The Book: Witnessing You, on trust and truth in a networked world

Information- and communication technology offers new possibilities to connect. The opportunity to synchronize in time, even when being in far distant places and in different time zones, makes people happy because technology facilitates communication, information, collaboration, and even the joining in moments of celebration.

In the networked society many different types of data become part of our human experience. A phone call, an SMS, a Skype session, Facebook postings, email and search results create a sphere around us in which we meet each other and also meet our selves. Different networks combine as much data as possible to target and inspire individual behaviour. Today this so-called ‘profiling’ results in smart marketing strategies and also affects the way political agencies and secret networks operate while democratic control is not core to these systems.

Internet technology, originally designed for the military, aims to facilitate autonomy and self-organisation as a way to survive a global crisis of any sort. This quality of the Internet resonates in the experience of millions of people. However, today technologies are developed in a neoliberal global ‘free zone’ and human dignity and the well-being of our planet are at stake. No International Court or the United Nations, for example, demand specific design and engineering principles to safeguard human dignity and ecological balance.

Faced with ecological crisis, climate crisis, a financial crisis and an urban civic crisis in which fewer and fewer people trust other people they do or do not know, the same ‘old’ potential of technology can be used to design ‘participatory systems’. Participatory systems, technological platforms to which social structures, agency and human dignity are at the core, help share resources and organize new ways of distributing energy, food, water, healthcare, education, culture and more. In participatory systems, social networks and infrastructure merge to monitor and inspire behaviour of those who participate.

People like to participate, like to be part of a larger whole. In families, in neighbourhoods, in communities and organizations of all sorts, and as current activity on the Internet shows, people like to share.

A new era dawns within which a ‘planetary perspective’ of the social- and ecosystem upon which all life depends, is fundamental. In this era collaboration and sharing in specific and compartmentalized ways – with respect for the earth, its resources and each other – needs to be designed from a local and global perspective at the same time. Fundamental to such ‘participatory systems’ is, how human beings can accept responsibility and will be proud to do so. Participation needs to include that people can be witness to each other.

For thousands of years the being-witness-to-each-other defines dynamics in religious and non-religious families, communities, business and organizations. In the being-witness-to-each-other, trust and truth are negotiated and as a result social structures are shaped. When negotiating trust and truth, people have to take responsibility for their words and deeds. Results of such negotiation, the shared authoring of outcomes, inspire meaning to emerge and cultures to rise.

Being witness and bearing witness to each other is fundamental to the emergence of social structures. By seeing someone doing an action, this action becomes a deed. As a witness one can intervene, take responsibility for what happens next, or testify about what is or has happened and take responsibility for the perception and responsibility for one’s words and deeds. Being and bearing witness acquire a new potential because technology mediates communication and this challenges human experience to the core. Being connected no longer necessitates that human beings are physically witness to each other to accept responsibility for the situation in which they are engaged. New types of witnessing are emerging. For the development of sustainable social structures in future networked societies, witnessing is fundamental. It is key to establishing trust and truth; it is key to a human being’s potential to take responsibility for one’s own life and another’s; and it is key to emerging social structures at large.

In the persona of the witness truth as ‘clarity in perception’ and truth as ‘ethical action’, come together. In truth as ‘clarity of perception’ a witness accepts responsibility for what he or she perceives, judges the situation and testifies to others in communities, organizations, media and courts. When accepting to be witness, and to contribute to truth as an ‘ethical action’, people accept the possibility as a witness and negotiate what should happen next. Today’s ubiquitous technologies affect the process of witnessing in many places and at the same time in other places not at all.

Being witness to each other, having the possibility to address and respond to one another, generates unexpected outcomes. One dares to tell a story one otherwise would not, because a witness accepts a shared responsibility for what is said or will be done. The witness is a courageous persona who accepts risks and challenges when entering the negotiation about the truth and what is good to do. When being witness to hardship like illness, a witness is vulnerable and has to endure situations in which one cannot do anything but to have presence so people will not feel alone and left out. Being witness is the source for complex feelings like compassion, courage, solidarity, endurance and perseverance. Communities and societies benefit when these feelings are part of social dynamics. Trust can f lourish and well-being improves.

Facilitating people to be witness to each other in participatory systems is an enormous ambition and its complexity is beyond most imagination. However, many ingredients have been and are being explored in a variety of social, political, scientific and professional practices. While the new era in the 21st century dawns and human life as we know it is at stake, we have to rethink how we want to be witness to each other: to people we love and relate to, to people we know at a distance and to people who are strangers whose presence and behaviour ultimately also inf luence our own. In participatory systems these bits and pieces can be connected provided that we, as human beings, understand how we can be witness to each other when local and global social dynamics merge.

