AW: The Oral - Visual lives next door

[Michael Herman]

hi all...

woke up this bright, cool sunny morning here in chicago thinking about this
oral, visual conversation thread... and remembering my friend who's just
starting to write a dissertation on taste, smell and touch... and the
personal/social implications of making those 'intimate' senses primary to the
'distal' senses of seeing and hearing.  his language is peppered with bites,
tastes, flavors, yums, yuks, smellies and other whiffs.

it occurs to me that in this recent imagine chicago conference, we had the
computers and the wiki, but also painting for all, and drums and such, a day on
storytelling and place... and while we had fairly standard (but tasty)
box-sorts of lunches, we also had a gala benefit dinner with dancing on the
first of five nights together and finished on the last night with a big dinner
and cookout at the sponsor's home.

i'm also noticing being in a bit of a lull in terms of getting things processed
around here after being gone for most of the last five weeks.  was finding it
hard to hunker down and chew through the necessary informatino processing
post-travels and post-conference.  while i've been eating healthy whole organic
sorts of foods as my habit, it seems that a couple of more 'processed' subway
(franchise restaurant) sandwiches seems to have helped kick me into gear.  we
are what we eat?  ...and so what if we could eat what we are, or what our work
together is?

so what if we forget the computer room or move it over to make room for the
conference kitchen?  the dance floor (not so uncommon) and other tasty, smelly,
touchy processing places?  we do some of this already, of course.  but what if
the evening meal *was* the proceedings and we all were able to take it fully
into our beings?  would not the proceedings necessarily turn into becomings?

and now i do believe it's time for breakfast.

m



Visuelle Protokolle wrote:

> Bernd, Chris and all:
>
> Bernd, you touched me like so many others with your description of your
> work, of your tasks. and Chris, you have to give so many astonishing
> insights. you say:
>
>   It seems to me anyway, that writing,
> >talking and sensing are all communication strategies, and while
> >certain cultural contexts will select some strategies over others,
> >all strategies are available to everyone
> >
>  "there" .... is a message
> >that is transmitted orally, although the reminders are all visual
> >and kinesthetic: dances, masks, carvings, and so on.  All of these
> >things "carry" the story with them.
> >
> >
>  Low context cultures, in my opinion, tend to be less
> >comfortable with the limited information that sometimes comes out of
> >Open Space small groups, where people have been too engaged in the
> >process of conversation to write down much of what was said.  ... reading
> the reports in no way helps to
> >explain ... why it was such a high ...
>
> When we get touched by descriptions of the life in oral/visual cultures, we
> can look at the strange qualities of these cultures like in a prehistoric
> museum  and go home afterwards. go on living as usual, going to Open Space
> and writing texts as usual, with very limited information - and poor
> touching quality.
>
> Or we can realize, that the oral - visual type actually lives next door, or
> even lives in us.
>
> For me it was always hard to understand how such a brilliant thing like Open
> Space is normally documented in the most traditional and poor way, by
> writing texts. and even worse, because like Chris points out, Open Space has
> all the potential of engaging people. when it was "such a high", and then
> some poor guys have to stay and make their homework and write something,
> produce more of the same, texts.
>
> I talked to Harrison Owen about that some years ago in an Open Sapace at the
> lake of Starnberg in Bavaria, but seemed not to get his attention.
>
> We accompanied about ten Open Spaces and made visual protocols. mainly
> pictures, some words, no long texts. Everybody was happy. Sometimes people
> made their written reports as well, sometimes not. But what counted was the
> pictures. People loved to find their contributions as pictures. And were
> astonished to "get the whole picture" at the end (and even in brochure form
> a bit later), to really see what had happened in all the groups. We made the
> astonishing experience, that is was sufficient to visit every group just for
> about ten minutes to catch the story. we asked people to look critically,
> but seldomly were asked to correct or add something. once a consultant said:
> only by your pictures I understood what happened. I know that I am good, and
> would have brought in my view of the theme and would have gone home proudly.
> By your pictures I suddenly realized the quality of the contributions of the
> others, and how we enriched each other and together reached to a higher
> level!
>
> There we are! even in a low context culture we can reach  experiences of
> inner satisfaction, joy, understanding, just by awakening the oral-visual,
> sometimes visional guy in us. it is easy, it is fun, it goes deep, it is
> sustainable. which method could gain more from this fact than Poen Space!
>
> I believe that the Open Space method simply was not fully developed yet.
> maybe that is a sacrilege, but once I found the oral (Open Space) visual
> (Visual Facilitaion) combination to work so well, to work inside of us,
> mostly all of us, why be satisfied with less?
>
> Reinhard
>
> VISUELLE PROTOKOLLE
> Kuchenmueller & Dr. Stifel
>
> Munich Germany
>
> Tel: +49-89-202 447 48
>
> http://www.visuelle-protokolle.de
>
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--

Michael Herman
300 West North Avenue #1105
Chicago IL 60610
312-280-7838 voice
312-280-7837 fax

http://www.michaelherman.com
...an invitation.

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