Monday 12 December 2011
Friday 9 December 2011
The body as an organ of the soul is the result of the informing, creating activity of the soul itself
I am guessing that I could call the option of wireless internet my main source of information. Wherever I go and if I have an appropriate tool, such as my notebook, netbook or my iPod touch and there is internet available I take a look, if I´ve received any e-mails or what is new in Facebook. I deliberately don´t have a smartphone with permanent internet access, as I think it would drive me up the wall. Questions are frequently popping into my head, as I go through life and I am happy to look things up, if they are important enough for me to have remembered them until the evening, or if I have taken note of them, but if I were constantly looking things up on the go, I think my life would be a more dangerous one. (Mobile phones and traffic are definetly not compatible)
At home, other than being connected to my wireless network, I almost always leave the radio switched on. I grew up with my mother listening to BBC Radio 4 on a huge old longwave receiver. My choice of radio stations tend to go in the cultural/thinking allowed direction and many of the ideas I have bloged on are actually things I saw on the radio. In combination with the internet, where you can now quite easily access additional information on the program played, it is something I would never ever want to miss again. I have also found podcasts to listen to on the go quite handy, but I also need a break from everything too, so I take the information giving drugs in healthy doses ((O;
Another important of information to me are books and the library. Without wanting to sound too much like a nerd-face, once again I grew up with books instead of furniture and I still believe you can find anything you want in a book. Books make great friends to pass on, you can use them as a headrest, you can pencil in your own notes at the sides and you can tear out a page you don´t really agree with. Knowledge in finding what you want makes any form of research more efficient, of course and I am quickly learning how to make the most out of the state library, where I am living, which is a storeroom library, but it also provides online versions of articles and degree-papers amongst others. The use of online-libraries is something I still have to accustom to, but in general I can say that the ones I have used are handy, although I hardly ever found the book I was looking for.
Magazines make up a great deal of my life. To me they are more a pleasurable by-product, when taking the train, sitting on the toilet (sorry, but that´s the truth...I have a huge basket chock a block with mags), hanging out in the office at work, spending a day in bed and so on. I used to also read the German weekly newspaper “Die Zeit” on a regular basis, but somehow someone wearing a gray suit and hat came to steal some hours of the day and it became impossible to fit in anymore. If I find something resembling paper and information lying about I pick it up and read, what interests me. Simple. How anyone could ever have thought about getting rid of the printed page seems a mystery to me. I don´t see, how you can wrap your christmas presents with an iPad, nor do I find Kindle´s note-taking facility very user-friendly. I live close to Mainz, where Gutenberg´s invention of movable letters caused a revolution of the printed word in the 15th century. Maybe there´s something in the air here?
Of course I am also inspired by other people. Even if I don´t always see eye-to-eye with everyone, it feels good to be challenged by another opinion and to be presented with another point of view. I really enjoy reading through other people´s BAPP blogs and I really like, how some people have asked and inspired me to think differently about things. There is always someone around you, who knows something you don´t and I take great pleasure in “tickling” conversations.
So as I sit on a pile of old magazines, my arms comfortably supported by some books, the radio is joyfully gabbing away in the background and I have my world at my fingertips....I say to myself "life is good" ((O;
Tuesday 6 December 2011
"Morality is the symbolic generalization that reduces the full reflexive complexity of doubly contingent ego/alter relations to expressions of esteem"
Although I found the reader on "The Networked Professional" a highly stimulating read, I must admit, that I don´t really agree with challenging the usefulness of every concept, as the failure and success of each individual idea depends very much on the context, the personality of the person dealing with a situation and at what point in their life they are. I found that in a historical context many of the theories have worked in the past, they might not work right now, but could possibly work again in the future.
I also had to think a lot about myself and who and most of all where I am at this moment in my life.
At first I took a good look at the theory of cooperation and the closely affiliated game theory by the political scientist Axelrod. I played a game of "prisoner´s dilemma"and to be quite honest, thought it was rather dull, but then again maybe I should have given it more than one chance...
I can see, how the game theory might help predict, how people, markets, countries and organisms would react to a specific threat, but can´t see how it has helped predict, let alone prevent the many financial crises we seem to be stumbling into (in an "oh..oups...I did not see that coming"-manner), where few are playing a successful game at the expense of many.