Making connections as we do on the Internet for example, may not necessarily be the same as being witness to each other. The speed and scale of digital technology create an abundance of data and communication as never before. When not sharing time or space, when not having the possibility to physically touch and intervene, can we be witness to each other? And how does the abundance of media and data affect what we do here and now? How is it that we are witness to each other in a networked world? How do social structures change?

Since the 1980’s in Paradiso in Amsterdam and in a variety of other contexts ‘networked events’ are being orchestrated in which on-and off line audiences participate and engage. Social groups, government officials, hackers, scientists, business people, political activists and artists participate and explore how new technologies may contribute to make a better – more human, more just and more sustainable – world. The contribution of artists in these events is often unique. Unlike others they are capable of sketching today’s footprint on the future. Because artists engage with a feeling and deeper knowing in the place and time in which they live, they are sensitive to the traces we make today that set the scene for tomorrow.

Human experience in building and maintaining infrastructures, including immaterial infrastructures such as a judicial system or a market place, has been built for centuries. The ubiquitous presence of media and social networks around the globe is only a decade old. Nevertheless, essential qualities of these networks are already part of human experience. This artistic research aims to unfold issues we need to take into consideration when designing participatory systems that facilitate witnessing in their core. In this book 13 artists respond to the question ‘What happens when one is witness to the other?’ by making art work and reflecting upon it. Each contribution offers a different perspective. Some artists specifically address the networked world; others address today’s human condition.

The YUPTA framework, acronym for “being with You in Unity of Time, Place and Action”, has and is guiding the artistic research of Witnessing You and the larger research program on Participatory Systems at Delft University of Technology. When presence and trust are at stake, as they are in the emerging network society, not only time and place acquire new configurations, also the way we relate to each other and the possibilities to act we have, change. With the artists each of these dimensions has and is being explored. Specific contributions shed light on the 4 dimensions of change in time, place, action and relation, providing more insight in the factors involved.

With the ubiquitous presence of media and the Internet in the day-to-day life of at least 1 billion people (which is 1/6 of humankind anno 2012) the experience of time is changing dramatically. Half the world population lives in cities where clock time rules. Services the Internet offers, are available around the clock in all time zones of the world. A ‘next nature’ is evolving in which social technological and biological systems merge.

Future participatory systems will include social, technical and biological rhythms to facilitate that the right thing can happen at the right time. Social, technological and biological participants synchronize performance. However, human beings need to be motivated for entering such engagement. Once engaged, they enter the process in which meaning and culture are created and negotiated.

In nature and between humans rhythms integrate. When children are raised on a farm it is natural to them to take care of animals. Accepting responsibility for those animals is part of the games they play. As the story goes, for children who live in the city milk comes from the supermarket. The city experience offers different opportunities than the farm; the playful acceptance of responsibility needs other strategies.

While targeting focused attention of audiences, in the constant ‘media-noise’ peripheral perception acquires more and more significance in individual lives. People need to have personal and empty time to be well.

Sensing time creates a personal time-space in which own experience can unfold. Music offers such time-space in which duration of time can be sensed.

People enjoy ‘to be part of a larger whole’, which is the essential definition of participation. When being engaged, time f lies. People are focused, contribute, fulfilled and have fun. The design of systems and structures has to be robust for being able to include undefined ‘empty time’ from which human experience can emerge. In simple systems and in complex systems, people find ways to participate and use the system or structure to contribute to experiences of their own.

The empty time-space for undefined experience is needed when participation includes being witness to each other. One has to realize though that this empty time-space can be used both in beneficial and detrimental ways. In situations of repression and deprivation the capacity for intelligent and playful participation is continuously challenged. Endurance, compassion and perseverance become a minute-by-minute personal fight for survival.

When giving testimony of detrimental situations to others by way of media, a witness becomes the embodiment of hope. Journalists travel around the globe to gather testimonies. For spectators however, these testimonies are mostly part of individual’s peripheral perception happening in between day-to-day chores. Being the news item and in need of hope, the experience of time is very different to the journalist’s sense of time.

A testimony about a tragedy of a lifetime, has to be communicated in seconds. When testimonies become part of a ‘media-avalanche’ and offer audiences the sense of synchronicity that news provides, their status changes. When the news fades away however, the instance of hope evaporates while the situation endures. Hope then has to be fuelled by imagination, as discussed later on, with possible political action as result.

In situations of repression, when human dignity is at stake, people are denied the right to be witness to each other and negotiate trust and truth to develop a shared understanding. When forced to participate in a detrimental system human beings also easily de-humanize and victimize each other and violence increases.

