I’ve recently started work as a Program Manager at Media Arts Center San Diego. Our DIY New Media Lab now hosts the San Diego node of SHARE. Keep up with the latest happenings on our Lab blog.

I’ve always been afraid of two things – bodies of water (in which I cannot see the bottom) and heights. At 7, I was stung by a jellyfish while swimming. That same year, I fell off a rock face and into a crevice of fresh lava rock, gouging and slicing my flesh as I tumbled to the bottom – it felt like I fell for miles. I came to dread swimming and climbing things.

Over 20 years later, I found myself miles in the air flying across the world’s largest body of water. All to work for a small organization called CuriousWorks. I’d not heard of them until just a few weeks earlier and in a few days, I was going to be helping them make media with kids in the middle of the Pilbara – a place few Australians (let alone Americans like me) ever get the chance to see.

With just a single Tweet as the trigger, I was going to be over 10,000 miles away from home, in the middle of a vast desert, in a country I’d never been to…

I dove in.

Some mornings, I had magnificent dreams and awoke to watch the sun rise over the desert landscape.

Other mornings gave me a taste of the complex realities of kids in rural and remote communities.

And this was only the first 5 days of my trip…

My second week in Australia found me in the small mining town of Newman, Western Australia. Newman consists of about 5,000 people with an extra 2,000 as ‘fly in fly out‘). It sits about 1200 km north of Perth in the heart of the Pilbara Desert. Because of it’s remote location, food and water need to be shipped in to Newman’s only grocery store weekly. Pilbara literally, means ‘dry‘.

There’s a cultural thirst here too – particularly for the young people of Newman. Pop cultural artifacts like StarWars, Twilight and Subway sandwiches are lapped up. The kids constantly talk about wanting to see ‘bands in Perth’. In deed, many young people – Newman’s potential future leaders – end up leaving.

Because of this, BHP Billiton recognized the need for a more sustainable and permanent infrastructure – something for the long term. That’s where CuriousWorks came in.

As part of the BHP Iron Ore Legacy Project and in partnership with Country Arts WA, CuriousWorks helped Newman’s kids develop a wide range of skills they could put back in to their community. Some of these skills were gained interviewing locals outside of school. Other skills were nurtured by developing a class website. Our final part of the project was putting on Newman’s first film festival.

In starting the project, Senior Advisor of Sustainability and Community Relations for BHP Billiton, Scott Bird said:

“We really want to contribute something significant to the town that demonstrates BHP Billiton Iron Ore’s commitment to creating liveable communities that people want to participate in for the long term. We expect this project will create a lasting impact on both the community members and the landscape of the Newman Township.”

Over the next 12 weeks, we worked with teachers, students and parents to build the media capacity of Newman’s young residents. We moved between 5 different locations to conduct our after school media-making workshops while teaching new media classes in the primary and senior high schools. It was hectic, but a lot of fun and the kids we worked with were very productive.

The project accomplished some great things with and for the young people of Newman:

• our kids got on national television and a national newspaper
• our kids launched a student website with an accompanying lobbying website and youth blog
• we also learned 33 other things…

And yes, we felt happy to call them ‘our kids’. They are awesome.

While we accomplished a lot while there, we were not without our challenges. For one, we were outsiders, not just geographically, but culturally too; a Sri Lankan, a Lebanesian, a snow white Australian with a slight British accent and an Asian-American made for some curious workers in a predominantly white town. There were even a few incidents where I wondered if I’d been discriminated against because of my ‘outsider’ ness. In a conversation I had with a local school teacher, she offhandedly referred to the film production, internet literacy development, and photography we were doing with the kids as not ‘real’ teaching.

Coming into Newman, we also expected to have a stable teaching space to meet with the youth. We had anything but. Not only did the local youth center close down a week before we arrived, but the places we’d hoped to conduct our media workshops were unreliable, in spite of the dedicated efforts of our staff and our Newman partners. The recently closed youth center hadn’t even been open a year. Where were after school programs for youth going to be held? Where were the creative spaces kids could go to continue their learning, playing and making when the schools closed? Who would lead this?

Clearly, there was and is a lot of work to do. I wouldn’t say the kids we worked with were disadvantaged in the sense that Americans (like my self) normally think – poverty, homelessness, language barriers. I’d say their greatest disadvantage is the lack of a stable, supportive center that fosters the creative skills they already have.

As of this writing, there is still no youth space for the kids of Newman to meet and make media. This is the task ahead for the teachers, residents and businesses of Newman – to grow and build on the things we developed with Newman’s youth. To stay true to our intentions as CuriousWorkers, we need to ensure the communities we work with can serve themselves.

