My creativity advent calendar 2024: Day 20.
“Creativity is Our Real Capital.” German artist Joseph Beuys 1921–1986
Do you see art as separate from the rest of life? A sort of optional add-on that governments alternately ignore and pay lip service to? Something that is dropped from education programmes in favour of more practical subjects?
Joseph Beuys is known for his “extended definition of art” in which the ideas of social sculpture could potentially reshape society and politics. Beuys created the term “social sculpture” to embody his understanding of art’s potential to transform society. As a work of art, a social sculpture includes human activity that strives to structure and shape society or the environment. The central idea of a social sculptor is an artist who creates structures in society using language, thoughts, actions, and objects.
I’ve been a fan of Audrey Tang since becoming aware of her work in the pandemic. While she probably wouldn’t describe herself as an artist she definitely fits Beuys definition in creating social sculpture. Tang is a fervent believer in open data, open governance, and civil society-government collaboration.
A month before the WHO declared a global pandemic Taiwan had started organizing one of the world’s most successful mobilizations against Covid-19. Audrey’s work with an informal group of civic tech hackers in taking over the government’s communications with residents resulted in her appointment as Taiwan’s first ever Digital Minister. It was largely due to the work of the civic tech hackers that Taiwan had the second lowest death rate in the world (N.Z. had the lowest).
Taiwan’s history fuelled the rise of the g0v (gov zero) movement in 2012, led by civic hackers who wanted to increase transparency and participation in public affairs. The movement started by creating superior versions of government websites, which they hosted on .g0v.tw domains instead of the official .gov.tw, often attracting more traffic than their governmental counterparts. The g0v movement has since launched more initiatives that seek to use technology to empower Taiwanese citizens, such as vTaiwan, a platform that facilitates public discussion and collaborative policymaking between citizens, experts, and government officials.
At the start of the pandemic these platforms were use to gamify things like vaccine take up and for “pre-bunking” misinformation (anticipating and acting on things that might otherwise need de-bunking) and had a huge impact. This was done by creating a public dashboard which made it possible to monitor the reproduction rate of fake news — a tool similar to spam notifications. Another tactic, labelled “Humor over Rumor”, was to tap into Taiwan’s meme culture and counter fake news by publishing cute photos of a Shiba Inu, a Japanese dog which is very popular in Taiwan, explaining the facts in a humorous way.
The supply of facemasks, contact tracing, and “pro-social social media” which is funded by, but not controlled by, the state, were just some of the things that worked really well. Audrey shows that the key to ensuring that the internet remains inclusive is to adapt new technologies to fit with what society is comfortable with, rather than asking society to adapt to new technologies.
In Audrey’s view, civic technologies have more creativity and legitimacy compared to the central government — and bridging their respective ideas is her central task. Although Audrey’s work came to prominence in the pandemic, she is now involved in a global move to bring collaborative technology to the heart of democracy.
When she was appointed as Digital Minister she was asked to write her own job description and chose these words to describe how she saw the role:
When we see the Internet of Things, let’s make it an Internet of beings.
When we see virtual reality, let’s make it a shared reality.
When we see machine learning, let’s make it collaborative learning.
When we see user experience, let’s make it about human experience.
Whenever we hear that a singularity is near, let us always remember that plurality is here.
Look out for Audrey’s work. It is art and it could save the world. https://docs.plurality.net/
Plurality aims to offer a roadmap for a future in which technology and democracy not only co-exist but thrive together.
Audrey advocates for a ‘plurality’ approach, where diverse perspectives are embraced and consensus is not the goal. She believes in ‘radical trust’ and transparency, using technology to foster open dialogue and collaboration between citizens and the government. Key points include: 1) Embracing diversity and dissent rather than seeking consensus. 2) Using technology to enable direct democracy and citizen participation. 3) Promoting transparency and open data to build trust. 4) Encouraging collaboration and co-creation between citizens and the government. 5) Viewing democracy as an ongoing process rather than a fixed system.
