interaction

True story: a few years ago, I met a 40 years old mother who told me that, every once in a while, she and her son would get together virtually on MSN Messenger, her in the living room, him in his bed. They would discuss the day, share a few jokes, and sometimes engage into conversations they "could not have had face to face", like talking about some more sensitive and intimate stuff. The layers of technology they put between them actually facilitated a certain kinds of exchanges.

Whatever we think of this dynamic (some will find it brilliant, others horrifying), it is a fact that technologies have profoundly reshaped the way we communicate at home. Families function in a completely new way, and email is now the equivalent of postcards. I used to send postcards to my grandma, thinking "I need to use this obsolete form of communication to make her happy". Now my kids do the same with email. They use it only to interact with "old people" like me.

At Lift12, Stefana will share with us the results of hours of observation on families, telling us how technologies have reshaped our intimate interactions. She will give us a pragmatic view, and explain the good but also when technologies made our lives more complicated. She will answer the question raised by the opening session: is it us "with technology", or us "versus technology"?

Here we are in the first workshop and what do I find – I cannot connect to the wireless network. Immediately, a window arrives that I don’t understand, “Windows is disabling your network adapter.” I’ll use Word instead.

So anyway, I’m in the first workshop with Dannie Just, an interesting woman – a physicist, a writer undergoing deep analysis, exploding taboos. The biggest taboo in the past year she tells me has been exploding the taboo about therapy and payment for therapy.

Now we are looking at the content of the workshop. She is asking the question, “What would make the workshop successful for you?” and before that, Dannie feels there is another conversation in answer to the question,
“What do we have permission to do here?”

We’ve had the introductions. And how we want to use the time. She says only that there will be a ten-minute break at 9.50am and 10.50am. And we shall reconvene on the hour sharp.

Dannie says, "My disciplines are critical thinking and action research. I am a writer, I often think out loud. I am liberal and challenging in use of words and beliefs." Later, she apologises that her language is often littered with swear words.

An exchange with a young woman,
“You look curious?”
“I am wondering what will happen now?”
“What do you want out of life?”
“I don’t know?”
“Do you mind if I use this interaction to illustrate something?”
A hesitant yes.

What is your motive for coming to a workshop about creativity?
Yes, you are curious, but what is the motivation?
What do you dream about? What do you want to do with your life?