Newman certainly deserves to.

Accidental footage shot on a recent trip to Marble Bar – remixed to music.

Track: Ladders
Artist: Alias and Ehren

New remix from an old track, Boer.  I made it in 2004.  Wow.  5 years ago.  If you like, you can listen to/download the old version here.

Short track I worked on this week.  Just a demo – raw and unfinished.   I was inspired by a sweet dj mix my friend Alex Brandmeyer made (he had excellent track selection).  Bug him for it.

Moving Windmills: The William Kamkwamba story

Posted this earlier, but really dug this story. If you haven’t seen it, you should. Amazing what William used to build his windmill – let alone the circumstances (and innovations!) that happened around his project.

27Dimensionalharmonicoscillator   (10878 KB)
Listen on posterous

New track, unreleased.  Made by good friend Alex Brandmeyer.  Don't tell anyone okay?  He just sent it to me;)

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The past DAY has been brilliant.

Shakthi and I departed Newman and drove for about 3.5 hours to Marble Bar – which is the hottest town on the planet (it never went below 100 degrees for 160 days in the summer of 1923-24).  It’s not too hot now.  On the way, we stopped in Nullagine to pick up Dan and Brody, two graffiti artist who get paid to do ‘public’ (a style of ‘graf’ that’s usually commissioned by a local government, public or private agency.)

I drove nearly 2 hours to the middle of Western Australia (Nullagine) to see these pieces.

A ‘mob’ is like tribe here in Western Australia.

Brody outside a piece he and Dan finished outside the Conglomerate Hotel Motel Bar (they’ve got excellent burgers).

They had some great work up on the local…bathroom stall.  But it’s a large building (relative to the rest of the town/village).  They also did some great work at the local bar and of course, with the local kids.

After some antics with local kids, we took off for Marble Bar.  It took about 4 minutes to drive the entire length of the town.

We went out to see if we could find some kids.  None.  Zero.  So Shakthi and I went to go and check out the local telecentre – which is the Oz version of a community technology center (in the U.S.) and see what tools we had to work with:

• 4 computers running Windows XP
• Windows Movie Maker on all of them
• all configured competely differntly with Internet Explorer as their main browser

Soon enough, kids descended on the telecentre.  All on ‘Ripsticks’ – flexible, twisting, 2-wheeled boards that are ridden by twisting and wiggling your body.  We gave them a camera and my iPod (video) Nano to shoot some video and now have some great footage which we’ll be able to use throughout the week.

We also had a great time hanging out with Dan and Brody, filming them and documenting them at work teaching the kids graffiti.

So far, this trip is rockin.  More pictures from the adventure so far can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiousworksphotos/sets/72157622484375148/

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Today was a blast.  I got to sit in on a session with Elias at the local community centre where Elias has been teaching during the holiday film week.  I got to have a great overview of a brainstorming session between about 15 kids ranging from 9 – 15 years old.

Today, we covered brainstorming, production schedule (preproduction, production and post production), selecting an topic/idea to film (we settled on a Newman TV variety show) and assigning roles.

The kids had a lot of fun with me asking to say things like:

• dollar
• sausage
• recreation

Dropped R’s = Australian accent.  I think.  But I end up sounding British according to Shakthi:)

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This morning, I woke up extra early (5:30) to go and watch the sunrise over the Pilbara alone.

Today, I’ll get introduced to the local neighborhood center (to watch some workshops in session with Elias) and then I;ll go to meet up with Lee – our community contact here who’s currently coordinating a local community festival of work created by kids this past few weeks.

Tomorrow, Shakthi and I take a 3.5 hr trip to Marble Bar (or ‘MAHble BAH’ as they say here:), population, 194.  We’ll be there doing either storymapping, djing or recording workshops (with what ever technology we have/can find) for the next week, than back here to Newman for a week long Cultural Leaders Workshop (community organizing/storytelling with available technology) and then into the classrooms storymapping/digital media workshops until early November…

Now, off to the the Neighbourhood Centre!

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>
>
> The adventure for this Curious Worker begins. Will be in flight for > the next 8 hours as I fly out to Newman, Australia.
>
> Yeehaw!

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Today I set a game plan with Shakthi on how we're going to tackle the next 6 weeks in the Pilbara.  I'll need to:

• develop/find/improve on some curriculum for 'object-based storytelling'
• develop/find/improve on curriculum to introduce the 'craft' of working with audio and photography
• develop online social network strategy for cultural leaders in the Pilbara

For the first week, we're going to go to Marble Bar (population? 194) to do an ad-hoc community media class – completely open-ended, depending on who shows up an what they'd like to learn.  Could be storytelling, filming video, even djing if that's what they want;)  Should be fun.  Main purpose is to introduce ourselves to the folks in Marble Bar to as well as connect them to the community media network we're in the process of building.

