organic growLogs - part 1

ok , i don't know what the wider consensus is out there for continuing to b[o]ther... since only a few of us responded as it was first being asked. And the idea came up for once-a-week blog , which seemed like a logical evolutionary proposal... and yet i was a little silent at first because it would still be time consuming ... and ADDICTIVE... and the coming weeks for me are going to get much more focused on a film project... and other BiG changes on the horizon.

so i'm still somewhere in the middle ... still enjoying this venue for articulating...
writing and ordering the thought-streams in an e-community.

REGARDLESS of whether or not we continue , i can't help but imagine where this SEED Blog could go.... my meddler and tweaker instincts always in gear.

so this " report " is either useful for a model to continue or some architechtural designs for future multi-user blogs + netforums, which i see as a highly valuable medium for communicating... a very TACTICAL and apropos GLOBAL medium ... especially if the BB were transposed into some goal-driven themes ... or at least took on some organic structures after this pleasant and casual freeform , this "character-introductions" phase.

but maybe that's not what a blog IS , that i'm really more interested in Net Forums... project-oriented Net Forums ...nevertheless the movable type / blogware stuff has opened up some new thinking.... and maybe wiki is another step in this direction, but so far i've only viewed "protesto" and "greenmuseum.org" ...
( and mapping structures are no doubt already a huge task/challenge to figure out , but i'm just going to imagine what this COULD look like. see below )

and first-off let me say , as it parallels something that just came up in dialogue with jeroen's work ... a really cool connection to the "characters" here HAS developed ... undoubtedly due to Fran's well-gardened network of friends ! ... and now that this circle is formed ( fragmented as it is by a language barrier ) well, that's when the " Game " just starts to get interesting ! Also the Ark-languages- suggestion is valuable, perhaps more on that later .

:::

actually as i quikly dipped into researching net forums today ( and i'm a real novice, though i've lurked the Thing and Nettime for a while ) , i've noticed that without some personal connections, the "raw data flow" gets to be a little too remote ... insular... cut-off... a time vacuum .
or as Jaron Lanier once described VR , you really appreciate coming up for air
into a real environment.

perhaps you all know of better? other ? structured Forums out there ... if you have time, please send me some examples , cause now i'm VERY CURIOUS to see ways in which this communication form can EVOLVE.

even the THing and Nettime seem DUE for NEW ARCHITECTURES , so it seems a really ripe and valuable THEME in itself... a multi-user Blog for cultivating Blog forms.

and finally as an intro to a report : i am primarily interested in a TACTiCAL MEDIUM given the current state of the planet :

:::

Report : New Architecture for a multi-user Tactical GrowLog

note : i like this term growlog cause it rhymes with Prologue and as is see it anything virtual is a preface for physical world interactions - as long as we are still Humans - but it may be just a little too quaint - any suggestions ??

...

the current forum structures don't mirror any ORGANIC processes , they are very box-like , sterile office forms ... as Osfa mentioned in an entry "Corbusier before the curves"... nor do they use the huge potential of the non-textual graphic medium of the screen so what if you could view the text flow in a PICTURESQUE form that resembled an organism...
and like a yahoo-maps program that you could zoom in and out.

as i was thinking about this , the first form references that kept reappearing were a tree (and viewed from above - a starfish) :

the trunk is the assembled-core group and , as the thought directions fan out , they do so like branches ... and each entry is fairly accessible from a front page " map ".

imagine you are looking at this tree/map from above ...

now given ALL the topics which have come up here in BB , this would be pretty
chaotic , so it would help order things by a fairly loose grid ...

something like 4 directions ... N-S / E-W
but to make it more poetic and pertaining to topics i think would make for
critically revelant threads ...i actually imagined something like:

x-Love-War / y- Sustainability-Tactical

now as the entries came in you would have to place them somewhere in this grid as best as you could ... well creating these axis would be crucial , and i threw these out on a whim ... but here as a couple of examples:

if i were to talk about creating a wiki forum like "protesto":
then it would fall between war and tactical

if i were to talk about urban community garden/agriculture:
between love + sustainabilty

etc.

ok , i'm sure this is getting difficult to visualize and wish i could post my sketches ... but i'll try to get deeper into it tomorrow... less stream of thought...

i wonder if this is going anywhere .

peace + urgency,
pods

Posted by pod(s) at February 27, 2003 12:23 AM