowing. Empathy preceeds understanding, and follows awareness. These feelings and understandings are not predicated upon study, research, or science, but they do form the foundation for religion, culture, and even technology. Our exclusion of “feelings” from “rational” debate is not a symbol of the environmental problem, but a root cause.
Though we act as if we live in a rational world, we actually live in an empathic, lively world that simply appears to be dominated by “reason.” As we come to fully grasp the terrors caused by un-mitigated reason it will serve us to explore what steps we might take to reverse them.
Environmentalism at its core is not motivated by statistics, but by empathy. It is more similar to religion than science. In tracing a history of Thoreau, Pinchot, Muir, Leopold, McKibben (a history of thinking about environment) we discover this. As long as environmentalists place statistics between their argument and the audience, they weaken the ability to create change. To fight this battle with limited humanity is to fight a losing battle.
In this modern world of freeways and cubicles, it will be very difficult to move from an understanding of the need for body knowledge, to a place of greater somatic awareness. For this journey one needs guides and one needs pathways. Dance may be that pathway. In silence, without words, we can find where we exist with the rest of the world, human and non-human. In dance, without words, we can both develop and communicate our understanding of that connection.
Copyright Robert Bettmann, 2008
I’ve been trying to understand how some businesses really maximize their investments on the internet, while others seem to get less out of a similar investment. My cousin just posted a video, and there was a phrase in the video that made me think. The phrase is:
“There is a social, and a technological, basis for the internets development.”
The strategies that are most successful on the internet are strategies that find ways to connect to both. Intelligent internet programming takes advantage of both the technological AND social facets that contribute to the medium.
An example of the benefit that can be wrung from such a model is Wikipedia. Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown to include more than ten million articles in 250 languages – written entirely by volunteers. Wikipedia shows what the internet can facilitate: letting the consumer/user do the work for you. Letting the consumer do the work for you is not an appropriate answer for every product, or every brand, but it is something to keep in mind in attempting successful internet investment.
One company that really won from buying into this concept is Facebook. Founded in 2004, the managers of Facebook were open with their source code, allowing outsiders to develop applications for use on the site. Rather than limiting Facebook users to what the company itself could offer, Facebook allowed users to make Facebook what they wanted it to be. MySpace, founded in 2001, and in 2004 the largest social networking site, did not release its code.
In 2006 MySpace was still the largest social networking site, but in April 2008 it was overtaken by Facebook. MySpace recently launched a Developers Platform, allowing outsiders to create for the service. Well see whether or not that effort is a barn door closing.
Recognizing the Facebook/MySpace lesson, shortly after releasing the IPhone, Apple released the source code, facilitating user-created applications. Apple has NOT released the code for ITunes. This is an example of a necessary judgment call on the part of the company about whether or not letting the public do the work for them will hurt the brand/product/company.
Business people are used to finding 1:1 ratios. “I buy this many ads, this many people will be influenced.” And for the most part that still holds true. On the internet its, “I get this many clicks, this many people will be influenced.” Traditional advertising methods still apply, but when deploying old methods you can only expect 1:1 returns (at best) in new media. To capitalize on the new technologies, businesses must learn to integrate the social basis for the internet’s popularity into their campaign/message development process.
Traditional marketing is like hitting a ping-pong across a table. Whether youre really good at it or not, unless you really suck, the ping-pong crosses the table. But unless youre really gifted, the ping-pong wont come back to you. You hit it once, you need to go pick it up, or get another ping-pong. New media allows another option.
Many companies are trying to take advantage of user-generated content (as Wikipedia, Facebook, and Apple do), but are under-estimating the necessity of creative engagement with that concept. From t-shirt design to community calendars, application design to dance contests, it seems clear that for new businesses, or new forays on the internet, offering an opportunity is no longer enough.
Copyright Robert Bettmann, 2008 (but hey, this is the internet – it’ll probably be stolen anyway.)