Jewish Public Forum Seminar: "The Virtual, the Real and the Not-Yet-Imagined, Meaning, Identity and Community in a Networked World”

June 4-6, 2000

LEARNING JOURNEYS 

Below you will find descriptions of the learning journeys.  Each itinerary was set up (loosely) with attention to raising certain seminar themes and questions, which you will find in the title of the itinerary and in the introductory paragraph and questions.  These are only a starting point for thinking about the sites, both individually and in the context of the whole itinerary.  The descriptions and bios of learning journey hosts are meant to give you a preliminary sense of where you are going.  You will discover much more when you arrive. 

Guides:

Each group will be accompanied by a “guide” from CLAL and an administrative person from CLAL who will handle all logistical matters.  The guide will serve as the facilitator for the group, keeping the flow of conversation going and making connections to seminar themes. Each site will have either a host or, if it is a public space, a guide from the group.  Ultimately, however, participants are meant to collectively guide this exploration.

Collecting data:

Each participant will have a note pad to record impressions, ideas, etc.  Each group will have a scribe, to keep track of key moments in the day that the group experiences together.   Each group will also have a disposable camera as another way of capturing the data.  Participants are encouraged to pick up “artifacts” connected with the sites along the way.  The pictures, notes and artifacts will be used as we move to make sense of the data we collected and convey what we found to the other groups.

Learning Journey Group One

Culture and Community

This journey explores cultural sites and sites where virtual and geographical communities are being formed, sometimes connected with the long-standing institutions.  Questions to consider: How much does geographic location matter for building loyalties to communities and what types of communities and loyalties are these?  Does the commercial aspect of community building matter and in what ways?   How much do such sites reflect particular localities, and how much do they transcend them? Is the “new” Times Square still quintessentially a New York space? How does the virtual Knitting Factory function differently from the live club in terms of artistic exploration?  In terms of community formation? Has the historical, Episcopal Trinity Church successfully utilized new technologies to create new forms of religious community that cross denominational and religious lines?  Is BlackPlanet.com creating new possibilities for identification and connection for African Americans or a new understanding of African diasporic identity?

Site # 1

Times Square

From Time Out New York:  “This bustling core of entertainment and tourism is often called ‘the Crossroads of the World,’ and there are few places that represent the collective power and nosy optimism of New York as well as Times Square.

“Originally called Long Acre Square, Times Square was renamed after The New York Times moved to the site in the early 1900s, announcing its arrival with a spectacular New Year’s Eve fireworks display.  Around its building, 1 Times Square, the Times erected the world’s first moving sign, where the paper posted election returns in 1928.  The paper has now moved to 43^rd Street (the old Times building is vacant except for the Warner Bros. Store on the ground floor) but the sign (a new, improved one) and New Year’s Eve celebration remain. . . .

“The recent change of the Square—from a seedy den of pornographic moviehouses, video stores and strip clubs to a family-friendly entertainment mecca—has met with less than universal praise.  This change began in earnest in 1990, when the city condemned most of the properties along 42^nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. . . . Then the city changed its zoning laws, specifically to make it harder for adult-entertainment establishments to continue operating legally.  But Times Square’s XXX days were officially numbered when the Walt Disney Company moved in and renovated the historic New Amsterdam Theatre.. . . More corporations have relocated to the area, making the few remaining sex shops look increasingly out of place.   The result of all these changes is that Times Square is undeniably safer and less grimy than it was ten years ago.  But the process has also obliterated an entire subculture of endlessly entertaining and fascinating sleaze, making people question if the city is becoming more and more culturally homogenized.”

