Market Maketh Man: Distortions of Democracy

Equilibrium, apathy and what John Stuart Mill has to do with medical marijuana.

You may recall filmmaker Temujin Doran from The Art of Protest, a cunning short documentary about the democratic deficits of today’s political protests. Doran has just released his latest film, Market Maketh Man — an ambitious analysis of several models of liberal democratic doctrine — and today, we sit down with him to talk about democracy, innovation, and the cultural responsibility of filmmakers.

What do you think will be the single most important social or cultural shift, trend or innovation to define the course of democracy in the next decade?

I think that most people are confident in the power of the internet to be a tool that champions our individuality and be a strong force for a more democratic, pluralist society. In some ways this is defendable; social networking, blogging, and online forums can very quickly marshal together like-minded people with potential to bring about dramatic governmental change.

Never before have these tools been so prominent in election campaigns, and in the future they will increasingly define these events and perhaps too, the course of governance. But I think in the coming decade, the internet may be revealed as something that has in fact homogenised society, and stunted our freedoms.

Our thirst for individualism in our lives has become, in a sense, the new conformism; and this has made us predictable. It will be interesting to see how politics and business will attempt to exploit this.

What role do you see documentary filmmakers playing in the past, present and future of democracy? How has this role changed over the past decade?

Perhaps the biggest change in this role is the increasing number of people can do it. It used to be a somewhat privileged position; but thanks to the affordability of film equipment nearly anyone can be a video commentator or journalist on matters that they find important. Via the internet, they can also reach a wide audience. But is this always a good thing? I find it a very troubling question, as it is something that I am also directly part of.

In the same way online commentary functions, it seems perilously close to the world of celebrity culture,; in which an individual’s opinions are marketed as media commodities.

If you look at news channels, they now all rely heavily on eyewitness videos shot from mobile phones or hand held cameras, as well as emails and texts from viewers — what they call “user-generated content.” News groups flaunt this as a kind of open democracy, but it can dangerously simplify the complexities of the modern world with melodramatic “human interest” angles.

How do you think capitalism has altered the vision for and practice of democratic rule?

For much of the western world I think Democracy will always be seen as the route to liberty, but what capitalism has done is to change the meaning of liberty, change the notion of what it is to be free, in both the eyes of the politicians and the electorate. It has replaced any sense of altruism, with selfish individualism, and established the “empire of the self,” turning the world we inhabit into one enormous advert for the life we are apparently lacking. In doing so it has handed the powers of authority to systems of control outside of government, and paralysed the ability of politics to transform the world for the better.

I think the most important thing to understand is that, in many ways, the greatest proponents of the capitalist framework have now become its audience – in short, us.

For more of Doran’s work, including drawings, photography and other films, see Studiocanoe, his creative project. And for a closer look at the evolution of capitalist propaganda, be sure to revisit the excellent BBC four-part documentary, The Century of the Self.

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The 2020 Project: Visions of the Connected Future

What Scandinavian luminaries have to do with LEGO and the future of humanity.

There’s no question we live in an age where the cultural landscape is moving more rapidly than many of us can process towards something few of us can foresee. But an unlikely contender is aiming to construct a sober and visionary portrait of our collective future: Telecom giant Ericsson has launched the 2020 Project — a peek inside the minds of twenty of today’s sharpest thinkers for a glimpse of tomorrow.

Ericsson is asking these twenty visionaries to paint a picture of what the world will look like in 2010 in a series of video interviews that explore how connectivity and mobility are changing the world.

Though contributions so far come strictly from the (mostly Scandinavian) academia circuit — professors, authors, researchers — they are intelligenty curated in a way that offers randge and breadth of perspectives, covering everything from access to knowledge to female empowerment to sustainability to human rights.

Still, we hope to see some more diverse luminaries from less academic disciplines and the fringes of culture. It would be particularly fascinating to hear how artists, not ordinarily associated with technology, are being affected by the digital revoluion and how they see the future of communication.

The projet is part BigThink, part Sputnik Observatory, part new breed of realistic optimism for the future.

We can be the generation to end extreme poverty on the planet. No other generation before us could make that claim. No other generation before us had that power in our hands. What a thrill that we can be the ones to do it.” ~ Jeffrey Sachs

Our favorite, which we already raved about on Twitter last week: Blockbuster TED talk machine Hans Rosling, who explains the future of humanity in LEGO and a charming Swedish accent.

The weakest point today is the lack of global governance. Nation states are still very strong. We talk about globalization, but the fact is that nations are very strong. But we do not have a very strong united nation. We do not have a mechanism for governance. West America and Eastern Europe have to accept the world of equal nations. They have to accept that they have no given advantage over the rest of the world. And that’s good for them.” ~ Hans Rosling

Keep an eye on the 2020 Project as more interviews are being continuously revealed this month.

via Open Culture

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Wake Your Inner 8-Year- Old: Errandboy Interview

Inner children, manual CGI, and what a bucket of confusion has to do with skate culture.

Today, we’re picking the brains of Willy Sions, the creative visionary behind Errandboy — one of the coolest creative projects we’ve ever come across, a lovely mission bundled with superb creative execution and smart social commentary.

Hey Willy, good to have you. Tell us a bit about your background and your brand of creative curiosity.

Thanks. It’s a pleasure to be a part of Brain Pickings. I was born and raised in Philadelphia. I’ve always been one to exercise the imagination and let the curious mind wander. Our world and things people are into, do, and create, have always been a great interest and inspiration for me. After college, I started working in advertising. Now, I try to keep myself involved in a mix of creative services from advertising, action sport photography, and artist album design.