Further research led me to the book "After hegemony: cooperation and discord in the world political economy" by Robert Owen Keohane (1984), in which he describes, how cooperation with the hegemony the United States represented after the Second World War, led to an overall survival of the western world and ideas and thus gave me a good enough example of successful cooperation.
"Sophisticated institutionalists do not expect cooperation always to prevail, but they are aware of the malleability of interests any they argue that interdependence creates interest in cooperation" (pg.8)
Next I decided to take a closer look at "Communities of Practice" and the book by the same name from Etienne Wenger. The general idea of this theory seems to be that learning is part of a process that happens through engagement in social relationships.
"Being alive as human beings means that we are constantly engaged in the pursuit of enterprises of all kinds, from ensuing our physical survival to seeking the most lofty pleasures. As we define these enterprises and engage in their pursuit together, we interact with each other and with the world and we tune our relations with each other and with the world accordingly. In other words, we learn.
Over time, this collective learning results in practices that reflect both the pursuit of our enterprises and the attendant social relations. These practices are thus the property of a kind of community created over time by the sustained pursuit of a shared enterprise. It makes sense, therefore, to call these kinds of communities communities of practice" (pg. 45)
This of course led me to think a lot about the community that comes together every day in the microcosm of a theatre, where sustained engagement of each individual working there, be it technician, musician, actor, singer, seamstress or dancer, leads to overall processes of learning- especially, when personal or professional interests collide. I see a certain need to openness and a will to learn and embrace new and different situations. Especially in the world of art, where the need to cultivate a strong ego through being colorful and different is practiced and leads to a lot of explosions. However sustained engagement within a community of practice such as the theatre also leads to a better understanding for other departments and thus provokes learning.
Personally I find this a useful concept, as I am confronted by it every day. I do however want to strongly hold on to my belief, that you can only learn from another person, if you really want to and if you have the cognitive ability to do so.
Next- without wanting to be to abrupt, but I need to get on with it, I would like to report on my closer look at Social Constructionism. I started off by punching the German word for constructionism in to "Wikipedia". Little to my surprise it came up with many options. There is a philosophy, you can construct international relations, then of course we have our social aspect, the term exists in the psychology of learning, maths, architecture, art and literature. Then I took a good look at the book lying to my left (now covered with little yellow page-markers), "Die Wirklichkeit der Medien" by K. Merten and S.J. Schmidt. (the reality of media). It explains how Social Constructionism is one of the many forms of constructionism around. Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann pioneered this field in 1966, when their book "The social construction of reality " was first published. One of the first things the book lays out in the first chapter on the reality of the observer is that the term must never be confused with the colloquial version of it meaning a creation of something.
"...Ganz im Gegensatz dazu benutzen Konstruktivsten dieses Wort, um Prozesse zu bezeichnen, in deren Verlauf Wirklichkeitsentwürfe sich herausbilden, und zwar keineswegs willkürlich, sondern gemäß den biologischen, kognitiven und soziokulturellen Bedingungen, denen sozialisierte Individuen in ihrer sozialen und natürlichen Umwelt unterworfen sind. Über so viele Bedingungen kann ein Individuum überhaupt nicht verfügen...Wirklichkeitskonstruktion widerfährt uns mehr als dass sie uns bewusst wird- weshalb wir die Konstruiertheit unserer Wirklichkeit erst dann bemerken, wenn wir beobachten, handeln und kommunizieren...." (aus Die Wirklichkeit der Medien pg.5, "Die Wirklichkeit des Beobachters" by Siegfried J. Schmidt.)
The reader states, that we construct meanings and experiences of the world through social interaction and that effectively our understanding of the world is a construction or creation of our own making. I have always understood and believed in that fact and you cannot deny, that two people- no matter how much they share or how alike they are (even twins), will always experience things differently, depending on their life experience, personality and attitude. We construct our reality, give names to things and I find it interesting to observe, how subtle differences in language for example cause a completely different understanding of the same thing.