Site # 2

The Knitting Factory/KnitMedia

Host: Michael Dorf

From the Knitting Factory/KnitMedia’s press materials:  “In 1986, Wisconsinite Michael Dorf moved to the big city filled with dreams of running an ‘art gallery/performance space/cafe.’  Dorf dished out the cash for a beat-up Avon Products Office on Houston Street and, after giving the place the once-over twice, opened the original version of the Knitting Factory. Success didn't exactly come overnight—there were break-ins, debts, and other small-business woes. But thanks to Dorf's decision to answer a classified ad touting an ‘available jazz band’ led by keyboardist Wayne Horowitz, the club tapped in, and eventually became home to, the thriving downtown jazz scene.  By 1994, Dorf's ambitions and the club's audience had outgrown their ragged home on East Houston Street, prompting a move to a tonier spot in Tribeca. With the shift, the Knit was transformed into an immaculate one-stop shop for new music, complete with ‘cybercast’ equipment, a 24-track recording studio, and even working toilets and air-conditioning. Dorf has also formed KnitMedia, a new-music mini-empire that encapsulates a record label, a website, and a touring agency. The Knit's ‘What Is Jazz? Festival’ is now the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival, with hundreds of performances in dozens of venues in NYC, Philly, Boston, and Washington, D.C., and 1998 saw the first NYC Jazz Awards, also one of Dorf's pet projects. He also has grander plans to open a ‘knitwork’ of like-minded venues—with clubs soon to open in Los Angeles and Berlin.”

Site # 3

Trinity Church, Wall Street and Spirituality & Health magazine

Host: Robert Owens Scott 

From Trinity Church’s website: “Trinity Church, Wall Street, New York’s oldest Episcopal Church, has a history of helping to create important nondenominational cultural institutions that reaches back to before the American Revolution. Its efforts in this area include Columbia University (then called King's College) in 1754 and through the centuries have included other schools, hospitals, and social service agencies. In the decade that Dr. Daniel Paul Matthews has been Trinity's CEO, the organization has supported important media efforts, such as helping to: found and grow the national interfaith cable network Odyssey (now in nearly 30 million homes); spread access to electronic computer networks in the U.S., Africa, and throughout the world; and create a teleconferencing network that has sponsored dozens of national interactive teleconferences on topics of spirituality, religion, and social concerns. Trinity also owns and operates a television production and post-production facility. Its productions have been recognized with numerous awards and have received wide distribution.” 

Editor-in-Chief Robert Owens Scott began his career in live theater before launching into producing and writing television. The recipient of an Emmy Award from the New York chapter of NATAS, Scott has produced programs featuring such leading figures in the spirituality movement as Thomas Moore, Robert Fulghum, Kathleen Norris, Bernie Siegel, Rabbi Harold Kushner, and many others. He produced an Emmy-nominated half-hour music-video tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. and a popular series of radio spots dealing with spirituality in everyday life that aired on major New York stations during drive time for five years. He branched into print magazines when he was asked to edit Trinity Wall Street's quarterly journal, Spirituality & Health. After one year it won the Associated Church Press's award for Best Redesign; the next year it earned the ACP award for Best General Interest Magazine. Somewhere he found time to write and direct the independent feature film “Knowing Lisa,” a labor of love that snagged a Silver Award at WorldFest Houston and European distribution.

Site # 4

BlackPlanet.com

Host: Omar Wasow

From BlackPlanet.com’s website: “BlackPlanet.com is a ground-breaking online community for the African diaspora. We enable members to cultivate meaningful personal and professional relationships, stay informed about the world, and gain access to goods and services that allow them to do more in life. 

“By facilitating user-to-user interaction and integrating state-of-the art technologies, BlackPlanet.com creates a consistently friendly, seamless experience. Members of BlackPlanet.com enjoy free personal pages, e-mail, games, forums, chat, news, instant messaging and Internet telephony, in addition to gifts, special promotions and online events.” 

Omar Wasow, Executive Director, develops and executes BlackPlanet’s content, marketing, and commerce strategies. Before joining BlackPlanet.com, Omar founded New York Online, a widely admired local online community that grew into a successful Web consulting and development firm. Recognized by Newsweek magazine as one of the "fifty most influential people to watch in cyberspace," and nominated by Black Enterprise for an "Innovator of the Year" award, Omar is also a leading commentator on the challenges and opportunities of new media and the new economy. He regularly flexes his Web acumen on-air every weekend as the Internet Analyst for cable channel MSNBC and every Thursday morning for the NBC flagship station WNBC/New York. Omar is also on the Board of Contributors for USAToday, writes a regular Internet business column for FeedMag.com and is a Rockefeller Foundation fellow in the Next Generation Leadership program. Omar graduated from Stanford University with a concentration in Race and Ethnic Relations.

