Preserving Spiritual & Cultural Heritage with Traditional Artists In Second Life 1

DIGITALLY PRESERVING SPIRITUAL & CULTURAL HERITAGE WITH TRADITIONAL ARTISTS IN SECOND LIFE

Tonietta A. Walters1,2 and Jennifer Saxton2

The Arts Office Net Inc., tonie@theartsoffice.net, 2Miami Dade College, twalters, jsaxton@mdc.edu

ABSTRACT:
The deeply experiential nature of nondual or ethno -indigenous cultural and spiritual traditions may not easily convert to digital form, constraining epistemic goals of preservation. Virtual world technology, as a participatory tool that engages users, allows for an immersive experience and the virtual world of Second Life has emerged as a preferred tool for providing hands-on experiential learning. Moreover, the nature of preserving conceivably marginalized cultural information is predicated by attention to various aesthetic underpinnings of these milieus when designing associated virtual environments and the objects within them. The projects adopt a straightforward participatory model where traditional artists or object-makers within these cultures provide artistic material and collaboratively inform the design process and thus augment epistemic aims of digitization. This paper reports on the integrated praxis and theory across

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topics in the digital humanities; underpinning interdisciplinary projects that aim to digitally preserve nondual spiritual and ethno-indigenous culture in Second Life.

1. INTRODUCTION
In an era of trans-humanism and the impending singularity, it may be overlooked that the deeply experiential nature of nondual or ethno-indigenous spiritual traditions might not easily convert to digital form, constraining practical and epistemic goals of preservation. It becomes important to devise methods for the appropriate assimilation of technology to accommodate this potentially marginalized aesthetic milieu. This paper outlines the theoretical and practical aspects of various projects undertaken to either directly convey spiritual experience through the work of traditional artists or attempt to catalog and preserve spiritual and cultural heritage in the virtual world of Second Life. (Table 1)
SECTION 2. 1. 1. 2. 3. 1. 3. 1. PROJECT TITLE
FLOW IN THE ZONE: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE INNER EXPERIENCE OF THE TRADITIONAL ARTIST FLINDERS UNIVERSITY SOCIAL SCIENCES: PATHWAYS TO WELLBEING PARTICIPATORY SOFTWARE DEMO CITY OF SUZANO EXHIBITION AT MIAMI DADE COLLEGE VIRTUAL MUSEUM IN SECOND LIFE

Table 1: Project List.

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2. BACKGROUND
Artists, in general, have the capability of tapping into a form of nondual experience during some portions of the creative process and are intrinsically motivated to: 1. express emotions and sensations that are akin to this type of spiritual experience 2. use the creative process is a self-directed ritualistic avenue that repeatedly evokes this type of experience 3. more clearly understand and express its aspects. Surely, there will be many people (artists included) who will have large issue with these statements. However, there it is. Intrinsic motivation does not necessarily coincide with conscious motivation nor preclude that those conscious motivations may have been confabulated in order to make the drive to create consistent with the secular world.

2. 1. PRAXIS: THE SEER MODEL OF CREATIVITY

The experience of the artist within portions of the creative process is closely related to mystical or nondual experience. When making an art object the most productive and succe ssful moments are usually when the artist has been able to reach a certain point of efficiency The Zone or an experience of superconscious flow. "The Zone" should be thought of as a place rather than a state. It encompasses more than an emotional or psychological state and has a palpable presence. For example, there is a distinct feeling that happens upon returning home from a trip. Recognition of The Zone is the same as the fleeting thought when you finally sit in the car for the drive home from

