Shiny Objects

Death. Dying. End of Life. Terminal Illness. Just mutter these words in the United States and watch people move away from you. Watch them wince. Watch them resist. Watch them justify why this won't happen to them or those they love.

Statistical fact: 100% of us will die. Shocking. No, ironic. We, as humans, only share two things for sure: birth and death. Everything else is up for opting out. And yet, in our culture, death is the thing no one wants to think about, discuss or believe in.

So? So, what about those of us who want to talk about it? No, HAVE to talk about it? What about those of us who NEED to talk about it? Our road may be challenging.

In January of 2000,I had already planned my funeral. I was 30 and I was going to die very soon. It was a waiting game and each night was met with the mystery of if the morning would arrive.

At this point, I was not scared. I was not tired. I was connected to my dying in a profound and beautiful way. I loved life but was also irritated by it. So much pettiness, so much suffering, so much we take for granted. I was ready to go and excited for the road ahead.

In an eleventh hour swing of...what? Fate? Luck? "Cheating Death"? Modern medicine? Call it what you will but in my eleventh hour my life was spared by my second double lung transplant and the generous hearts of those who gave to others in their greatest time of trauma and grief.

I awoke after my surgery with what can only be described as a calling. I had to share what I had learned when I stood at the edge of the abyss and let the winds from the other side blow through my hair. I had to share my struggles with illness and my love affair with dying.

Wait...what? My love affair with dying? Yes. You heard me. I needed people to know it could be beautiful, profound, exciting and joyous. I no longer feared death as I once did. I looked forward to the dying in my future.

Ha! Try saying that out loud and see how long before you land in a shrink's office. I'm not that stupid. So, I had to find a way to say what was important to me but do it in a way that wouldn't make people flee. I have been working on this goal for nearly seven years now and without finding ways to blend my intellect with creativity, I would have abandoned the pursuit long ago.

Just like W.B. Macomber, my passion for content intertwined with my passion for finding innovative ways to deliver the content. Also like Macomber, I often found this vehicle in the world of performance.

It's almost like the hand of the magician when I perform dramatic lectures or one woman shows about death and illness. I am the teacher and I know the content I hope to convey. I also know the content may be too far from the student's interest so the play becomes the shiny object they watch as I slip the coin behind their ear with the other hand. It's a rush for everyone.

The art I learned at UNCSA has served me in obvious ways. As an actress, I had a sense of how to get in front of people and hold a room. In more subtle ways, however, it has enabled me to communicate somewhat complex and certainly foreign philosophical ideas to people who, for the most part, would never volunteer to sit down for the topics we dive into.

This story is not meant to be a brag-fest about my work. It is really a celebration of what can happen when the mind and creative energy (and it is energy) combine for a common goal. This is not in any way different than Thich Nhat Hahn and Gladwell.

Thich Nhat Hahn weaves stories and poetry that sooth the soul. He makes us feel comfortable and peaceful and then he hits us with a stark or unusual truth. We think we are reading a poem about paper and clouds. When we are done we have stripped our identities and had to ask ourselves if we are so different from our "enemies"? If we are a tree, if we are an animal, if The Source is everything and we are both giving and receiving of the source than what the hell are we doing to ourselves, to our planet, to our fellow humans? A simple sweet poem? I think not. A shiny object? Certainly.

Gladwell uses the shiny object of common truth. "We all know that successful people have a talent they are born with." This is something almost everyone would agree with. Their muscles give them athletic prowess or they are smart because they have a bigger brain. We cannot compete because we are not born talented. We are lulled into a common security and then he breaks down this belief system piece by piece. At the end of Gladwell's systematic analysis, we know it is not talent that makes these people extraordinary but very hard work and intensive practice combined with being in the right place and the right time. Oops. Now we have to look at ourselves and examine our own level of passion for life and pursuits.

At the times I am using my intellect while creativity is pouring into my veins, this is when I am most alive. This is when my work becomes more than I knew it could be. This is when I find ways to use shiny objects, win over my audience and tell them about things they never knew they wanted to hear. This is when I am at my best.

Tron! Cheesy Art with Complicated Themes

How can a cheesy movie from the 80's relate to the current issues around privacy and WikiLeaks? It is a metaphor for the dance we are doing with technology.

In "Tron" the computers and the elements of the computers are personified. (This is hilarious, BTW. Especially to watch it now, as we all know so much about how computers work. If RAM died, the memory would be wiped out, right? And, boy, did hacking used to be easy! :) I digress...) While this was a creative way to make the computer a variety of characters, there was a clear line of "good" vs. "evil." More specifically, the right to openly create programs vs. the moment the technology becomes harmful. It is here we see the connection to WikiLeaks.

This is precisely the line that divides those that are pro-WikiLeaks and what it stands for and those who believe the creator and contributors should be executed: which is "good" and which is "evil."