Learning Journey Group Two

Knowledge and Ideas 

This journey takes the group through an exploration of how different media and technologies can shape learning, perception, and understanding — fundamental aspects of how individuals make and seek meaning.  Questions to consider: How do these technologies and media affect our experience of ourselves and the world around us?  How does the design and format of the new Rose Center affect our sense of place in the world?  What does it suggest about the role of science and scientific inquiry in meaning-making?  Have new technologies changed the way high school students acquire knowledge and think about their own capacities and relationships?  Do students relate to technology in fundamentally different ways than do older generations?  Does a multi-religious Internet site like Beliefnet make possible new ways of comprehending spirituality and divinity or new or unexpected types of religious communities? What do everyday objects—books, buildings, machines—indicate about our priorities and how do they shape the way we perceive ourselves, what is possible and our relationships to others?  What is the role of the museum, and the categories used there in shaping identifications and affiliations with groupings or purposes larger than the self?

Site #1

Rose Center for Earth and Space/Hayden Planetarium,
American Museum of Natural History 

From the Planetarium’s website: “The new Hayden Planetarium is unlike any other such facility in the world. In the top half of the Hayden Sphere, the most technologically advanced Space Theater in existence will use advanced visual technology (including a customized, one-of-a-kind Zeiss Star Projector) to create shows of unparalleled sophistication, realism, and excitement. With this high-definition system, the Hayden Planetarium is the largest and most powerful virtual reality simulator in the world. 

“The bottom half of the Hayden Sphere houses the Big Bang, where visitors will be transported to the beginning of time and space, experiencing a dramatic, multisensory re-creation of the first moments of the universe. From here, visitors continue on an awe-inspiring journey that chronicles the evolution of the universe by following the Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway—a sloping walkway that takes them through 13 billion years of cosmic evolution. The Cosmic Pathway illustrates the development of our universe, using a range of media. At the start of the walkway, children and adults alike can measure the length of their stride and determine how many millions of years pass with each step — an average stride covers 75 million years of cosmic evolution.

“The Cullman Hall of the Universe is a permanent exhibition hall on the lower level of the Rose Center that illuminates the stunning discoveries of modern astrophysics. The hall examines such questions as how the universe evolved into galaxies, stars, and planets, and how the atoms from which we are made were created in the hearts of stars. 

“The Scales of the Universe, a 400-foot-long walkway, . . .illustrates the vastrange of size in the universe—from the enormous expanse of our observable universe to the smallest subatomic particles—by using the 87-foot Hayden Sphere as a basis for comparison.”

Site # 2

Beacon High School/Chris Lehmann’s 9^th Grade Class

Host:  Chris Lehmann

From Beacon’s website:  “We are an alternative public high school on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City with a focus on aesthetics, arts and technology.”

The class that the group will visit will be having an exposition of their Hyper-Fiction stories—shared authorship stories that use the web to experiment with non-linear story telling.  According to Lehmann, “It’s a really fun day, where kids see how non-traditional means of communication are affecting the way we look at story.”

Chris Lehmann teaches English and serves as Technology Coordinator at Beacon. Lehmann created the Cyber-Mentoring program.  From Lehmann’s website: “In the Cyber-mentoring program, the students publish their writings on-line as web documents, and the mentors, volunteers, from many walks of life, read the student work and help the students with their craft of writing by carrying on a dialogue about the work with the student over e-mail…. We have found the this process has been a transformative experience for all involved: the students, who are able to push their growth as writers like never before; the mentors, who are able to spend more time ‘with’ the students than they could in an ‘off-line’ volunteer experience; and the teachers, who find that their very pedagogy is changed by the experience of the program as the classroom moves to a more student-centered experience, and the teacher’s role becomes more of a facilitator of the project and much less of the only ‘expert’ on the craft of writing in the classroom.”

