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Hola Sue, Thanks for your support. I am working in a novel taking place in 2075 and is the story of a group of high school kids living in a post-technological world. Now days the ins and outs of Arte Nuevo InteractivA'05 is taking up most of my time, but I hope the deities will provide the time for finishing the novel. Actually, I am figuring out how to make it a hypertext novel, but that will flow into the creative process. When I was living in the bay Area in the "big days" of the information delirium ( 1997-1999), I was able to attend a lot of psychological and and physical therapies at the same time I was making my way into the digital world at the Bay Area Video Coalition. These two experiences shaped my relationship with technology in a way I had happened before. A dear friend of mine, Martha Wallner who was the head of Deep Dish TV when I was a coordinator producer, was experiencing a lot od trauma because of the repetitive syndrome effect on her right arm. I have been physically disadvantage since I was born and had feet surgery when I was 12 years old. Always trying to cop of with the disadvantage I had practiced running, ballet, dance and swim as part of the physical therapy and at that moment I realized that in order to prevent the syndrome I had to do a lot of warm ups. Yoga has been part of my life so is stretching and both had been part of my teaching. I also bring spirituality to the class because of my understanding of networks. I am into cosmic energy and for me that is the supreme network. Understanding my connection to it allows me to visualize a more healthier way to deal with digital networks and the drawbacks. I am really happy that in this journey, some of us, still understand the importance of taking care of our body when dealing with the machine On Saturday, April 30, 2005, at 06:24 AM, Sue Thomas wrote: > Hi Raul and everyone > > I was very interested in Raul's comment: > >> >> Two years ago I taught Multimedia at a college in California and I was >> criticized because I introduce Yoga as part of my class. Well, those of >> us who has experienced the systematic disruption of our body by >> technology know that ergonomics is a key issue in the technological >> driven world. To learn how to take care of your body in relation to the >> destructive aspect of the machine is an important knowledge we need to >> acquired in order to avoid self-destruction. > > I absolutely agree with this. I am very interested in the relationship > between body and machine in many ways. My first novel 'Correspondence' > (1992) was about a woman slowly and painfully transforming herself > into a > cyborg, and I have followed that interest in several directions. > > Last year at trAce's Incubation conference > http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/incubation/ I ran a workshop which invited > people to > use dolls, parts of computers and natural materials to make small > maquettes > of themselves in relation to their machines. It was a rather mad event > and > I'm not sure whether it worked or not - see the bizarre photos at > http://travelsinvirtuality.typepad.com/photos/incubation3/ ! (some of > the > participants are on this list, although whether they will own up to > playing > with leaves and circuit boards is another question!) In fact, my > original > plan had been to take them through a series of physical exercises > before we > made the models but when it came to it, I was too shy to ask them to do > that. Does anyone else run any kind of mixed body/technology workshop? > I'd > love to try it with a leader who has more experience than I had! > > In pursuit of the connected body I have also visited Esalen > http://www.esalen.org twice in the last 12 months, where I can explore > body/mind issues without mobile phones and computers (they have recently > made internet access available there but I have not even imagined using > it) > > Yesterday I read an article in Resurgence http://www.resurgence.org > about > biomimicry - ways in which, rather than inventing new ways to do things > all > the time, we can learn from the ways nature has often solved engineering > questions and apply that learning to our own designs. (See also > http://www.bioneers.org) This tied in with the practice of chi gung > which is > often described as 'stand still like a tree'. > > So yes Raul, I think your introduction of yoga makes a lot of sense, > and I'd > encourage you to keep trying to apply it. > > Best > > Sue >