June 14, 2024, Roger F Malina
Apophenia is a skill, but I have PAREIDOLIA. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pareidolia.
I am obsessed with my friends about creating a cibervillage ( NOT a cyber village or a smart village or …).
Yes, our first village fair was in Bogota, Colombia: https://festivaldelaimagen.com/en/portfolio-item/ciber-villages-2/
We think, as do others, that large human groups have largely failed to make the world a better place, so let’s try small groups again of no more than X00 people.
And let’s use the science of complex networks to trigger an emergence of more desirable behaviors and results. No this is NOT a religion; religions have also tried and failed- they think bigger is better just like corporations, but we do not. Networking small structures might be a good approach,
And let’s apply cybernetics https://cybsoc.org/?page_id=1521 trigger autopoietic desirable emergence, behaviors, morals, ethics, and dilemmas and remember some autopoiesis is undesirable.
Autopoiesis means that anything that functions as unity in a system—element, operation, structure, boundary—results from the production processes of the system itself.
So
SO
There I was, on an aeroplane flight from Dallas to Boston. I was bored and tired looking out of the window of life.
Next to me is a large dude tired like me. But for some reason at the end of the flight, we start chatting waiting endlessly to dis-board.
My air neighbor’s name is Eric Andrew Kombem and he tells me that he is from Cameroun in Africa, (just like my friend and colleague Yvan Tina-CSS).
Eric tells me that he is coming to Boston for a gathering of the Kom village. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kom_people_(Cameroon)
He tells me that in Cameroons there are several hundred peoples or villages. Founded in 1800, the Kom are one of the 250 ethnic groups that are located in the grasslands of Cameroon within the Boyo Division of Africa.[1] Kom includes most of Boyo division, including such towns as Fundong, Belo, Njinikom and Mbingo. The area can be reached from Bamenda on the so-called Ring Road.
What https://afoakomusa.org/home-v4/
CSS or coincidence, serendipity, and synchronicity 101.
He tells me there are currently 400 villagers in the village and they meet periodically in different locations- this time in Boston https://afoakomusa.org/komvention-2024/ . Read this page and wonder how our cybervillage emulates Kom village.
So let’s NOT be innovative but let’s try to be ingenuous and move a working model from one place, Cameroons in this case, to another, Bogota.
But remember to be geographically dispersed.
Clearly, modern cybervillages are not geographically defined, and even today can be trans-cultural and of course trans-generational and blobby ( as defined by Laura Kim https://www.lauraonsale.com/blob.html .
Entering the Blobosphere: A Musing on Blobs: blobs are the unsung, yet integral link in our language to build upon and describe ideas, culture, and knowledge. The common perspective of the blob is an amorphous form with an otherwise gooey texture; however, this is a gross undermining of the power of language and the vivacity of blobs. Fueled by the speculative ideology of blobs as both a theory and a practice, Kim illustrates the moldable and transcendent use of “blob” as a lens to understand the spaces lurking between life and art. Blobs aren’t solely a physical form. But what is a blob if not just a physical thing?
The simple answer is: everything. https://www.lauraonsale.com/blob.html
So here is a small starter list for the network of cibervillages we might trigger…
Post Pandemic Provocateurs; Joel, Nina and I
julian’s big heart initiative https://bighearttechnologies.com/
alan boldon’s WEAVE initiative: https://weaveglobal.org/
Smart Villages: https://artscilab.utdallas.edu/2024/01/08/artscilab-a-smart-village/
Guillermo Munoz Sea of Seas and connected Pirates of Science : https://www.facebook.com/piratasdelaciencia/
Emergence Non-Center: Robert Stern, Fred Turner and I,
Center for less good ideas: https://lessgoodidea.com/
The Centre Outside the Centre is led by Bronwyn Lace and speaks simultaneously to The Centre for the Less Good Idea’s position as a space for artistic, interdisciplinary incubation in South Africa, and to its engagements and collaborations with individuals, organisations and institutions elsewhere in the world.
Perhaps one next step is to make a map of these villages of villages but don’t become a numerologist or a geographer.
Cibervillages are a form of Roy Ascotts dream: Ascott’s intention was utopian, enmeshed in McLuhanesque visions of a global village of expanded collective consciousness.
Roy Ascott, Telematic Embrace. Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness. Edward A. Shanken
Berkeley, California University Press, 200
Help celebrate Roy’s birthday 90th October 26
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Ascott
His Planetary Collegium is a founding member of our cybervillage network: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Collegium
+ 408
MEMBERS (VMH)
ABOUT
Love, Unity Development.
“Ɨwayn, Afoyɨna, Ɨnyamngvɨn”
“Igniting a passion for Kom Culture and transformative Development”
Our Vision.
To make Afo-a-Kom USA One of the Leading Kom Cultural & Development Organizations in the World.
Our Mission.
Projecting Kom and its people through its culture, language and impactful community projects.
COMPOSITION OF AFO-A-KOM USA
Afo-a-Kom USA is a Nonprofit Cultural and Development Association of the Kom people in the United States of America that initiates or supports Ideas, Projects and Programs for the betterment of Komrades, particularly in the homestead in Kom.’
Created by Kom people living in the United States, the organization was formalized in June 2004 at the inaugural Kom convention in Washington DC, electing a pioneer executive board led by a President. It is duly registered and governed in accordance with the US tax-exempt nonprofit organization category 501(c)(3).
The National Executive Board works collaboratively with leaders of local chapters across States with agglomerations of Komrades. Six active chapters currently number a rough estimate of five hundred registered members unevenly distributed in Dallas, Appalachian, Houston, Minneapolis, New York and Arizona. The youngest chapter at the end of 2016 is the At Large chapter. It is for members who are not resident in States with active Chapters.
Active chapters act as support pillars to individual members and are the driving force of the national organization and the centers from where development projects are nurtured through ongoing interactions with local communities and organizations in Kom. Afoakom USA has its annual convention in Mid June and rotates among chapter States. Conventions are a premier lieu wherein Komrades in North America celebrate Kom culture and Kom children meet and get to know one another. It is at the Komvention that the General Assembly raises the most of its operating funds and decides on which projects to fund in the course of the year.
TEAM PK MANIFESTO
“Intentionally create an inclusive environment where Peace, Love and Empathy can thrive.”
“Innovative Project Identification and execution to impact people and more villages.”