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the airport or turn the key in your front door. You have been home since the plane landed, but it doesn't register in this certain way until one of these moments. Home, or The Zone, is a place where a person functions optimally, because of familiarity or the sense of freedom within recognizable constraints. In other words, certain things are allowed to drop from conscious awareness, because an established pattern has been set. The feeling of being in The Zone can only seem to be described in opposites and in descriptions is analogous to a mystical, nondual experience. A true description of this type of awareness has eluded many this feeling of being at one with something larger. An art object is not only an expression of the individual artists experience; it becomes a psychological "capture" of the moment of expression including such glimpses of nonduality. By analyzing artwork both during the process and upon completion to learn about the underlying structure of the creative process, the artwork becomes an extended memory aid that is relied on to draw conclusions about the meaning of the experience of expression itself. It is important that this "memory" remain as accurate as possible and that chosen materials captured the experience and maintained the integrity of the moment while still conveying both the ephemeral and ethereal nature of a moment of experience or being. The SEER [Self Extension and Experience Realization] Model of Creativity is based on extensive creativity meta-research by Richard Tabor Greene, Professor of Knowledge and Creativity at Kwansei University in Japan. It is a synthesis of Self-Type 33: Extended Self-Development and Mind Type 41: Experience Realization Forms (Greene 2001). The SEER Model both identifies a personal methodology in the phenomenological investigation of inner experience and brackets highly subjective portions within the creative process and aesthetic experience of an artist such as The Zones super-conscious flow. A

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description of the SEER Model of Creativity is outlined as follows: 1. The practicing artist should be at a level of practice that:

a. is both self-initiated and goal directed,

b. includes set ideas or concepts to focus on for the making of art.

2. The artwork is approached:

a. in a questioning manner that is of a personal nature

b. with an awareness of attempting to answer internal questions caused by an encounter with some aspect of Nondual experience.

3. The artist is engaged in a continuing process of investigating the source and meaning of the tangible objects produced including using them to objectively analyze moments of the creative process that are deeply subjective.

Developing an expertise or facility with metacognition, as is needed for the SEER Model, is predetermined within the art making process itself.

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2. 1. 1. FLOW IN THE ZONE: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE INNER EXPERIENCE OF THE TRADITIONAL ARTIST

Figure 1: Flow Exhibition.

Flow a smooth uninterrupted movement or progress Zone a temporary state of heightened concentration that enables peak performance Flow in addition to the Merriam-Webster definition above is a widely referenced concept characterized as a mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.

(Csikszentmihalyi

1996)

Art+Science France is a non-for-profit organization that aims to facilitate dialogue between artists, scientists and educators who are interested in the connections between art and cognitive science. The Flow exhibition series is a program of Art+Science

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France that gives platform to art and artists using traditional media in the investigation or simple expression of inner experience within the creative process. This exhibition in the series was realized at the Miami Dade Virtual College Second Life Island, Display Room One. Nine international contemporary fine artists contributed paintings, drawings and sculpture to the virtual exhibition: Pip Brant-USA Alete Burg-USA Alicia Falcone-Argentina Luisa Mesa-Cuba Jose Polet-Belgium Policarpo Ribeiro-Brazil Nathalie Sebregts-Netherlands Ricardo Triana-Colombia Tonietta Walters-Jamaica

2. 2. THEORY: KANTIAN AESTHETICS

An aspect of art as the medium for aesthetic experience is the encounter with an underlying essential truth. Within the artists aesthetic experience as part of the creative process there is more often than not the experience of super-conscious flow [See Section 2.1. for a description of The Zone]. The common usage of the term aesthetic experience is generated from the activity of appreciation of an object. The

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aesthetic experience of the viewer is extrinsic to the object itself; therefore it is necessary to make a distinction between the viewers aesthetic experience and the artists experience. To come to an understanding of the intrinsic purpose of an art object one inevitably has to direct some questioning to the object-maker. In Kantian Aesthetics the problem is not how [art] is judged by a viewer, but how it is created. The solution revolves around two new concepts: the genius and aesthetic ideas. (Burnham 2005)

Figure 2: Kantian Free Harmony as a Nondual State.

Kant includes as a part of aesthetic experience a mental state similar to cognition called the free harmony of the imagination and the understanding. And, an object that is able to occasion such a state of free harmony is said to exhibit purposiveness without purpose. (Rogerson 2008) The question becomes how this natural purposiveness is to be explained. The only possible account is that the appearance of purposiveness in nature is conditioned by the supersensible realm underlying nature. But this means that beauty is a kind of revelation of the hidden

