Connecting to the Shambhala Summer Institute...from wherever you are
A group of staff and volunteers is exploring ways to take aspects of the Institute online, thus reducing the need for long-distance travel, lowering costs, and increasing accessibility. To begin with, we'd like to experiment with ways to make it possible for people to connect and contribute to the Shambhala Summer Institute from a distance. Here are some initial ideas.
• running commentaries (blogs, twitter)
• video clips of interviews with faculty and others on one of the program themes
• a cafe conversation at the program, with prior "tables" in your region and/or in Second Life feeding into the main event, and the harvest shared on the website
Would these or other possibilities be of interest to you? Do you have experience combining live and virtual conversations, and if so would you be willing to share your learning with the rest of us? What is the critical question you would like to see explored across the program and virtual communities?
• running commentaries (blogs, twitter)
• video clips of interviews with faculty and others on one of the program themes
• a cafe conversation at the program, with prior "tables" in your region and/or in Second Life feeding into the main event, and the harvest shared on the website
Would these or other possibilities be of interest to you? Do you have experience combining live and virtual conversations, and if so would you be willing to share your learning with the rest of us? What is the critical question you would like to see explored across the program and virtual communities?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Paul Smart on -
It would be of interest to me, the Shambala Summer Institute sounds wonderful but the cost is prohibitive for me, like so many events. To be a part of it, albeit from a distance, would be wonderful.
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Permalink Reply by David Kahane on
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If it's not too meta-, could one critical question be precisely about how transformative conversations can happen virtually, or in blends of virtual and face to face? This is a pivotal question for this time of climate change and economic transition....
I like the idea of blogging, video clips, and perhaps live webcasts.
And finding a technology that allows us to be at virtual tables for the World Cafe would be wonderful. I discourage using Second Life for this, however; my experience is that until one has scaled a steep learning curve with that environment (and maybe even then), Second Life is retro and clunky and laborious to use. Why not help cluster people into tables on Skype, or if the conversation is to be through keyboards, use a simple environment akin to this one?
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Permalink Reply by Tony Lamport on
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Adding to Davids observations....It seems natural probably to shy away from a new medium that requires some investment to learn - we're all busy people. Inhabiting and becoming skillful with a 3D virtually embodied presence does take some time to learn and become comfortable with. Switching from 2D to 3D, beginning to identify with a virtual representation of yourself and others , firing those mirror neurons and all the potential experiences that may create away from the comfort of linearity is worth wondering about, I think. But the rewards are rich and varied as they usually are to those who invest in the new.
Second Life is fledging technology, to be sure. But as a relatively new resident of Second Life I'm still astonished at the depth not just of the ingenuity and technical acumen it represents (though I'm sure more and new is on the way) but the depth and enduring value to me of conversations had, friends made, rich learning accomplished, relationships forged with people around the world. Second Life is another life in the sense of its potential immersiveness. I think some try it and are turned away by the newness of learning to manage a 3D presence largely because almost like inhabiting a new sense they cant imagine clearly the rewards. But this was also probably true in some ways of the computer in the beginning and certainly the Internet.To stand virtually in a stunningly beautiful endless beach, waves crashing and reflecting back a panoply of warm slanting sunset colours speaking freely and directly in a heartfelt way with a group of friends or acquaintances in voice can be a memorable experience not easily compared to reading messages on a web site or even the structured presence of teleconferencing.
IBM has 250 employees working in Second Life and Major League Baseball has a presence there as well.Its reported in the UK press that Richard Branson has invested $1 billion in creating a virtual world to compete with Second Life. I'd love to see some lively and thoughtful discussion on 3D virtual presence, how it changes the experience of meeting a person, but that should also include some of the more well known less interactive media mentioned like blogging or webcasts. This is worthwhile discussion. Its very timely and, as has been said, important in a time of carbon risk.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Szpakowski on -
From my few months worth of experience in Second Life, I've come to the hypothesis that it can support, with very high quality, the types of personal and interactive practices that distinguish Alia Institute as well as World Café, circles, etc. I also think that some of these can be developed to even surpass their "real life" (RL) counterparts. These are hypotheses, to be explored and tested, but as Tony Lamport suggests, there is some urgency to doing this. I've written a bit about this in a blog post, but will repeat and amplify a bit here.
There are two things that Second Life allows that stand out, and support these hypotheses. One is what could be called embodiment: the experience of having, or being, an avatar, is startlingly real. This applies both to my own avatar, and how I respond to other avatars - with emotion as real as that in waking real life, or in dreaming real life - and how real are those? They are both real and virtual - and is this not what Alia explores? This is a tribute to the power of brain neuroplasticity, the phenomenon whereby perception-motor loops can be closed through a surprising variety of media we choose to identify as our bodies (mirror images, the arm of a care giver in the place where our missing limb should be, etc: cf the work of Vilanayur Ramachandran, the discoverer of mirror neurons, such as in this Ted talk). Second Life allows embodiment to a qualitatively greater degree than does any other virtual/online form I have experienced. A group of avatars sitting in a circle talking has a whole different quality than a number of people on a Skype call.
The second aspect is container principle, which is also a key aspect of Alia DNA. In Second Life you can create natural spaces and buildings, within which avatars interact, and which help shape their experience. This is what Alia programs and related practices do in real life: they host people and create environments, with visuals, sounds and motions that already convey atmosphere and presence.
The hypothesis then is that in Second Life Alia practitioners from all over the world can meet, and can do so as often as seems appropriate, and engage with each other with high quality personal interactions. Alia Global could then extend both over space and over time, allowing continuity of practice, complemented by other online forms such as this site, as well as by periodic real life programs.
Over the next few weeks we could experiment further with some of these forms. One starting point is World Café, both in-world and in mixed Real Life/Second Life form - which could possibly allow more than spectator participation in the summer program, for example.
Alia Institute already has an initial presence on Commonwealth Island: if you do enter Second Life, please visit there, and contact (IM) Eos Amaterasu (that's me) or Anachie Easterwood (Tony).
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