Site # 3

Beliefnet.com

Host:  Steven Waldman

From The New York Times, April 6, 2000: “ ‘In a way, our site is not all that different than the sex sites on the Web,’ said Steve Waldman, a 37-year-old journalist who started Beliefnet in January.  ‘Religion is really important to people, the way sex is. The anonymity of the Web leads to intimacy.’

“But you have to wonder: Is the Internet. . .an appropriate venue for meaningful religious exploration? Is a 56K modem consistent with the staples of real-life religious practice, like singing and praying with others?”

From Beliefnet.com’s website: “Who are we? Actually, let's start with who we aren't. We are not a Church. We are not a religious movement. We get no money from particular religious institutions or leaders. We are not pushing a particular spiritual agenda.

“We are multifaith and independent. Our editorial staff is comprised of some of the nation's most accomplished and respected journalists in the fields of religion, spirituality and morality….

"What is OUR agenda? To do whatever it takes to help individuals meet their own needs in the realm of religion, spirituality and morality. Sometimes this means providing information, sometimes it means providing inspiration. We hope people will find most of what they need on Beliefnet but we'll also help them navigate the rest of the Internet. We will provide both expert analysis from scholars and thinkers and, more important, allow users to gain wisdom, companionship and strength from each other.”

Steven Waldman is the founder, Chairman and Chief Content Officer of Beliefnet. Before founding Beliefnet, he served as national editor of U.S. News & World Report, national correspondent and deputy editor at Newsweek's Washington bureau, and editor of The Washington Monthly. Waldman was also senior advisor to the CEO of the Corporation for National Service, a government agency that runs AmeriCorps and other volunteer programs. He is the author of The Bill, a book about the passage of the AmeriCorps law.

Site # 4

National Design Triennial, Cooper-Hewitt Museum

Host: Donald Albrecht

From the exhibit’s brochure: “Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum is proud to inaugurate the National Design Triennial.  Every three years, the Museum will present the public with a critical overview of contemporary design in America. 

“The first Triennial, called Design Culture Now, is organized around a ‘dictionary of ideas’—fluid, physical, minimal, reclaimed, branded, local, narrative, and unbelievable—reflecting the cultural and aesthetic issues driving design today. These ideas cut across many fields of design practice, from architecture and landscape design to product design, graphic design, and new media.  The exhibition underscores the blurring of boundaries and sharing of ideas among these diverse disciplines today.

“Design Culture Now shows projects by individuals working in small studios and by teams based in large firms and corporations.  Focusing on emerging designers, the exhibition also includes established figures who are influencing the next generation.  On view are speculative projects aimed toward the future as well as objects, images, and environments that consumers can use and see right now.”

Donald Albrecht is an independent curator, architect, and writer.  He has held curatorial positions with several museums, including Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, where he is currently Adjunct Curator for Special Projects.  Albrecht has organized many exhibitions on 20^th-century architecture and design.  Most recently these include: Stay Cool!: Air Conditioning America and World War II and the American Dream: How Wartime Building Changed a Nation, both for the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Other current projects include the National Design Triennial (co-curated with Ellen Lupton and Steven Skov Holt) and The Opulent Eye of Alexander Girard for the National Design Museum; On the Job: Design and the American Office for the National Building Museum; and Warren McArthur: Furnishing the Twentieth Century, for the American Federation of Arts.  An adjunct professor at the Parsons School of Design, Albrecht is the author of Designing Dreams: Modern Architecture in the Movies.

Learning Journey Group Three

Bodies and Space

This journey raises questions about how our physical bodies function in shaping our individual identifications and our associations and connections to others.  How does the design of the Rose Center and the exhibition on “Scales of the Universe” help us think about human size and physicality?  How does fashion and how fashion is displayed function as a form of self-expression, and of loyalty to groups or brands?  What role does consumption play in how we create meaning?  How does the world of DKNY compare with the world of Niketown and how do these store/museums compare with the Rose Center as sites of meaning-making?  What sort of intimacy is created in on-line discussions about health issues at iVillage.com?  Under what circumstances might we consider robots to be persons, even if they lack human bodies?  How does identification change through interaction with human-like robots?