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substrate of the world. (Burnham 2005) This translates to an encounter with the noumenal world through the aesthetic experience which is a quasi-cognitive free harmony state of perceptual ambiguity a glimpse of nonduality. What genius does, Kant says, is to provide soul or spirit to what would otherwise be uninspired. Genius inspires art works gives them spirit and does so by linking the work of art to what Kant will call aesthetic ideas ... which [are] a presentation of the imagination to which no thought is adequate. (Burnham 2005) These nondual experiences are indescribable using common language or, more accurately, understanding cannot be reached through language alone. A similar or familiar experience has to be evoked in the viewer. Art objects themselves, by bringing into being an overwhelming experience in the viewer, inherently contribute to the idea of the artist as divine messenger or divinely inspired. This basic process of appreciation of the object, leading to a type of overwhelming experience is in keeping with the idea of the ineffable nature of both religious and aesthetic experience. In other words, the object created to express an experience beyond words leads to an experience or psychological state that is in itself indescribable. In the judgment of the beautiful, we had a [free] harmony between the imagination and the understanding, such that each furthered the extension of the other. a harmony which happens on the experiencing of a beautiful form that itself is the expression of something yet higher but that cannot in any other way be expressed. (The notion of expression is important: what Kant is describing is an aesthetic process, rather than a process of understanding something with concepts, and then communicating that understanding.) Inspired fine art is an expression of the state of mind which is generated by an aesthetic

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idea. (Burnham 2005) Fine artists express this aesthetic idea and make it extensible through: 1. repeatedly [and ritualistically] revisiting the experience within the creative process in order to 2. refine and develop a form of expertise in the expression of the aesthetic idea, therefore 3. eliciting [extending] this kind of experience to the art viewer. Adopting this nondual interpretation within Kantian aesthetics affords a definitive conceptual grounding for the SEER Model of Creative Practice [Section 2. 1.] as a process that aids in investigating and creatively expressing altered states of consciousness, specifically nondual experience.

2. 3. SYNTHESIS: PARTICIPATORY MODEL

The nature of preserving conceivably marginalized cultural information is predicated by attention to the artistic underpinnings when designing associated virtual environments and the objects within them. However, creativity seems to be an innate ability outside of description or effective analysis. Moreover, the creative process is a troubling enigma, notoriously difficult to pin down and understand, even for those who are recognized as creative individuals. In order to be mindful of the intricacies of the creative process and creative personality, these projects adopt a straightforward participatory model where traditional artists or object-makers work collaboratively with the virtual world designer.

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The participating artist gives an oral or written presentation of his intentions and the artwork, including the ideas/processes/chosen imagery found in the work, a selfreport of success or failure at correlating his intentions to his representations and possible changes or intended future directions. This collaborative process is an inter-subjective mirror of the steps that are involved in internal cognitive monitoring of the designer during the creative process and engenders a deeper understanding of the traditional artists intentions; to subsequently inform the digital reinterpretation of the artwork, the related environment and exhibition design.

2. 3. 1. FLINDERS UNIVERSITY SOCIAL SCIENCES: PATHWAYS TO WELLBEING PARTICIPATORY SOFTWARE DEMO

The Flinders University project is funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant. It is a social inclusion project targeted to Aboriginal users of social service agencies.

Figure 3: Pathways to Wellbeing Work Station.

Project Team Co-researchers at Neporendi,

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Jon Deakin - PhD Student, Governance & Public Management

Dr Denise DeVries Researcher, informatics and engineering.

Assoc Prof Janet McIntyre - Chief investigator, policy & management, critical systemic approach.

Assoc Prof Doug Morgan - Chief investigator, cultural studies and Aboriginality

Kim ODonnell, mentor at CRCAH, Flinders University Prof Anne Roche - Chief investigator, public health Prof John Roddick - Chief investigator. Informatics and engineering

Prof Tonietta Walters, Graphics and Second Life designer Bevin Wilson Mentor at Yunggorendi

Project Description Demonstration of the Pathways to Wellbeing software involves two people sitting alongside each other while using the software on a computer screen in an art gallery setting located on the Flinders Island. The demonstration Second Life must be recorded and linked to the Pathways to Wellbeing website as per the slides. Each registrant must have an avatar in order to book a time to watch a real time demonstration. Registrants need to nominate if they wish to try out the software. Time will be allocated for people to try out the software after the demonstration. Registrants have the option of providing some artwork to post in the gallery of what wellbeing means to them.