Second week, we begin 5 weeks of work in Newman, culminating in a community festival.  One of our partners on the ground has already secured Thai dancers (WTF, in a rural mining colony in the middle of nowhere???), MCs and a space for the festival.

In the meantime, please enjoy this lovely video of the CW office loft in Sydney.  In it, I give a nice tour of the CW art/office loft.  It's truly one of the nicest spaces I've ever worked (and will hopefully play in soon!).

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Howdy We Operate Best Together Backers and Fans!

Apologies if some of this is old news to some of you, but I thought I’d condense the past months’ adventures for y’all in this email.  Also, I’d asked some of you if I could add you to my eNewsletter list to stay up to date on my project.  Might you resend me a yes or no – even if you already have?  Your privacy is important and I’m currently doing all these batch emails ‘by hand’ – no fancy eNewsletter software yet:p

Onwards with the updates!
-morgan

August and September have been incredibly busy and enriching months for WOBT.  The scope of We Operate Best Together has also expanded a bit to incorporate some new developments in the adventure…

—Adventures in NYC—
I visited NYC (and Boston) and had an amazing time:

•    got a free roundtrip ticket to Boston (care of Ben Sheldon thanks Ben!) for the NAMAC Conference (http://namac.org/conference)
•    toured the Eyebeam art and technology space in New York and interviewed Emma Lloyd, Director of Technology: http://bit.ly/3zfgiy
•    attended my first SHARE event: http://bit.ly/p33AG
•    squatted a loft in Manhattan with a childhood friend: http://bit.ly/1wbtFE
•    visited with WOBT friends at Digital Democracy: http://bit.ly/548f2
•    volunteered some time with the Transmission Project (formerly CTC VISTA) to redo their wiki: http://digitalartscorps.org/wiki

A brilliant, brilliant time in NYC/Boston was had by all…

—WOBT Site Relaunch—

I also relaunched and got a new URL for We Operate Best Together:  Check it out: http://www.weoperatebesttogether.org You can also subscribe to blog updates (different from this newsletter) here: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=WeOperateBestTogether&loc=en_US

—WOBT is Now in Australia!—

Aaaand in the midst of adventuring on the East Coast, I got a job in AUSTRALIA with an amazing organization called Curious Works (http://www.curiousworks.com.au/about).  Through creative collaborations nationally and locally, they work to ‘reshape the systems of cultural production in Australia, for the benefit of all Australians’ using new media tools and trainings.

While here I will be traveling to remote Australian communities to do technology assessments, develop curriculum and assist with new media/video storytelling.  Throughout, I will be documenting all my work on the WOBT and Curious Works websites.

Today I venture out into a New South Wales’ (Sydney’s) first dust storm in nearly 25 years to begin my first day of work at Curious Works Sydney artist loft office.  Check out the pix below:

Operate together!
Morgan

P.S.  Don’t forget to send me a quick yay or nay to opt in for ‘hand-crafted’ future updates!

If you want ‘auto’ updates, sign up to get the latest updates from the WOBT blog delivered to your inbox here: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=WeOperateBestTogether&loc=en_US

P.P.S.  Feel free to share, bookmark, forward or Tweet this post:)

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On September 6th, I got to go and visit and jam at my first SHARE in New York City.

SHARE is basically an ‘open jam’ for anyone to come and play their sound/video/visual art with others.  From their Facebook Page:

SHARE is first and foremost a platform to explore expression, in a variety of artforms. Through its openjam-styled sessions, SHARE engages its participants and spectators in a continually changing dialog on art and culture. As such, SHARE represents an ongoing exploration of collaborative performance as cultural exchange.

I was also fortunate enough to meet (for the first time!) Keiko Uenishi.  We’d been having email exchanges for a couple years while I was starting a SHARE in San Diego with my friends.  Keiko (along with some of the other SHARE.NYC folks) were incredibly helpful in getting us up and running, offering advice and even visiting us to see how we operated.

This particular SHARE I attended was held at the Issue Project Room – a relatively new space in a converted can factory.  They had a really nice 16 speaker surround sound system for projecting the sound as well as a two story high wall for projecting amazing visuals.  Kieko had a pretty neat Wii controlled MAX/MSP patch that she was running.  I had Ableton Live and a built-in microphone for my jamming.  Below are a few more pictures from the night.

Can’t wait to jam again!