Site # 1

Rose Center for Earth and Space/Hayden Planetarium,
American Museum of Natural History

[See description under Group Two]

Site # 2

Niketown and DKNY

DKNY

From the Village Voice: “It's bright and peppy and noisy and comfy, like a juice bar for debutantes, inside the ambitious DKNY shop, newly opened across from Barneys at 60th Street and Madison Avenue. The shop has all the hallmarks of the '90s gadfly: paper-thin social activism (prominently displayed copies of the coffee-table book Colors of the Vanishing Tribes, for which Karan wrote the intro); a pricey lunch counter featuring fake health food; and other evidence of cheerful narcissism, chief among them a variety of video screens embedded in a platform on the floor, beaming messages like ‘Introducing DKNY the fragrance.’ The clothes, hanging along catwalks that snake around three floors of the building, include pleasant enough Crayola-bright leather jackets, hideous clam-diggers decorated with peridot rhinestones, bulky pastel sweaters with shoulder bags to match, and a spectacular sleeveless gown of pink panne velvet that is clearly intended for millennium eve, though the fact that it's made in Taiwan of rayon and polyester leaves one questioning what justifies the $1,55 price tag.”

DKNY is also the target of a yearlong campaign by a group of Asian and Latina garment workers, who say they endured years of wretched conditions and unpaid overtime sewing Donna Karan clothes in a Manhattan sweatshop.

Niketown

Time Out New York writes: “Every 20 minutes, a huge screen drops down and plays a Nike ad.  There are interactive CD-ROM’s to help you make an informed shoe choice.  Don’t scoff: there are 1,200 kinds of footwear to choose from.”

The store’s designer describes it as “80,000 square feet of the most elaborate interactive retail display and exhibit space in the world.”

Site # 3

iVillage: The Women’s Network

Host:  Donna Moss

From On-Line Community Report: “iVillage has over 4,000 message board communities and 900 chats. The chats offer welcoming discussions on everything from maintaining your weight to dealing with a troubled teenager and are available at scheduled times (complete listing here: http://www.ivillage.com/chat/ )—there are also a few ‘open’ chats where members can simply drop-in. An experienced, volunteer Host moderates most chats. We also have hundreds of ‘expert’ chats with famous politicians, authors and medical specialists. Our message boards are open 24/7. Boards are organized by channel and range from Pet Humor to Poet’s Workshop to Secondary Infertility. In each case, members provide others with ‘solutions for your life.’ We strive for every community to be a safe, warm environment. Community Leaders who volunteer their time help to nurture each message board. They report to freelance Community Moderators.”

Donna Moss holds Masters degrees in Community Psychology and Group Social Work.  She has worked in healthcare and the Internet.  Her most recent position is that of Director of Community Policy, iVillage.  Prior to that she was National Director of Patient Services for the Leukemia Society of America.  Donna has also worked with Refugees at the New York Association for New Americans running health education programs.  She spent a year teaching in China in 1993.  Donna is married and has one little girl and lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.

Site # 4

Dr. Anne Foerst, presenting her work with human-like robots at the Artifical Intelligence Laboratory at MIT 

Anne Foerst, Th.D., is research scientist at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and research associate with the Center for the Studies of Values in Public Life of Harvard Divinity School. She also directs the CTNS Religion & Science Course Program in the North-East of the United States.  

At the AI-Lab, she serves as the theological advisor for the Cog and Kismet Projects, two attempts to develop embodied, autonomous and social robots analogous to human infants which might learn and develop more mature intelligences. She also initiated and directs “God and Computers,” a dialogue project between Harvard Divinity School, the Boston Theological Institute and MIT. In this function, she has organized several public lecture series and public conferences on Artificial Intelligence, computer science and concepts on personhood and dignity. She is consultant of several projects that explore the connection of new media and religion, especially within churches; she has also presented various keynote addresses on the interaction between religion and science.

Her research centers mostly on questions of embodiment and social interaction as central elements in human cognition, on questions of personhood and dignity, and on how to bring theology back into the public discourse in secularized, high-tech Western cultures. She is currently working on her first book, On Robots and Humans...—and God with Columbia University Press.