"Kaum ein Problem hat die Europäer so beschäftigt wie die Frage nach dem Verhältnis zwischen Sein und Bewusstsein, nach der Möglichkeit oder Unmöglichkeit wahrer bzw. objektiver Erkenntnis." (aus Die Wirklichkeit der Medien pg.6, "Die Wirklichkeit des Beobachters" by Siegfried J. Schmidt.)
(There is hardly a problem that has occupied the Europeans as much as the question of the relationship between the being and the consciousness, of the possibility or impossibility of true or objective knowledge.)
It seems impossible to write about Constructivism without mentioning the German Sociologist Niklas Luhmann. He saw society not as a collection of humans with blood circulating in their veins, but as a closed process of social communication.
"Ein soziales System kommt zustande, wenn immer ein autopoietischer Kommunikationszusammenhang entsteht und sich durch Einschränkung der geeigneten Kommunikation gegen eine Umwelt abgrenzt. Soziale Systeme bestehen demnach nicht aus Menschen, auch nicht aus Handlungen, sondern aus Kommunikationen." Luhmann, Ökologische Kommunikation. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1. Auflage 1986. ISBN 3-531-11775-0, 1986, S. 269.
Maybe it is this strong head through the wall point of view that lead me to the next point (aha...) Connectivism. Obviously today all things are connected, especially through the internet, but it is also very clear to me, that through connecting to other people you can not only learn. I can really associate with the theory that was introduced, that learning does not exist in peoples heads, but is in fact all around us and can be freely accessed (or not) according to our needs. As I am sitting in a library surrounded by thousands of books and at least 20 or so people, reading, studying, typing away at their computers it seems like a logical thing to say.
Connectivism makes complete sense in the fast-paced word we live in today. As our foundations rapidly change you have to be quick to decide and adapt to new situations and thus rapidly choose which connection must be stronger or weaker in this moment. "Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision" Siemens, G. 2004
Right now I feel like I am completely running out of steam (+the library is closing) and probably whoever has read this far should be rewarded a prize. (Alternative Nobel Peace Prize anyone???)
I have covered all points save affiliation, which actually interested me the most out of all the ideas given and lead me to almost completely read...I can not help noticing that I am finding psychology- especially from a social point of view frightfully interesting. Maybe that is the point of it all. I always believed that every performing artist has to have a great understanding of society and all its key players.
I hope I haven´t bored anyone and I wish even more so that the days would have 36 hours to fit in all the reading, thinking and writing I would like to do.
I also had to think a lot about myself and who and most of all where I am at this moment in my life.
At first I took a good look at the theory of cooperation and the closely affiliated game theory by the political scientist Axelrod. I played a game of "prisoner´s dilemma"and to be quite honest, thought it was rather dull, but then again maybe I should have given it more than one chance...
I can see, how the game theory might help predict, how people, markets, countries and organisms would react to a specific threat, but can´t see how it has helped predict, let alone prevent the many financial crises we seem to be stumbling into (in an "oh..oups...I did not see that coming"-manner), where few are playing a successful game at the expense of many.
Further research led me to the book "After hegemony: cooperation and discord in the world political economy" by Robert Owen Keohane (1984), in which he describes, how cooperation with the hegemony the United States represented after the Second World War, led to an overall survival of the western world and ideas and thus gave me a good enough example of successful cooperation.
"Sophisticated institutionalists do not expect cooperation always to prevail, but they are aware of the malleability of interests any they argue that interdependence creates interest in cooperation" (pg.8)
Next I decided to take a closer look at "Communities of Practice" and the book by the same name from Etienne Wenger. The general idea of this theory seems to be that learning is part of a process that happens through engagement in social relationships.
"Being alive as human beings means that we are constantly engaged in the pursuit of enterprises of all kinds, from ensuing our physical survival to seeking the most lofty pleasures. As we define these enterprises and engage in their pursuit together, we interact with each other and with the world and we tune our relations with each other and with the world accordingly. In other words, we learn.
