Third Infoscape

Definition

The Third Infoscape is the Third Landscape of the infosphere.

It is composed of the vast network of content and relations through which the communication ecosystem manifests itself.

The Third Infoscape is composed by myriads of micro-stories, generated by the bits of data, information, posts, images, reactions, etc, taken in their irreducible complexity and interactions. The Third Infoscape cannot be described in terms of simple geometries, but as complex fractals and attractors: not in terms of communication campaigns and their effects, but in terms of all of the sub-narratives which emerge, of the polyphony of chit-chats, gossips that interweave all acts of communication, just like gardens, when left alone, grow weeds and unexpected flowers.

It is interesting how when speaking about the Third Infoscape, Clément does not allude in any way to the end of the gardner. Instead, he says that if the gadrner of the ordinary garden uses rakes, and shovels as his tools, the gardner of the Third Landscape uses knowledge and the wind.

Why is it important

The Third Infoscape is important because it’s an ecological and non reductionist way of looking at and of thinking about communication and about flows of information and knowledge. It is also very realistic, meaning that it allows to dive deep into how human beings actually build and experience their communication and learn. This is even more true in environments with a high level of technological mediation. In fact, any communication, no matter how designed it is, is always composed by myriads of micro-histories, interacting ecologically in complex ways: interpretations, informalities, gossips, rumours, just like weeds in the gardens. But these are not negative, but constitute a vast part of the ways in people learn things, just like “weeds” in the garden constitute a precious way in which plants migrate, move, create soil dynamics, and more. It also interesting because, just like the natural enviroment, the Third Infoscape requires little energy use: just like when you don’t maintain your garden “nature takes over”, quickly restarting the cycles of plant migration, movement and dynamic.

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Data is Existential

Definition

Data (and the computation that is needed to process it) cannot be dealt with as a merely techical issue anymore.

Data and computation are cultural artifacts. To be able to understan a phenomenon through data, one must choose how to measure it, according to what ideology, which determines what variables to watch, how, using what sensors etc.

Data is applied ideology.

On top of that, the aspects of our lives and of our environment which depend on large quantities and qualities of data, or which are understandable only through this data, are many, and are destined to grow.

For this, we say that is not technical anymore, but cultural and existential.

Why is it important

We can understand and act on most of the complex, global issues of our globalized, hyperconnected world only through enormous quantities and qualities of data, and through the computation that is needed to process them.

But, at the same time, data is the largest extractive phenomenon of our planet, more than oil, carbon and all the rest. This is not only endangering our privacy, rights and freedoms, but also our existence itself.

The concept of “data is existential” is important because being able to establish a new alliance with computational agents so that we can include data in our realm of sensibillity is fundamental to inhabit the world we live in, and to exist in it.

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Tragedy

Definition

By definition, Tragedy is that which has no solution.

Complex issues (like Climate Change, Poverty, Pandemics, Migrations, and all the issues which are and will be coming up in these and in the next few years) are a Tragedy.

Which means that they don’t have a technical solution, in enginneering / design terms, because, as complex issues, they cannot be subdivided into smaller problems.

Yes, they can sometimes be decomposed and their single blocks can be mitigated through engineering / design solutions such as products, services, apps etc. But doing this would not mean to address the complex issue, because in complex issues the interdependencies between the bocks, and the effects they create, is just as important as the blocks themselves.

Complex issues can be approached only through systemyc change.

 

Why is it important

Tragedy is followed by Agnition, which is the acquisition of the capacity to recognize, to see, to feel the transformed condition into which we have fallen, the presence of the diffused “enemy”, and, thus to perceive and understand the world as it will be, since that there is no solution.

Tragedy will not go away, which means that we will have to find another way to live: systemic change.

The concept of Tragedy (and of Agnition) is important to understand how to formulate strategies to confront with Ecosystemic, Complex challenges.

It also is very important in how it shows how Art can have a strategic role in confronting with these types issues, in collaboration with Sciences, Technology and Society.

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