What's the golden thread between Snowden, crowdfunding, the mechanical turk and theater? Beyond the fact that I've just been at The Conference in Malmö, Sweden where artist James Bridle (creator of the term New Aesthetic ) reflected on the ancient story of the mechanical turk in relation to Amazon's warehousing system (and much much more) in a room named the Theater which was followed by a talk delivered by founder and CEO, Emily Best, of Seed & Spark in a room named Snowden - both Bridle and Best struck the same chord, the year's buzzword: TRANSPARENCY.
Transparency was taken up in very different contexts, one could say different theaters. For Bridle the theater is art and transparency leads to profound questions. For Best, transparency leads to profound results in the theater of social capital.
The present-day discussion of transparency is all the more relevant following yesterday's sentencing hearing for transparency martyr Bradley Manning: a hearing that has all the essential elements of theater (albeit with very real consequences): a stage, actors (participants who lack the ability to alter the outcome), a script (it's unlikely that anyone could believe in an outcome that would set Manning free) and an "invisible" author. It's theater in the style of the mechanical turk (Don't know what the mechanical turk is? Hold on. It's revealed in the next paragraph.)
I won't recap what Bridle said in full, but one important take-away from his talk could be summarized as follows: when you see something that makes you wonder, provokes you to ask a question, go after the answer. There's a trove of information available at our fingertips Bridle reminds us. So, when, for instance, Bridle noticed that Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) is wearing a flak vest in his Twitter profile pic, he felt compelled to investigate, to ask why? and dig for the answer. His purely online investigation revealed that Google is in the process of cataloguing what remains in The National Museum of Iraq. This is the answer to the original question, but becomes a circumstance of its own that raises more profound questions like: how will Google capitalize on their access to a national treasure of immense global and historical value? We are facing many profound questions without historical precedence, or even, as Bridle notes, the terminology and literacy necessary to discuss them. Perhaps one precedent does exist: the mechanical turk astonished audiences for decades before its secret was revealed. Transparency alert: The was a often broke, drunk, old chess master hidden in the box. But the more profound question that this spoiler allows us to consider is: how could the mystery stay hidden for decades?
For Emily Best of Seed & Spark, transparency is valuable as the foundation for trust and reliability, which produces the highly sought-after social capital. When all conventional forms of funding (aka Hollywood producers) proved to be unavailable to a film in production, she created a blog entry - "before Kickstarter became the Kleenex of crowdfunding" - that outlined the specific needs of the film. Everything from lighting to pasta sauce and booze were listed so that people (mostly friends and family) could donate the money toward something that they were specifically interested in. This created a valuable relationship between the audience and the film. (I can imagine viewers proudly whispering to their date at the screening "That's my pasta sauce!") This relationship spread through intimate channels and it seemed that everyone was someone or someone who knew someone or someone who knew someone who knew someone that had contributed to the production. The result was that every screening of the film sold out before conventional publicity was implemented.
Of the projects at the crowdfunding stage engaged in the theme of transparency, The Assange Agenda seems to be the most pressing. It's a film set for release a few days before Australia's upcoming election (Sept 7) in which candidates from the newly formed Wikileaks Party, crusaders for transparency, will run for Senate seats. You can read more about the film on their website - the film features a collection of interviews with experts (including a former CIA official, Asange's lawyer...) who address the negative effect of surveillance on democracy. What does a government look like when a legitimate part of it is dedicated to transparency? The impact would be truly immeasurable and if you've recognized the benefits of transparency in my reflections on James Bridle and Emily Best's talks, you know that transparency parties embedded in democratic governments have the potential to make governments face the tough questions of today as a democracy, with citizens who contribute and have a relationship with the result.
(not just someone who knows someone who knows someone who contributes)
Here are a few more projects that in their own way, support the golden thread of transparency:
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