Over time, this collective learning results in practices that reflect both the pursuit of our enterprises and the attendant social relations. These practices are thus the property of a kind of community created over time by the sustained pursuit of a shared enterprise. It makes sense, therefore, to call these kinds of communities communities of practice" (pg. 45)
This of course led me to think a lot about the community that comes together every day in the microcosm of a theatre, where sustained engagement of each individual working there, be it technician, musician, actor, singer, seamstress or dancer, leads to overall processes of learning- especially, when personal or professional interests collide. I see a certain need to openness and a will to learn and embrace new and different situations. Especially in the world of art, where the need to cultivate a strong ego through being colorful and different is practiced and leads to a lot of explosions. However sustained engagement within a community of practice such as the theatre also leads to a better understanding for other departments and thus provokes learning.
Personally I find this a useful concept, as I am confronted by it every day. I do however want to strongly hold on to my belief, that you can only learn from another person, if you really want to and if you have the cognitive ability to do so.
Next- without wanting to be to abrupt, but I need to get on with it, I would like to report on my closer look at Social Constructionism. I started off by punching the German word for constructionism in to "Wikipedia". Little to my surprise it came up with many options. There is a philosophy, you can construct international relations, then of course we have our social aspect, the term exists in the psychology of learning, maths, architecture, art and literature. Then I took a good look at the book lying to my left (now covered with little yellow page-markers), "Die Wirklichkeit der Medien" by K. Merten and S.J. Schmidt. (the reality of media). It explains how Social Constructionism is one of the many forms of constructionism around. Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann pioneered this field in 1966, when their book "The social construction of reality " was first published. One of the first things the book lays out in the first chapter on the reality of the observer is that the term must never be confused with the colloquial version of it meaning a creation of something.
"...Ganz im Gegensatz dazu benutzen Konstruktivsten dieses Wort, um Prozesse zu bezeichnen, in deren Verlauf Wirklichkeitsentwürfe sich herausbilden, und zwar keineswegs willkürlich, sondern gemäß den biologischen, kognitiven und soziokulturellen Bedingungen, denen sozialisierte Individuen in ihrer sozialen und natürlichen Umwelt unterworfen sind. Über so viele Bedingungen kann ein Individuum überhaupt nicht verfügen...Wirklichkeitskonstruktion widerfährt uns mehr als dass sie uns bewusst wird- weshalb wir die Konstruiertheit unserer Wirklichkeit erst dann bemerken, wenn wir beobachten, handeln und kommunizieren...." (aus Die Wirklichkeit der Medien pg.5, "Die Wirklichkeit des Beobachters" by Siegfried J. Schmidt.)
The reader states, that we construct meanings and experiences of the world through social interaction and that effectively our understanding of the world is a construction or creation of our own making. I have always understood and believed in that fact and you cannot deny, that two people- no matter how much they share or how alike they are (even twins), will always experience things differently, depending on their life experience, personality and attitude. We construct our reality, give names to things and I find it interesting to observe, how subtle differences in language for example cause a completely different understanding of the same thing.
"Kaum ein Problem hat die Europäer so beschäftigt wie die Frage nach dem Verhältnis zwischen Sein und Bewusstsein, nach der Möglichkeit oder Unmöglichkeit wahrer bzw. objektiver Erkenntnis." (aus Die Wirklichkeit der Medien pg.6, "Die Wirklichkeit des Beobachters" by Siegfried J. Schmidt.)
(There is hardly a problem that has occupied the Europeans as much as the question of the relationship between the being and the consciousness, of the possibility or impossibility of true or objective knowledge.)
It seems impossible to write about Constructivism without mentioning the German Sociologist Niklas Luhmann. He saw society not as a collection of humans with blood circulating in their veins, but as a closed process of social communication.
"Ein soziales System kommt zustande, wenn immer ein autopoietischer Kommunikationszusammenhang entsteht und sich durch Einschränkung der geeigneten Kommunikation gegen eine Umwelt abgrenzt. Soziale Systeme bestehen demnach nicht aus Menschen, auch nicht aus Handlungen, sondern aus Kommunikationen." Luhmann, Ökologische Kommunikation. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1. Auflage 1986. ISBN 3-531-11775-0, 1986, S. 269.
Maybe it is this strong head through the wall point of view that lead me to the next point (aha...) Connectivism. Obviously today all things are connected, especially through the internet, but it is also very clear to me, that through connecting to other people you can not only learn. I can really associate with the theory that was introduced, that learning does not exist in peoples heads, but is in fact all around us and can be freely accessed (or not) according to our needs. As I am sitting in a library surrounded by thousands of books and at least 20 or so people, reading, studying, typing away at their computers it seems like a logical thing to say.
