[Xmca-l] Dynamic Land

[Sébastien Lerique]

Dear XMCA list,

I have been following the activity here with much interest for a few
years now (although not always able to keep up with all the extensive
threads), originally discovering this list through the Tim Ingold
articles that are hosted on the Research paper archive (here
<http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/ingold/ingold1.htm> and here
<http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/ingold/ingold2.htm>, both of which
initiated somewhat of a revolution for me, so I would like to take the
opportunity to thank you for hosting them!). This is my first post.

I recently stumbled upon dynamicland.org <http://dynamicland.org/>, and
have been wondering since then if any of you would have thoughts about
such a place/system. If you are not familiar with Bret Victor
<http://worrydream.com/>'s work, it is very much inspired by Seymour
Papert's Mindstorms
<https://www.worldcat.org/title/mindstorms-children-computers-and-powerful-ideas/oclc/263655916?referer=br&ht=edition>:
it revolves around the idea that computers and computing in general will
probably dramatically change the way we learn and think, from birth into
adulthood (as the printing press did), and that there is now an
opportunity to make that a move towards more humane things, instead of
developing devices that physically and mentally isolate us from one
another by having us stare at screens most of the day.

That idea is not new -- the interesting part is that it is being
concretely explored in new implementations: real places such as Dynamic
Land are currently emerging based on these ideas, also rehashing other
creative developments that occurred around the birth of the personal
computer in the late seventies but fell into oblivion in tech
communities (see The Future of Programming
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4>).

You can find a 1 hour presentation of what led to Dynamic Land here: The
Humane Representation of Thought <https://vimeo.com/115154289>. They
also published a zine
<https://github.com/stevekrouse/futureofcoding.org/blob/master/media/dynamicland.pdf>
with more concrete details about the place.

After inserting so many links I feel I should point out that I am not
affiliated in any way or even in contact with the Dynamic Land people!
They simply figured out a way of concretely exploring a theme that
became central to me after reading Ingold, namely the materiality of
thought, meaning and interaction. So I would be very interested in your
thoughts about all this!

Best,

Sébastien -- slvh.fr <https://slvh.fr/>

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