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3. SECOND LIFE AS DIGITAL HUMANITIES

The choice of an installation or assemblage of objects is meant to emphasize a feeling of place. In creating a "space", the viewer is given an area to "approach". This will mirror the experience of creating; where the mental gaze is fixed on a goal and this goal space is something to work toward. This way, the viewer processes information from the reference point of their own experience translating from a visceral or aesthetic response to intellectual understanding. In Second Life, where both 2-dimensonal and 3dimensional artworks can be displayed as reinterpretations of real life creations, the concept of installation is exponentially extended by the possibility of informational augmentation. Substantiating speculative theory in aesthetics and philosophy of mind necessitates ensuring both reliability and efficiency in information processing, documentation and preservation including broadening the network of information from individual subjective experience to a global sampling of artists and cultures. Digital Humanities according to the National Endowment for the Humanities is an umbrella term for a number of different activities that surround technology and humanities scholarship where most of these digital humanities activities involve collections of cultural heritage materials, which are one of the primary objects of study for researchers across all humanities disciplines. (Bobley 2008) Current virtual world technology is an essential component for solving the problem of appropriate levels of interaction. While there is the issue that 3D worlds are clearly not appropriate architectures for disseminating large amount of information, as neither lectures nor expansive documents work well with new means of communication. These limitations ironically encouraged creative cooperation and interaction (Di Blas, Paolini and Hazan 2003)

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Because of international availability, Second Life allows for a more diverse participation of artists using low-tech traditional media to contribute and collaborate as in the Flow Exhibition [Section 2. 1. 1.]. The viewer experiences an immersive environment and a sense of spatial interactivity with the artworks as in a virtual reality game. Gaming as social undertaking also informs the usability of Second Life for more serious pursuits. The social nature of Second Life is a critical component of understanding what it is and how it can, and should, be used. (Urban et al 2007) The participatory model [Section 2.3] combines aspects of both gallery (the presenting of artists) and museum (the presenting of objects) processes for a more comprehensive gathering of information and cultural knowledge. The development of synchronous and social activities, such as lectures, collaborative builds, and accepting feedback from visitors, is a hallmark of SL museums. (Urban et al 2007) The layering of methods in creating a virtual environment for preservation enables the possibility of dialogue combining the methodology of library sciences and artistic expertise in experiences involving a deep subjectivity. This opens up additional possibilities for fruitful inter-subjective and/or experimental approaches.

3. 1. CITY OF SUZANO EXHIBITION AT MIAMI DADE COLLEGE VIRTUAL MUSEUM IN SECOND LIFE
The Office of Cultural and Architectural Heritage for the City of Suzano in the Alto Tite Region of Sao Paolo, Brazil wants to preserve the cultural heritage of their diverse peoples - including large Japanese and Afro-Brazilian populations. They envision a project of digital preservation that includes a virtual reality component. The Arts Office Net, Inc. in the US and the artists of The Arts Office Brazil in Suzano will work with Miami Dade College

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(MDC) to create a virtual world exhibition at the MDC Virtual Museum in Second Life.

Figure 4: Miami Dade College Virtual Museum.

The MDC Virtual Museum will be housed in a building that combines aspects of real world brick and mortar spaces with physically unrealizable design elements, thereby creating an environment that is at once familiar and fantastic. As a familiar space, the museum will allow visitors to engage in ritual (Duncan 1995) not in the religious sense, but in terms of behaviors traditionally associated with cultural institutions, i.e. quiet contemplation and academic inquiry. As an imaginative space, the museum will provide an environment uniquely conducive to creative pursuits, and in which direct interaction between visitor and object is encouraged and facilitated. This type of engagement is one of three visit-rituals that define museum ecology (Bell 2002), the other two being liminality and sociality. The ability to socialize is a

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fundamental component of virtual worlds. Second Life is very much a social network, in which residents have the freedom to represent themselves exactly as they wish in terms of physical appearance, and where interaction with strangers is not only common and acceptable, but is often the expected behavior.

