Recently I hosted a course with Holger Scholz and Jan Buckenmayer of Kommunikatslotsen called Online Hosting Now: Collective Wisdom in the Digital Realm. My dear friend and colleague Alan Briskin, co-author of The Power of Collective Wisdom and the Trap of Collective Folly, was our special guest at one of the pre-sessions leading up to the launch of that course.
In his session, Alan mentioned a phenomenon I have long been fascinated by – how small groups of people have banded together through friendship and common inquiry at crucial times throughout history, and together create significant changes in the culture and evolution of a field, most commonly in the arts and sciences.
We saw it with the Impressionists in Paris during the late 1800s, and the birth of Modernism in literary circles a few years later. We can point to this creative human confluence in other fields and different times of our collective history, but what Alan said that I am most intrigued by is that we are experiencing another of these moments now in the field of online hosting.
It certainly feels like something “big” is happening in the field of online hosting right now, especially with all the movement to online environments in the wake of Covid-19. Not everything I’m seeing is equally wonderful, but there’s enough creativity and freshness in what’s emerging to excite and encourage me. In a very real way, what we are doing together collectively right now has the potential to call forth not only the best of this versatile, and frankly quite magical, medium – but to transform the way we engage each other on a global level.
Alan says we are directly involved in a collective art form; & like the best art, it is both beautiful and overwhelming in its implications.
2 Comments on “Online Hosting as Art Form”
I am the cofounder of Interplay, an improvisational method that is led around the world. We apply the arts for personal transformation, inquiry, and community building. I was using zoom prior to the pandemic and helped my leaders to transition to this format. The creativity, access to international leaders and community is exploding. So, Yes! We are one of the groups experiencing and informing an artful shift for our time. Thank you and I’m interested if there is more about this. I’ll be part of the embodiment summit this fall.
How wonderful, Cynthia! Thank you so much for reading. And thank you for making this comment, and for your creative companionship in this important and timely moment.
My work has been primarily concerned with engagement in the online environment for over a decade now, too, and as an artist myself I know the power of creativity and the arts for all that you are speaking to. It feels like a very exciting time for those of us who are thinking this way… when all our creativity is called for to support this cultural shift to a more conscious use of the internet for human engagement, interaction, (fun!) and ultimately a wiser world.
Tell me more about the embodiment summit – I don’t think I know about it!