Connectivism makes complete sense in the fast-paced word we live in today. As our foundations rapidly change you have to be quick to decide and adapt to new situations and thus rapidly choose which connection must be stronger or weaker in this moment. "Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision" Siemens, G. 2004
Right now I feel like I am completely running out of steam (+the library is closing) and probably whoever has read this far should be rewarded a prize. (Alternative Nobel Peace Prize anyone???)
I have covered all points save affiliation, which actually interested me the most out of all the ideas given and lead me to almost completely read...I can not help noticing that I am finding psychology- especially from a social point of view frightfully interesting. Maybe that is the point of it all. I always believed that every performing artist has to have a great understanding of society and all its key players.
I hope I haven´t bored anyone and I wish even more so that the days would have 36 hours to fit in all the reading, thinking and writing I would like to do.
Thursday 1 December 2011
the strength of loose ties
Although I am extremely cautious about the internet and using it as a prime tool for networking I must admit, that I realized, as I was working through "Reader 3" that I personally rely an awful lot on it already to keep in touch with people (I find myself thinking..."oh, it would be so much easier to be friends in "Facebook", rather than calling each other lets say once a month...") and could actually only benefit more from using it wisely to my advantage- especially from a professional point of view.
Maybe it lies within the nature of the job I currently fulfill. On a regular full working day I spend 7 hours in the ballet-studio, together with my colleagues, which often makes me too tired to spend the 3 hours I have in the evening to myself to be on the phone, or compose long e-mails. Quick "Facebook" news feeds come in extremely handy.
It has been great taking a good look at my internal mirror and self-reflecting, who I represent as a professional and observe my inner self-discrepancy (Crisp&Turner) between who I am now, whom I would like to be and who I am thinking I ought to be.
As I do tend to spend a lot of time at work my day-to-day professional network is a very up close and personal one. It is nice to comfort my inner animal by knowing the heard I have around me almost every day and being able to observe and read my colleagues actions.
My broader professional network is very much tied to the phone, through which I keep on touch with close personal friends, that were once my peers or colleagues, or of course, for the lump-sum of my past, present and maybe future fellows, the internet.
Like Alicia Beck, whose writing I greatly admire, states in her blog entry from the 19.11.2011, upon entering the world of professional dance you "quickly wisen up to the cut-throat world you have let yourself into". Being clever you quickly realize that without the right amount of "vitamin C" you are very easily overlooked and forgotten. Some have a natural gift of weaving a strong professional web, that will catch them at any given moment, others less so. But the general notion seems to be that "if you can´t beat ´em- join ´em".
Now without wanting to sound too one-sided here there seems to be a great tendency to centralize our lives around the internet. Almost every more established practitioner I know of seems to have their own web-site. I can totally grasp the beauty of creating a key, in form of a simple web-address, to a parallel universe that exists on the internet, where you can add numerous links, videos, pictures and keep people up to date with RSS-feed, posts and tweets.
What must not be underestimated though is that in order to keep a contact it must first have been created- which also nowadays still tends to happen at personal, face-to-face basis. Many dancers, choreographers and company managers come together and meet at performances (especially premieres), dance/choreographic competitions and other dance events and symposia. Here again you are often introduced to someone, who knows someone, who knows someone, who knows someone. Or you build a bridge yourself, by introducing people to one another.
Personally I tend to use the internet a lot. I don´t have a TV at home, but I am getting "square eyes" by spending most evenings in front of my beloved computer. It is also funny, how dull the thing seems to me, if I don´t have an internet connection! I am almost shocked at how dependent I have become to the ease of having the world at my fingertips, having grown up in a world, where you looked the unknown up in the "Brockhaus", you wrote letters to your friends (squiggly handwriting and little doodles included), where your mom typed out her exam-papers on a tipe-writer and you carefully decided, what you wanted to take a picture of. And where you did not get green hair over the automatic spelling corrector, but actually knew, how to spell correctly yourself!!!
