We Are Electric. CHARLIE TIMS / MARCH 2011 / TRULY YOURS / STOCKHOLM

I often get distracted by the ʻinternet for beginnersʼ class that happens through the glass window.

A teacher, following a sheet of instructions, prompts the class through a series of exercises. She explains what a search engine is, what google is, what wikipedia is, what directgov is...

The people taking the class sit at their computer terminals, fingers hovering over their keyboards, staring at the prompt-sheet, squinting at the screen. Everything is so alien to them.

Itʼs hard to imagine quite what it must be like to do these things for the first time.

And somehow that doesnʼt seem fair. Mostly theyʼre just learning a new way of doing what they already do.

A new way to pick up yellow pages, make a phone call and order a book. A new version of buying a magazine, looking at an advert in a newspaper, picking up the telephone and calling a shop. A new way to telephone the grocers and ask them to make a home delivery.

Itʼs the interface thatʼs alienating. Not what they are doing.

So, when I was watching this a few weeks ago, I was thinking - why not just give them an interface thatʼs a bit more familiar.

Have a button for Eggs. One for a TV license. chocolate biscuits. saucy magazines. wikipedia button.

a button for Eggs.

One for a TV license.

chocolate biscuits

wikipedia button.

saucy mag button

Then I thought, well maybe that already exists.

Internet looks like a phone. Phone that looks like the internet.

Actually, theyʼre not different.Itʼs just that my ʻinternet phoneʼ is a shit internet phone.

The point being. All this stuff with computers, and mice and browsers - it created an idea that there was a different digital world, when actually what has been happening is the gradual electrification of our relationships. Now we are electric.

An evolution in our ability to make telephone calls to

people

knowledge

things

and people and their things

& people and their knowledge

This means that itʼs increasingly ridiculous to think about the ʻonlineʼ and the ʻofflineʼ worlds. The web canʼt be divided from real-life. Itʼs like talking about the ʻstreet lit worldʼ and the ʻnon-street lit world.ʼ Everyone seems to accept that we are now in a:

Singular Electronic Environment

We know this because

Electric Communities

So what is an electric community? Itʼs a community that needs electricity to come together.

Electric communities are not ʻnew communitiesʼ. They just tend to be easier to bring together, because they are powered by electricity.

Here are some;

ʻI didnʼt know there were people like me..ʼ

The Impulse:

is key here.

The consequences of this in on the street &

in the city can be summed up by the

following statement.

We can

see more

niche things

less predictably.

We can

see more

4.

The economics of infinite shelf space probably applies to electric communities in cities in the same way as they apply to electric books on amazon. Think of the city as a shelf. And communities as books. Amazon can fit more books on their shelf. We can fit more electric communities into the city.

So you could probably say that the ʻeconomics of infinite shelf spaceʼ apply to electric communities in cities in the same way as they apply to electric books on amazon. Think of the city as a shelf. And communities as books. Amazon can fit more books on their shelf. We can fit more electric communities into the city. Its the same logic.

We can

see more

Niche Things

Electric communities tend to be more spatially efficient. And they can come together around more specialized tasks. They only exist for as long as they have to - which means there is more space for ʻnicheʼ communities in the same place.

We can

see more

niche things

less predictably.

when communities can rehearse online they can appear on the stage anywhere.

Here some ʻolderʼ more traditional sources of community from some research I did a few

years ago, looking for the public life of cities.

to

communities that you choose.

communities that choose you

A shift in the balance from

no shared interests can be presumed.

The Electric Anxieties

Electric people are destabilize the way we recognise ourselves. When more things are visible - how do we know who we are? What is a trend? When is a trend a trend? If itʼs easier to mobilize 10,000 people - how do we know whether 10,000 people are significant or not. How do we know who to listen too?

If we can see more of ourselves,

then who are we?

If communities are niche,

what are we sharing?

Electric communities enable more ways to share with other people, more deliberately. Some of these are more surgical, some of these are more instrumental, some of these are transactional, some of these are more random. But we call them all sharing. Am I sharing my car with you, or selling it to you when Iʼm not using it? Am I sharing information with you, or broadcasting it at you? Sharing, if thatʼs what it is, doesnʼt seem as intimate as it once was. We share with people we donʼt know. More like doggers, than inuits.

If where something happens is less predictable,

Electric communities make it easier to transcend physical places and local districts. They also make it easier to live within the people and things we already know. Do electric communities drive the fragmentation and Balkanisation of society into different class and interest communities? Do they help us to reach out beyond ourselves, to our neighbours and to our friends. Do they create or do they erode social solidarity?

what do we have in common?

Invent Places of Democracy

Electric communities concentrate values.

Great for more freedom.

Great for niche collaboration and inter-dependency.

Great for being less predictable, routing around, undermining disposing of illegitimate governments and big bureaucracies and businesses.

Which is

But we are left with a deficit of places that can

hybridise values

Healthy democracies have always had these.

Looking for public spaces is a good way to start.

We need to start looking for them.

Define Public Spaces as those that can be ʻaccessed, shared and governed by

different groups of peopleʼ.

Defend Shared Places

Design Shared Spaces

Make Shared

Decisions

Shared DecisionsDesigned SharingShared Places

Hybridised ValuesCollaborative Design

We ThinkRival Social Action

Electric Liberty

We Are Electric. CHARLIE TIMS / MARCH 2011 / TRULY YOURS / STOCKHOLM