Parallel Communities

2007 Computer Arts Festival Theme

Using Digital Tools to Bridge Parallel Communities.

In an effort to create connections between different communities, the Richland College Computer Arts Festival will collaborate with other institutions to create The Parallel Festival.

Events will be happening at each of the participating institutions: Richland, UT Dallas, El Centro College, and the Bath House Cultural Center. Other events will take place in a virtual online environment.

We exist in parallel communities; let's learn to live in them.

You can interpret Parallel Communities to refer to the new online communities like Second Life and My Space. You can also apply the term to parallel geographic, cultural, and even fictional environments.

As you ride the Dart Train to your next destination, think of the people around you.  We live, work, raise families and create culture often without the skills and the means to reach out and communicate with people living parallel to our existence and our needs.

We need to experience other cultures in order to better see our own.

As part of the Computer Arts Festival, we invite everyone to use the tools of the new digital age to celebrate community and its richness.

Where does the term Parallel Communities come from?

The term is not without controversy and questions that need to be voiced if not answered now.

Recently the British Foreign Secretary and leader of the House of Commons, Jack Straw, lamented about Muslim women with their faces covered. He said that in England, communication often comes from reading the face of those with whom we talk. Wearing a burqa or hijab face covering creates a “parallel community.”

“You cannot force people ... where they live, that's a matter of choice and economics, but you can be concerned about the implications of separateness and I am.”
 
As an artist, I am intrigued by the term “Parallel Communities.”  How are we to deal with this term?

The artists who embraced the terms “Fauvism” and “Cubism” as titles for their art movements fascinate me. Fauvism and Cubism, were both originally meant as derisive terms by critics like Louis Vauxcelles and artist like Henri Matisse. Though Matisse and Vauxcelles had been champions of avant-garde movements, they rejected the new art forms they were presented with. These avant-garde art movements were parallel communities that thrived because the artists were strong in their convictions and fortified their own community with their beliefs. They never stopped reaching out to the community that rejected them.

It is a natural part of our being to seek support and acknowledgment of our beliefs.  Can we maintain our convictions and our community, but overcome barriers and travel between the parallel communities?

Moreover, in the new world of mass communications, local culture might be threatened with extinction. Can they avoid the danger that globalization often implies homogenization?

Let's look at it another way. Local culture can remain in isolation by selecting communications that only affirm and conform to that culture. Can it avoid the danger that customizing communication sources often implies alienation?

We need to find space for our parallel communities. Interactions between Parallel Communities will continue to be a fact of life in our current interconnected world of email, cell phones and easy travel. These connections can turn into clashes if we do not use the tools we have available to build bridges to learn from and contribute to communities other than our own.

At the same time, our existence on this planet requires that everyone share some common values. Can we have space to be ourselves, but also to respect the basic rights and values of others once we learn who and what they are?

Our festival will demonstrate how using tools of the digital age will help us to create transitions and move between parallel communities.

You are an important part of our festival. We invite your thoughts and responses. We want the public to participate in our discussion of community.  Students --share your ideas in digital form for print, video and web exhibits.

Explore parallel communities with us.  At our festival we promise an "out of body experience" in a way you never imagined.

Dwayne Carter, Festival Director