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Image via Wikipedia

This August, I was fortunate enough to have a paid flight to Massachusetts AND place to stay (thanks to Ben Sheldon!) for the recent NAMAC Conference – which was a blast!  Thanks NAMAC!   While in Boston, I also decided to visit New York for friends and research for We Operate Best Together.

On first arrival to New York, I stopped in to visit and get a tour of the lovely Eyebeam space in Chelsea.  I had a great ‘after-hours’ tour from Emma Lloyd, Director of Technology at Eyebeam.  Not only does she handle and structure all technical software and hardware support for the 18,000 square foot facility, she also manages all technical needs for their fablab AND their woodshop – from one technologist to another, my hats off to her! I got to see some of the amazing workspaces and interview Emma on some of the way Eyebeam works.

I was particularly interested in their highly-competitive artist residencies and fellowships.  Key things Eyebeam looks for in recruiting artists for their space are:

1. Newness: is this a new and upcoming artist?  How far along are they in their career?  Is there a need for them to develop their art?
2. Ability to contribute: as Eyebeam is pretty communal, reviewers ask: How will this artist be able to ‘give back’ to Eyebeam? You could be an amazing artist, but having something to give back to Eyebeam (teaching, workshops, volunteering) boosts reviewers’ confidence in selecting you.

Residencies and Fellowships
Another part of being a resident or fellow at Eyebeam is in the very ‘open’ nature of one’s work there.  While applicants can outline a project they hope to finish while having access to Eyebeam’s space, veering away from one’s original project is allowable and sometimes, even encouraged – particularly if an impromptu collaboration with another Eyebeam artist is part of the new direction.  To see a space that supports these tenets is inspiring.

Here’s a bit more about Eyebeam, taken straight off their site:

Mission

Eyebeam is an art and technology center that provides a fertile context and state-of-the-art tools for digital research and experimentation. It is a lively incubator of creativity and thought, where artists and technologists actively engage with culture, addressing the issues and concerns of our time. Eyebeam challenges convention, celebrates the hack, educates the next generation, encourages collaboration, freely offers its contributions to the community, and invites the public to share in a spirit of openness: open source, open content and open distribution.

Atelier

The atelier model is fundamental to the concept of Eyebeam. The studio/workspace environment, in which the energies of artistic production, education and curatorial practice fuse, provides a unique, stimulating and vital working context for creating art. This tremendous energy, along with the dialogue exchanged between curators, artists and students of various practices and stages of development, can inform and inspire the creation of artworks that may not previously have been imagined or produced.

And feel free to say hi to Emma on Twitter here: @nydakini

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Travis and Liz

Wordles of RFP and Org Strategic Plans

One project which they are launching is D2TV, which documents and allows you to follow the D2 team as they travel throughout SouthEast Asia working on their Project Einstein. From their blog:

Project Einstein, our digital pen pal program, was born from a photo training Digital Democracy conducted in Bangladesh in January 2008 thanks to support from What Kids Can Do. Partnering with MITʼs Center for Future Civic Media and high schools in Indianapolis, Indiana, we are now creating a platform and curriculum for resettled refugees and their peers in the U.S. to connect with refugees overseas.

Keiko and Liz really hit it off when Liz mentioned the Project Einstein. Keiko has been working towards getting a SHARE for Kids going – also another project to connect youth with media (sound) making tools and each other to creatively collaborate and SHARE with each other. I was so happy to simply introduce friends old and new to each other. Definitely a high point for me on my brief trip to New York.

Me and Keiko 2

Me and Liz Hodes

Me and Travis!

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Today, on recommendation from my good friend Louis, I checked out Ruben's Empanadas in SoHo.  AWESOME.  I also got to check out all of the great shops and stores along the way as well as get a feel for some of the crowdedness of the city, the differences in 'vibe' from one block to the next.  Sometimes the differences were so abrupt – one second, you are in the midst of thousands of people, swimming, anonymous and wide-eyed.  The next, you are in a quiet, tree-lined street with brick building covered in graffiti, equally as wide-eyed.

I could fall in love with this city.  My self could simply be the medium with the environment as my canvas.

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The view here in Brooklyn of the city is awesome.  It was like 80 degrees out and I fell asleep in loose clothes and sweat to people chattering, the East River lapping at the shore and the sun being fussy with the clouds.

Williamsburg is fun.  Lots of hot people to oggle.  Art.  Fashion.  Most folks here are on their own trip, yet pretty accepting of the diversity of folks here.  The included picture is off of a little pseudo-beach at the end of 8th St.  There were barbeques going and around 250-some people all just hanging out doing exactly what I was doing.

Off for more adventures…

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