But like every new technology- you can either jump on the boat, go with the flow or however you want to put it, or not. You can make the most out of it and use it wisely to your advantage, or you are left behind. Like a friend of mine said, who bravely relented joining Facebook until he recently caved in, "if you don´t go to the playground, the other kids won´t play with you."
I´ve been toying with the idea of having my own web-sites, since the internet has become more accessible to me and the people around me (wireless everywhere). I also went through a phase in my life, where I wanted to leave Facebook, went back to a dial-in connection and a pay as you go mobile-phone, but was quickly frustrated, when I read an interesting article, there would always be a web-link for further reading, additional photos or videos concerning the subject.
I have however kept the "tradition" of sending a letter to people once a year- printed on paper and sent by snail-mail. To me that is a way of keeping a more personal private network, by making something special for the people that are special to me.
I really like Phil´s way of keeping people up to date, by sending out his monthly "Flipper Chronicles". I don´t think that is something that would work for me at the moment, but I will keep it in mind for the future.
We must never forget, that our close "private-network" can very easily in some part become part of our professional network, so taking care of it or as they say in German "pflegen", to foster, nurse and nourish it, should not be underestimated.
I know many "young choreographers" who keep a stable network of dancers, assistants and photographers at hand, so that if they should need them for a project or a performance or so, they know, whom they can ask. The other day for example I read that a German theatre is looking for choreographers. So I quickly copied and pasted the link to a friend of mine, who I know is looking for work as a choreographer. Maybe a fine example, how a networked connection also works in both ways? (I have also participated in one of his projects.)
So now to come back to myself and my ideal professional network. I would really like to make my own web-site. One in order to promote my work as a photographer and another in order to sell myself as a choreographic assistant, assistant in general and as a dancer. I think having such a simple key in your hand is a wonderful thing, because you can spread the word quite easily and invite people to take a look behind your personal façade. I am secretly hoping to find time to do so after this module is finished and before the next one starts.
I would of course also like to take better care of my private network. There is always room for improvement and I am finding this course offering me many new alleys to maybe go down and further explore.
Well having said all of that..and having pulled my ears down to the floor (African Elephant Style)...I did try to build my own web-site this summer but was completely overwhelmed by the masses of raw-material I had accumulated. I need to plan ahead, make site-map and organize the material. I also have to be clear as to what and which aspect of myself I want to represent and whom the site is intended for.
I need to find the time to e-mail people. Sorting through my address books, compressing them to one and then making groups, so I can just send out a group e-mail once in a while would be a time-saving method.
I think I also need to be seen more again at certain theatre events. Not all, but some more. Again, self-reflection will help me find the right ones!
And here is another closing thought. We all started this course by learning about web 2.0. What it is about and how the sites are only as good as the people making use of them. I see a great parallel to professional networks there. (Actually to human-networks in general) The more we sow into a network the more we can one day harvest.
Maybe it lies within the nature of the job I currently fulfill. On a regular full working day I spend 7 hours in the ballet-studio, together with my colleagues, which often makes me too tired to spend the 3 hours I have in the evening to myself to be on the phone, or compose long e-mails. Quick "Facebook" news feeds come in extremely handy.
It has been great taking a good look at my internal mirror and self-reflecting, who I represent as a professional and observe my inner self-discrepancy (Crisp&Turner) between who I am now, whom I would like to be and who I am thinking I ought to be.
As I do tend to spend a lot of time at work my day-to-day professional network is a very up close and personal one. It is nice to comfort my inner animal by knowing the heard I have around me almost every day and being able to observe and read my colleagues actions.
My broader professional network is very much tied to the phone, through which I keep on touch with close personal friends, that were once my peers or colleagues, or of course, for the lump-sum of my past, present and maybe future fellows, the internet.
Like Alicia Beck, whose writing I greatly admire, states in her blog entry from the 19.11.2011, upon entering the world of professional dance you "quickly wisen up to the cut-throat world you have let yourself into". Being clever you quickly realize that without the right amount of "vitamin C" you are very easily overlooked and forgotten. Some have a natural gift of weaving a strong professional web, that will catch them at any given moment, others less so. But the general notion seems to be that "if you can´t beat ´em- join ´em".