OK, what is Errandboy?

Errandboy is the 8-Year-Old Wonderchild. He represents the pure fun of childhood. His point of view comes from the inner child and being untainted by the adult world. He is a creative platform and a social commentary piece that started in 2003.

Errandboy is universally relevant in spirit, but he’s also rooted in skate culture, right? Tell us a bit more about that connection.

Yes, Errandboy definitely has been born from the skate culture. Most of my life has been spent immersed in the skateboarding and surfing worlds and many of the influences surrounding them since the late 70’s.

I’ve always admired the attitude and individuality that is inherent in skateboarding. It didn’t matter who you were, what you did, or where you came from. The only thing that mattered was having fun and riding a skateboard.

We love Errandboy’s mantra, “Don’t Act Your Age. Unless You’re 8.” What are some of his messages to the adult world that help break down our grown-up barricades and self-constructed realities?

Errandboy’s messages tend to vary, but for the most part he doesn’t believe in the adult make-believe world. He likes pointing out its nonsense and how silly things can be. Other times he might remind us of simpler ways, forgotten values or the joy and fun too easily neglected in adult life.

For example, there’s a “Don’t Forget to Play in the Dirt” Game Boy design. This tells kids and adults alike to turn off the technology and be active. Sometimes Errandboy’s messages are posed as questions. For instance, “What do you want to be when you don’t grow up?”

If anything, Errandboy can serve as a little tap on the shoulder to remind us of what’s really important – whether you’re 8 or 88.

The Playground is beyond impressive – so much so that it gives the illusion of being CGI. How long did it take you to design and construct? How did you shoot it?

The website took nearly two years to complete. It started with initial concept sketches and CAD designs for both the toys and playground set. Foam core and paper comps were used to test construction and then the elements were cut from metal. Mini-trees were used, which I glued foliage onto and painted. The trees alone took about a week to finish. The set is a Styrofoam-tiered Lazy Susan that sits in a rig outfitted with studio lighting and fluorescent black lights. Glow-in-the-dark paints were used for trim and graphics on the toys.

Everything was shot with 2 Nikon D200’s and stop-frame animation software to capture the 988 frames used for navigating the playground. For every regular-lit frame, an identical glow-in-the-dark frame was shot so it could be programmed to toggle seamlessly between states.

Separate images were also shot for the curtains, submarine periscope, slide, and limeade stand. Once all of the assets were captured, individual frames were retouched and the animations tested to determine the right balance of quality and file size. The Flash work then began on the pre-loader, introduction and main navigation. Coding for the rest of the site followed.

What’s your vision for the Errandboy brand moving forward?

At this point, I want to keep having fun and evolving it in different ways. There are so many facets to it now and a slew of new creative initiatives on the way. One of the next things you’ll see from Errandboy is a postal letter campaign that is going to be lots of fun. Getting into short films or an animated series is definitely on the list. I’m currently looking for the right partners to help move that forward.

There may also be some other characters showing up in the playground soon, so you’ll have to come back later and play…

Let Errandboy bring your inner 8-year-old out to play, and show him some love by grabbing some delightfully quirky Errandboy goodies at the storefront — we like the Bucket of Confusion, and those skate decks are pretty sweet.

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Beyond the Dunbar Number: Picking Dunbar’s Brain

Kinship vs. friendship, the cognitive demands of monogamy, or why 400 Facebook friends may be a health hazard.

In 1992, anthropologist and evolutionary biologist Robin Dunbar proposed Dunbar’s Number — a theoretical cognitive limit on the number of people with whom we can maintain viable social relationships. He pinned that number at 148, or roughly 150. But how does this translate to today’s social media environment of 400-friend Facebook profiles — does it help us beat Dunbar’s number?

We asked the iconic British social anthropologist himself, who addresses the issue further in his new book, How Many Friends Does One Person Need? — we highly recommend it.

The amount of time we invest in a relationship is proportionate to its quality. Face-to-face relationships are simply unmatched by online ones. “A touch is worth a 1000 words any day,” says Dunbar. But what online relationships are good for is to stall the decay of a relationship.

If you don’t go to the pub sooner or later, it will die.” ~ Dunbar

But what of all those huge numbers of online friends, aren’t they worth something? Perhaps kinship. The difference between friendship and kinship is that kin won’t fall apart with time and distance, “you can abuse your kin and they’ll still come,” says Dunbar.

Dunbar argues that having lots of kin means having fewer friends. Imagine your time-budget devoted to relationships as a pie. When you start handing out slices of your time to your friends, if too many people crowd around, no one gets a proper slice. Kinship is more about similar social groups, interests, geographical locations, whereas a friend, defined by Dunbar, is a person you can have a personal reciprocated relationship where you are willing to do each other favors.

Have humans always been able to handle 150 personal relationships? Dunbar explains that our brains have grown over time to handle our more complex relationships. The most taxing on our brain is the romantic kind (monogamous). Pair-bonded species have unusually big brains to do all the work.

Romance is very hard work and extremely costing to maintain.” ~ Dunbar

Will our brains continue to evolve to accommodate this hyper-connectivity? The brain accounts for only 2 percent of your total body weight, but uses 20 percent of your daily energy.

Hold on, someone just tweeted me…

Filip Matous hosts a pop-philosophy video show at standstrong.tv. He currently lives in London and is always seeking to find the next interesting person to interview.

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