[ISEA2011] Panel: Donna Leish­man – Dig­i­tal­ism and The More Knowl­edge­able Other

Panel Statement

Panel: Without Sin: Taboo and Freedom within Digital Media

In So­cial De­vel­op­ment The­ory Vy­got­sky (1978) ar­gues that so­cial in­ter­ac­tion pre­cedes de­vel­op­ment; con­scious­ness and cog­ni­tion are the end prod­uct of so­cial­iza­tion and so­cial be­hav­iour. A Key con­cept of Vy­got­sky’s The More Knowl­edge­able Other (or MKO) refers to any­one who has a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing or a higher abil­ity level than the learner. In these con­tem­po­rary con­texts the MKO could po­ten­tially be rep­re­sented by in­ter­ac­tions on the In­ter­net or ex­pe­ri­ence gleaned from so­cial media. Role test­ing or play­ing is ex­pected to be tran­si­tional – done in our youth, but within on­line and dig­i­tal gam­ing con­texts we can delay and ex­tend this de­vel­op­men­tal process. Both the re­al­ity of an un-chartable (dark) In­ter­net, the ac­knowl­edged rate of change and the sig­nif­i­cantly prob­lem­atic lack of any so­ci­etal sanc­tion or pro­hi­bi­tion, gives ‘us’ more space and op­por­tu­nity to ex­plore the taboo and ad­dress re­pres­sion. With ex­tended ex­plo­rations of self brings is­sues around con­scious­ness, to­tal­iza­tion of in­de­tity and what is au­then­tic and what now con­sti­tutes healthy be­hav­iour?

  • Dr. Donna Leish­man is a media artist and re­searcher and is based in Scot­land.  Her crit­i­cal writ­ings and pre­sen­ta­tions cover the so­cial re­cep­tion of dig­i­tal media and the in­ter­sec­tion of nar­ra­tive with in­ter­ac­tiv­ity. Themes in the re­search in­clude de­vel­op­ing and ex­plor­ing the role of the par­tic­i­pant, is­sues around iden­tity and clo­sure and in­ter­ro­gat­ing the aes­thetic con­se­quences of dif­fi­cult in­ter­ac­tions and dis­so­nance. Leish­man has pre­sented for: ISEA2010 (Ruhr Area, Ger­many), Dig­i­tal Art Weeks Xi’an (China), CRUMB/Cul­ture Lab (New­cas­tle), Cul­tureNet/Capi­lanou Uni­ver­sity (Canada), IOCT De Mont­fort Uni­ver­sity (Leices­ter) FITC (Toronto), CHI 2011 (Van­cou­ver) and ISEA2011 (Is­tan­bul). Her works have been fea­tured in The New York Times, The List, The Her­ald, Cre­ate On­line, Com­puter Arts, The Scots­man, The Guardian, Desk­top Mag­a­zine (AUS), TIR­WEB and De­sign Week. Since 1999 her web­site   6amhoover.com   has been the plat­form to ex­pe­ri­ence her in­ter­ac­tive pro­jects. Her art­works have been pre­sented in mu­se­ums, gal­leries, con­fer­ences and fes­ti­vals around the world in­clud­ing: UkinNY fes­ti­val (NYC), Re­sis­tor Gallery (Toronto), Cen­tre for Con­tem­po­rary Art (Glas­gow), TechnoPo­etry Fes­ti­val (Geor­gia Tech) DeCor­dova Mu­seum (Boston) OFFF (Barcelona). Dig­i­tal Arts & Cul­ture con­fer­ence (Mel­bourne), M.I.T (Boston), The Six Cities Fes­ti­val (Glas­gow) De­sign­ers­block – The Scot­tish Show (Milan/Lon­don) ELO Vi­sion­ary Land­scapes (Van­cou­ver USA) and the Elec­tronic Lit­er­a­ture Col­lec­tion Vol­ume One. She lec­tur­ers in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion De­sign at Dun­can of Jor­dan­stone Col­lege of Art and De­sign in Dundee. Leish­man is the cur­rently ex­ter­nal ex­am­iner for the MRes in Dig­i­tal Media at New­cas­tle Uni­ver­sity’s Cul­ture Lab. 6amhoover.com