Participatory processes
Is Art a hammer with which to shape reality?
Democratic processes
Most recently I have been combining philosophical dialogue with different ways of deliberative decision-making. Building on the roots of philosophical inquiry and Democracy in ancient greece, I use a number of participatory processes that are emerging from various social movements around the world. These include Art of Hosting innovation World Cafe, Open Space conferences, and more recently a consent based decision making process from the Hum. I am excited by the potential of this combination of practice in deep and expansive exploration together with participatory decision making.
Individuals can perceive and interpret the same event in often surprisingly different ways. This has always been the case and humans have always found different ways of tapping into this to influence what we want, what we buy, and what we believe. Conversation and dialogue are a route to finding common ground and collective action. However, new online technology is being used to sway our perceptions and our actions in a new way.
Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie has described how secret data-mining via facebook enabled Cambridge Analytica to identify those individuals undecided on how to vote in the US presidential election and the UK EU referendum. Once identified they could target the so called ‘persuadables’ and ‘whisper in individual voters’ ears’. They used this access to deliver billions of fake posts on immigrant armies and misleading statistics, with the specific aim of triggering anger & fear in order to sway voters to choose Trump in the US and Leave in UK. Journalist Carole Carwalladr who has been unearthing the details of this scandal has stated that with the current technology and without new laws we will be unable to have free and fair elections.
Q. Should we employ a cleaner in our communal house?
Practice with the Pioneering Places delivery team
Q. Which 3 artworks (from 5 options) will we select for commission?
A Turner Contemporary public commissioning event for 3 Katie Paterson works