Blogs

The first keynote speaker at AoIR 2005 is Ang Peng Hwa from the Singapore Internet Research Centre (SIRC) at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore - nice to see someone else who's come a long way to be here... He notes that this is an important time to do Internet research, and in particular to do work on Internet governance. He begins by outlining some of the background to Internet governance issues: originally, there was relatively little government interest in this issue, up to and including the 1998 International Forum on the White Paper (IFWP) on Net governance in various locations. Of 45 governments invited, only three attended the Singapore meeting of the IFWP - India, Singapore, and Malaysia -, for example.

Well, the 2005 Association of Internet Researchers conference is finally underway. We start the Thursday morning 'Civic Engagement' session at with a paper by Irene Ramos-Vielba on the use of political blogs in Portugal and Spain, and their potential contribution to democracy.

Irene Ramos-Vielba: Political Blogs in Spain and Portugal

Blogs have of course be recognised in the Anglo-Saxon context already, so how does this play out elsewhere? Are blogs creating an authentic political sphere for deliberation and political action? Journalism and politics are of course two of the key fields which have been affected by blogs as they comment on and promote discussion on political issues - but what is the contribution made? A polarisation between civil pessimists and civil optimists has now perhaps been overcome - we are no longer prediction either a utopia or dystopia that is likely to be brought about by blogs. Rather, what emerges is perhaps an additional political sphere which allows for communal and multidirectional exchange, and may enhance the democratic process.

(Chicago) The one thing which sets the United States apart from anywhere else in the world is this, of course: donuts. I noticed this when I first visited Boston two years ago, and so the first thing I did after I arrived here was to wander down to Dunkin' Donuts to reacquaint myself with this national specialty (well, the first thing I did after a day spent wandering downtown Toronto, which left me with large blisters on both feet, and a very short night was sleep, actually). Donuts in the U.S. aren't the boring, stale, cinnamon-flavoured dough-rings you get elsewhere, but fresh, soft, and available in all manner of exciting flavours. Today I picked a glazed chocolate and a butternut donut for lunch, and wandered down to Linkin, er, Lincoln Park on the Chicago waterfront for an afternoon stroll.

As you might have noticed, the red box that's currently at the top of my blog has grown a little more today - I can now confirm a couple more events as part of my iDC residency in New York (even though these events themselves won't be in NYC...). David Marshall has invited me to participate in a panel discussion at Northeastern University in Boston (12 October, 12 noon), and Mark Tribe has asked me to present my 'Understanding the Produser' lecture at Brown University in Providence (12 October, 5 p.m.), so I'll be doing a bit of a New England railway roundtrip that day.

(Toronto) Well, after all the excitement of the Creative Places + Spaces conference over the last couple of days, today is my day off in Toronto, and I've used it to wander all over town. Toronto is an extremely easy place to get around in, and it's impossible to get lost - the city is neatly divided into a western and an eastern half by Yonge Street, which runs from the lakeshore all the way through town, and on, all up for around 1900km in total! Other than that, the place feels like a bit of a mixed bag to me - big modern shopping centres, office buildings, and hotels are interspersed with dingy strips of shops and a lot of building sites, with little sense of a real centre; the city is also somewhat disconnected from its lakeshore by the rail line and Gardiner Expressway, as well as a large number of parking lots around the baseball and hockey stadiums. And even on Yonge St, as soon as you get just slightly away from the big shopping centres almost every other shop seems to be a sex shop - Torontonians must be a randy lot...

Well, it's the final session of this very exciting conference. Charles Landry and Pier Giorgio di Cicco will do the wrap-up. Charles reflects on the process of starting a revolution - from the individual idea to the broad movement. It is an extended transformative moment, but the question is whether it will linger long and lastingly, so that a legacy is created. He suggests that the resolution has already started, as the many projects mentioned along the way over the last couple of days show - and these are the generators for further action.

And finally we're in the last plenary session for the conference, on the power of new ideas. This is a panel deliberately of people aged 40 or under, to demonstrate that there is a strong future in this creative industries area. This is facilitated by the multitalented Canadian cultural entrepreneur Sharon Lewis, who now introduces the speakers.

Peter MacLeod: Towards Creative Security

Peter MacLeod makes a start; he is the principal of The Planning Desk in Vancouver. He has recently returned from a tour of Canada to investigate the civic infrastructure of the nation, and suggests that both risk and resolution are inherently political ideas. In addition to creative risk, there also is a need for creative security, in analogy to social security: states exist to mitigate risk (especially risk of violence), which is why the violence seen in New Orleans recently was so alarming, and states are indeed perhaps only relevant for the security they provide. However, government has fallen into a rut, always dealing with the same political problems, and the idea that government is a problem and necessarily inept has become all too prevalent.

After a brief break, the second part of this 'Creative City-Building' session has now begun. The first speaker is Rita Davies, the Director of Culture for the city of Toronto.

Rita Davies: Piloting the Creative Iceberg

Rita begins by noting that the key ingredient in any strategy is the creative talent pool. Toronto, she says, has it 'in spades', but how do you work with that talent pool in support of a city-building agenda? The problem is somewhat like piloting an iceberg, but you never known when you're going to run into the Titanic and go seriously off course. Also, what most see and focus on is the relatively small tip of the agenda, but the bulk and power of it lie deep down beneath the surface. The process is key, and stumbling around in the dark sometimes is inevitable; a dogged perseverance sometimes is required.

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This is a conference on the move - from the posh (and very old-fashioned) surroundings of the Fairmont Royal York Hotel Concert Hall we have now been bussed to Toronto's historic distillery district - a rejuvenated area east of the city centre where grand old distillery and factory buildings have been converted into cafes, restaurants, boutiques, and events spaces. Clearly the sort of creative space everyone at this conference has been talking about. I'm now in the Fermenting Cellar, waiting for the start of the 'Creative City-Building' session; this involves two parts with Arian Hassani, and speakers from Toronto, London, Munich, and beyond.

The next session at Creative Places + Spaces is called 'The Art of Creating Beautiful Places' - a panel involving five speakers mainly from Toronto itself. Lance Alexander from the City Manager's Office in Toronto makes a start. He begins by discussing the question of beauty itself - is there a common definition for what a beautiful city is, and therefore how policy and urban development could aim to build one? Architect Mark McClelland suggests that for buildings this is perhaps also a question of age - when they're built they might be in fashion or close to fashion, and fall out of fashion later on; if they survive long enough it may be possible for them to be seen as beautiful, iconic, and timeless - and even historic - again.