Now without wanting to sound too one-sided here there seems to be a great tendency to centralize our lives around the internet. Almost every more established practitioner I know of seems to have their own web-site. I can totally grasp the beauty of creating a key, in form of a simple web-address, to a parallel universe that exists on the internet, where you can add numerous links, videos, pictures and keep people up to date with RSS-feed, posts and tweets.
What must not be underestimated though is that in order to keep a contact it must first have been created- which also nowadays still tends to happen at personal, face-to-face basis. Many dancers, choreographers and company managers come together and meet at performances (especially premieres), dance/choreographic competitions and other dance events and symposia. Here again you are often introduced to someone, who knows someone, who knows someone, who knows someone. Or you build a bridge yourself, by introducing people to one another.
Personally I tend to use the internet a lot. I don´t have a TV at home, but I am getting "square eyes" by spending most evenings in front of my beloved computer. It is also funny, how dull the thing seems to me, if I don´t have an internet connection! I am almost shocked at how dependent I have become to the ease of having the world at my fingertips, having grown up in a world, where you looked the unknown up in the "Brockhaus", you wrote letters to your friends (squiggly handwriting and little doodles included), where your mom typed out her exam-papers on a tipe-writer and you carefully decided, what you wanted to take a picture of. And where you did not get green hair over the automatic spelling corrector, but actually knew, how to spell correctly yourself!!!
But like every new technology- you can either jump on the boat, go with the flow or however you want to put it, or not. You can make the most out of it and use it wisely to your advantage, or you are left behind. Like a friend of mine said, who bravely relented joining Facebook until he recently caved in, "if you don´t go to the playground, the other kids won´t play with you."
I´ve been toying with the idea of having my own web-sites, since the internet has become more accessible to me and the people around me (wireless everywhere). I also went through a phase in my life, where I wanted to leave Facebook, went back to a dial-in connection and a pay as you go mobile-phone, but was quickly frustrated, when I read an interesting article, there would always be a web-link for further reading, additional photos or videos concerning the subject.
I have however kept the "tradition" of sending a letter to people once a year- printed on paper and sent by snail-mail. To me that is a way of keeping a more personal private network, by making something special for the people that are special to me.
I really like Phil´s way of keeping people up to date, by sending out his monthly "Flipper Chronicles". I don´t think that is something that would work for me at the moment, but I will keep it in mind for the future.
We must never forget, that our close "private-network" can very easily in some part become part of our professional network, so taking care of it or as they say in German "pflegen", to foster, nurse and nourish it, should not be underestimated.
I know many "young choreographers" who keep a stable network of dancers, assistants and photographers at hand, so that if they should need them for a project or a performance or so, they know, whom they can ask. The other day for example I read that a German theatre is looking for choreographers. So I quickly copied and pasted the link to a friend of mine, who I know is looking for work as a choreographer. Maybe a fine example, how a networked connection also works in both ways? (I have also participated in one of his projects.)
So now to come back to myself and my ideal professional network. I would really like to make my own web-site. One in order to promote my work as a photographer and another in order to sell myself as a choreographic assistant, assistant in general and as a dancer. I think having such a simple key in your hand is a wonderful thing, because you can spread the word quite easily and invite people to take a look behind your personal façade. I am secretly hoping to find time to do so after this module is finished and before the next one starts.
I would of course also like to take better care of my private network. There is always room for improvement and I am finding this course offering me many new alleys to maybe go down and further explore.
Well having said all of that..and having pulled my ears down to the floor (African Elephant Style)...I did try to build my own web-site this summer but was completely overwhelmed by the masses of raw-material I had accumulated. I need to plan ahead, make site-map and organize the material. I also have to be clear as to what and which aspect of myself I want to represent and whom the site is intended for.
I need to find the time to e-mail people. Sorting through my address books, compressing them to one and then making groups, so I can just send out a group e-mail once in a while would be a time-saving method.
I think I also need to be seen more again at certain theatre events. Not all, but some more. Again, self-reflection will help me find the right ones!
And here is another closing thought. We all started this course by learning about web 2.0. What it is about and how the sites are only as good as the people making use of them. I see a great parallel to professional networks there. (Actually to human-networks in general) The more we sow into a network the more we can one day harvest.
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