WikiLeaks is the Master Control Program in Tron. We built it. Many carry a distaste for Microsoft and Apple products claiming that there should not be such high costs (or any cost at all) and strict licensing for software like Word and itunes. The result of this distaste is an environment in which creativity and "open source software" is celebrated. We have major corporations like Google asking their users to create apps for their phones. We have young minds finding ways to provide copy written material like music and movies through, first Napster, and now bit torrent.

Like the Master Control Program in Tron, with this freedom comes consequence. In the case of WikiLeaks, with this freedom and unique opportunity for lay-people to acquire the technical skills to reach the world, we find ourselves now with technology towing over humanity. The shadow falls upon us and we have to decide: do we value our freedom as programmers (the puppeteers of the Master Control Program) or do we decide that we need a Tron to destroy technology run amok?

In Tron, the evil Master Control Program was defeated. But who was the hero? A renegade programmer who wanted his share of the pie. In Hollywood, this was the happy ending. In real life, if the story were real (ha!) and continued, wouldn't our hero build another intelligent program? When would it become 2,117 times smarter than him? When would the technology spin out of control again? We can't know but we can certainly assume it would, given the premise of the movie.

So, we are still left holding the bag. Who or what do we celebrate? The creative genius with unlimited desire to break the technology molds or the ability to shut down technology when it gets so large we become uncomfortable or endangered?

Ah, Tron. You were cheesy, but also so complicated. Long live the 80's!

Finding Balance in the Noise of Modern Life

In the two PBS Frontline explorations of our modern life, "The Persuaders" and "Digital Nation" we look at the challenges media and technology present in our lives. As we become more and more "plugged in" we become more and more distant from human interaction. As our aesthetics continue to meet with art and technology, "breaking through" on a broad scale becomes more challenging. This applies to large scale corporations marketing new products to moms and dads trying to connect with their children.

Art combining with technology can advance human thought (as with Mitra's experiement) or delve deeper into the human soul (as does Cizek with her work). It has a darker side, however, and this is explored in these two compelling pieces. We are bombarded with bold, edgy advertisements that now make up the landscape of our cities and publications (and placed subtly in our casual entertainment). We are connected to our technology in a way that makes relaxation and human experiences seem like guilty pleasures. We are out of balance with our technology and the ways that it is used to infiltrate our hearts and minds.

The train is out of the station. So, what now? How do we reclaim balance? How do we start talking to our families again? How do we put down the blackberries and walk away from the internet long enough to reflect and reconnect with our natural selves? How do we slow the bombardment of corporations assaulting us with product placements when, if they stop, they will swallowed by competition? Well, as with all of these explorations, we begin again with the questions and work our way to the solutions resulting in substantial cultural change. The pendulum has swung and now we begin to discuss balance.

This message is quite parallel to the stories witnessed in the evolution of our industrialized age and, specifically, our architecture. In "Ecological Design: Inventing the Future" we follow the advancements from small villages to sprawling metropolises. What we once deemed as human pride and achievement is now being recognized as devastating to our potential and sustainability as animals on planet earth.

Once again we witness an example of the train being out of the station. How do we go back in time and incorporate nature into our progress? We can't. The drive for bigger and better has brought us to a place of pollution and disconnect from our natural surroundings. We can not go back so we must go forward. We go forward in re-framing the purpose and goals of architecture. Our intellects show us that the ways of the past have proven harmful. We move forward by using science and technology to bring us back...here's that word again...to a place of balance.

Moving forward requires looking back while heading into a new age of respect for nature and what we miss by ignoring it. The chart represented in the blog post is my hope for where this discussion will lead us in the years ahead...

Warning: Possibly Offensive Opinion Ahead!

This is going to come off as harsh. However, this is an art school and we critique artistic endeavors. As a fellow actor, public speaker and human, I found little in Peter Bogdonovich's speech to be helpful or valuable. Especially in the context of the other amazing work we are witnessing, I found his address to be offensively egotistical. For me, it was painful to watch.

I can't help but feel like his warm reception came more from a place of America's cultural thirst for fame. All he had to offer was the personal anecdotes from famous people he has known. None of the anecdotes carried a true "take home" message, however. So what were we admiring him for? Being in the right place at the right time and knowing cool people? This audience member was not impressed and apologizes if this is offensive to Bob or other fans of this address. My chart says more than enough and I will get off my soapbox now!

Cizek reshapes the world for our viewing pleasure

I could not have loved and admired "Out my Window" more. I only wish I had weeks to sit, click and absorb every treasure in every apartment. As a person who carries the belief that prejudice and judgement often come from a place of not having any personal knowledge of a person, place or thing, this project resonated with me on many levels.

Katarin Cizek's work, as all of the work studied in this course, comes from a place of culture. Unlike Mitra's brain-seed, however, it does not begin with a singular cultural concept but rather the opposite: a need to open the door to every culture, everywhere, and see the rich humanity in every room. Rather then beginning with smallness and working towards expansion, we start from a place of vastness and work alongside her to see the smallness, the minutia of everyday existence.