3. 1. 1. EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
The MDC Virtual Museum will provide unique educational opportunities for students and researchers. Faculty from a variety of disciplines may be inspired to design exhibition-based curriculum that incorporates one or more of the Colleges General Education Learning Outcomes, a set of ten learning goals that emphasize the lifelong skills needed to be successful in work and life and to participate in our society as a global citizen. The museum will serve as an additional course writing assignment for the Philosophy of Religion and Philosophy of Art sections of an Introduction to Philosophy course. A portion of the museum project also includes a student gallery to offer the students from the MDC Computer Arts & Animation program the opportunity for hands-on extra-credit assignments of creating additional art objects and spiritual rituals within the virtual museum setting including interactive reference material. Specific learning outcomes that apply to the City of Suzano exhibition include: 1. Exhibition Design a. Within the 3D virtual environment, design students learn to visually & spatially organizing objects for maximum interactivity. b. The humanities course will be enriched by the optimal visually and spatially designed immersive environment. 2. Digital Cataloguing

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a.

Design students learn the process of embedding reference material within the virtual objects and to create graphic interactive displays.

b.

Humanities students will benefit from having the combination of visual and textual reference.

3. Cross Cultural Sensitivity a. Design students create objects and environments to represent a specific culture. b. Humanities students will be exposed to immersive representations of other cultures.

3. 1. 2. INTERPRETIVE/REFERENCE MATERIALS
Interpretive materials that typically accompany museum objects can be delivered to the virtual visitor in a variety of ways, incorporating interactive access to a variety of information resources.

Figure 5: Artist Information Board.

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These materials, embedded in or near the images and objects, may include: 1. Documentary and multimedia artistic video of specific cultural and/or spiritual rituals. 2. Commentary/analysis of the artwork by course instructors or other authoritative voices. 3. Documentary video of the artist at work. 4. Primary source material, such as artist narratives or interviews from the participatory collaboration process. 5. An image gallery of additional real world works by the artist, and/or similar works by other artists, possibly representing other cultures, time periods, etc. 6. Questions for visitors to consider when viewing individual works or the exhibition as a whole. 7. Hyperlinks to related locations within Second Life to which visitors may teleport. 8. Hyperlinked bibliography or virtual reference shelf providing point-of-need access to relevant library holdings available in electronic format. 9. Point-of-need access (via embedded widget) to Ask-aLibrarian, a joint project of the Tampa Bay Library Consortium and Floridas College Center for Library Automation, which provides virtual reference assistance via live chat or email.

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Figure 6: Notecard giver.

The listed interpretative and reference materials, including topical menus with pre-recorded responses from which the visitor may interactively select, would be delivered through various applications and options: 1. Text-based note-card 2. HUD (Heads-up Display) attachments 3. Greeting Bot (human like automated information kiosks) 4. Looping slideshow display, or other multi-media 5. Future possibilities include the incorporation of augmented reality mobile technologies such as QR codes, which are barcodes that can be scanned by camera phones and smartphones, allowing a visitor to collect information about the object with a hand-held device.

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The virtual visitor is afforded the opportunity to interact with objects in a manner only possible within a virtual environment including the ability to rotate a three-dimensional work, to immerse oneself in a work with Second Lifes mouseview feature, or to participate in a spontaneous or scheduled real-time discussion with other museum visitors in different parts of the world. The attention to theoretical and practical groundwork of preserving spiritual and cultural heritage as outlined throughout provides an integrated methodology for virtual world assimilations of real world concepts; therefore the virtual visitor has the ability to manipulate these resources to meet personal preferences to information processing, thus bolstering comprehensive epistemic objectives.

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REFERENCES:
Bell (2002) Making sense of museums: The museum as cultural ecology. Intel Corporation 1999-2002. Bobley (2008) Why the Digital Humanities? Presentation to the National Council on Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, July 24. Burnham (2005) Kants Aesthetics, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, June 30. Csikszentmihalyi (1996) Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York, NY, USA. Duncan (1995) Civilizing rituals: inside public art museums, Routledge, New York, NY, USA. Di Blas, Paolini and Hazan (2003) The SEE Experience: Edutainment in 3D Virtual Worlds, Museums and the Web 2003, Charlotte, NC, USA, March 1922. Greene (2001) A Model of 42 Models of Creativity, School of Policy Studies, Kwansei Gakuin University, Sanda, Japan. Rogerson (2008) The Problem of Free Harmony in Kant's Aesthetics, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY USA Urban et al. (2007) A Second Life for Your Museum: 3D Multi-User Virtual Environments and Museums, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2007, San Francisco, CA, USA, April 11-14.