Cizek's vision, her intellect, propels her forward to discover a medium worthy of this undertaking. One that is possible but not yet in existence. She develops a partnership between technology and her aesthetic. She creates a new way for us to see. Not only does she create a platform in which much "information" can be shared in a structured and interesting way, she also creates an EXPERIENCE. By interacting with her documentary, we become invested. We become a part of the story's unfolding. We become a participant rather than a bystander. There is a subtle sense of ownership that comes through this medium, one that keeps us compelled to keep clicking.

We witness our nature. We have the opportunity to feel a stirring in our soul. We are learning, growing, and opening our eyes. We are interfacing with a vision of art and a product of our modern technology. We transcend the experience while also mastering it. We are transported and firmly rooted. The dance has become even more graceful.

Thinking Outside the Box

The first blog post is a personal example; one I see often in my work. Perhaps it is the evolution of thought and culture that inspires many of us to keep moving forward in our pursuits, no matter what they may be. It can be immensely satisfying to be witness to and, in some cases, facilitate this level of rethinking and re-seeing in others.

This kind of fascination and motivation was evident in Sugata Mitra's TED presentation. His experiments and study around re-framing common beliefs about how we learn and what education looks like is a powerful model for anyone "thinking outside the box." As illustrated in the diagram posted here, Mitra's work is a weaving together of intellect, technology, nature, and science which results in cultural shifts. Sometimes this interplay was intentional and other times it came as a surprise.

We begin with a culture (a world culture using specific locations as testing grounds) that sets as an educational truth that humans learn when taught by one "expert" or teacher. Throughout the evolution of his experiements Mitra re-frames this over and over by scientifically evaluating and asserting that students teach themselves through group interaction--talking, gathering and creating. This teaching is facilitated, not by a human, but by technology: the internet. The motivation is not the teacher's prompting but by the sheer desire to learn. Nature shows itself through the curiosity and drive children have in his experiments to learn complicated concepts, even in a foreign language.

Nature emerges again on another level, however, when the "grandmother" figure is introduced to the group learning experience. The "grandmother" is not primarily a teacher but takes on the primary role as cheerleader. This kind of encouragement when scientifically evaluated, shows the children learn even more with a grandmother present. Our need for acceptance, our desire to be acknowledged, our humanness shines through the technology.

So, with this example, and may others we see in life, we begin with a foundational belief. This belief is something that seems so basic few of us would think to question it because it is the "way it's always been done." It takes a visionary to see past this foundational belief and apply the tools of modern life to testing the validity of this "truth." This is where technology, science and nature begin to do a subtle and sometimes astounding dance--one in which the movements flow together so fluidly we can barely tell them a part.

This kind of thinking and the resulting dance serve to propel us forward into new frames, new ways of perceiving our reality. This of course, ends us shaping our culture and "the way it's always been done" changes to a new "way we do things." Later, another Mitra will come along and build on this work, begin the dance with a new frame and advance the ball just that much more. With this cycle of intellect, nature, science and technology the horizon is invisible.

DMA and Framing

Framing and re-framing are "shrinky" terms I use a lot in my work as a public speaker analyzing the experience of healthcare. A prime example of this comes from my work with advance care planning (end of life decision conversations and decision making). When teaching this material in our culture, a culture very adverse to discussing anything about our end, I can be assured my student's first response will be one of resistance. As a teacher, it becomes my job to then find a way to re-frame the messages in a way that become appealing so that they may open up their mind and heart to the ideas I am presenting.

The first step is always to examine the existing lenses or frames use to view end of life planning. For most red-blooded Americans, the topic is scary, distasteful or unnecessary. For some, it goes further into a superstitious attitude of "if we speak it, it will be." This framing makes productive conversations about advance care planning impossible. To begin the re-framing process, we must begin talking openly about where our prejudices and values come from and whether or not they are worth hanging on to.

Often, through our conversations, we begin to gather new information. This information comes from myself, as the teacher, peers with different experiences and from within. We learn the practical reasons within the context of healthcare. We learn that the standard way of approaching advance care planning is not usually the strategic way. Most importantly, we learn what it is that has "turned us off" and kept us from looking at this sooner.

More often than not, this gathering results in a creation. Creation of new thought, new perspectives and a new motivation for action. During the conversation, realizations are made on an intellectual level and an emotional one. Often people respond to the practical aspects of end of life decision making when it is re-framed as "advocating for yourself in the future." The greatest impact often comes from a more emotional place, however. This is when people make the connection that advance care planning is not a selfish act about themselves but, instead, a generous gift to family so that they can have more ease and peace when making decisions on behalf of their loved one. This realization is what brings about creative ideas on how to have the conversation, when to have it and who to have it with.

Reflection is a powerful tool in this particular example. Reflecting on what "quality of life" means to each individual. Reflecting on who you trust and love deeply. Reflecting on how you'd like to spend your final months/days/hours. All of these deep ponderings open the mind to making the practical choices that have to be made while re-framing the purpose and spirit of advance care planning. Here we have evidence of the challenge cycle and the potential it has to influence lasting and meaningful change.