When testimony is presented as work of art, made to create experience for the spectator, an artist dramatizes and finds essential movement and qualities of a situation or issue to be addressed. He or she then creates a robust structure and leaves empty space-time for the spectator’s experience. Also here, imagination is fundamental to the process both for the artist and the spectator. Complex feelings like inspiration, compassion or beauty, define success.

There are many formats for giving testimony: having a conversation at the dinner table, telling a story to a friend, posting on the Internet, making photographs or film, participating in a television show, writing a novel, making painting, singing a song in church, making minutes of a meeting or giving testimony in court. Each of these ways in which we bear witness has its own time design, which inf luences how memory, imagination and experience merge.

Originally being witness refers to being physically present and ‘inscribing’ what happens with one’s body. One is physically present at the time in the place and what happens affects the witness as well. Ultimately place is the beholder of human experience, because it is where the physical body resides. The technology of networks is disembodied but network experience can be embodied and have considerable impact on how people live and love. However, in real places people can touch and smell and physically intervene in what happens next. People can cook a dinner and taste each other’s food. In networks, shared experiences in shared places become reference points for communicating qualities that technology cannot transmit. If you‘ve ever shared zucchini soup, only mentioning it will bring back the taste. Even though a communication sphere may be intense, there is always the potential moment where the lack of sharing the same place becomes painful. When people fall ill, when you really want to make love, when people are in danger, suddenly the communication sphere evaporates and a feeling of powerlessness dominates.

People experience place in many ways and stories are, as it were, written on the walls. Others recognize these signs of presence before and include these stories in their own experience, leaving traces as well. Often, even, the story of a place is so powerful that people do not perceive the physicality of a place as it is.

In social networks and other Internet sites people share stories, and a sense of place emerges. But can we be witness to each other in these networked narrative landscapes, as we are witness to each other in the street?

It is striking that when mediating presence, almost all networks turn out to have glass interfaces. What is it that glass does that permits us to mediate our presence to other places? Glass is transparent. In houses it shields us from wind and cold and in networks it opens up the world. Above all, glass transmits light and light deeply affects our sense of place.

At night in the dark the ocean is a different place than when the sun is making the water sparkle in the day. Glass always has a refractive index, which defines how light travels through the glass, and how we see the world as consequence. Sharpened lenses can turn the world upside down. Glass consists of sand and some other chemicals and these define how colour is perceived. Whether the world will look greenish, or blue or grey. Visual conventions help us define how natural something looks, but when in need to communicate colour for example, screens cannot do the job. Again here we are dependent on making references to a shared experience in a shared place for being able to communicate.

When being witness to each other, perception in mediated settings remains to be impoverished compared to meeting in real life. Shared strong experiences in real places provide solid references for inspiring communication and as result the potential quality of witnessing online improves.

Net works offer no distance and make no distinction

People see, hear and smell over distance and are capable of feeling connected when not even being in the same place. Through a letter, a phone call or during a Skype session people create spheres of togetherness. As a witness, one is not only part of an event; one witnesses an event as well. When telling a story, the storyteller and the listener are separated. To be witness includes taking a distance while being present in an event. In mediated communication the not sharing of the same place, is a given. But is this distance the kind of distance that a witness needs to be engaged?

Witnessing networks in real life negotiate distance continually. Some people are closer to each other than others. Specific conditions of trust increase proximity or they do not. Distance between different people weaves the social structure. Who witnesses whom and when and where with what result, is defined. Communities create ‘formats’ for having witnessed presence: when a child is born, when people get married, when work is celebrated, when people die and are mourned. Distinct places are an integral part of these formats. In a courtroom different positions of authority have distinct places in the space. A space for mourning is different than a space for celebration.

In social networks online distance is not perceivable nor is the experience of place profound. People connect to a network, enjoy each others contributions and engage. We can perceive the space between a body and a computer or other device we use, but not the space between participants in a network. The web of connections offers a sense of place, and with whomever is there we can connect, but social structures are more difficult to perceive. Because judging social situations online is more difficult, the potential ethical impact of one’s own actions is obscured. Witnessing when negotiating truth as in ‘clarity of perception’ and witnessing as in ‘ethical action’ are both not well defined anymore. Also negotiating trust becomes a challenge. One can decide to go with the flow, or not.

The ‘third witnessing’ perspective

When many people engage, when the flow is strong, emergence and self-organization define network dynamics. Unlike any other witness, networks can gather, aggregate and distribute data at great speed and scale in transparent ways. Also unlike any other witness, the network seems to be neutral.

When people engage online, they have a sense of authorship. Yet a feeling remains that one has some freedom to explore, without having to bear the consequences. One does not feel that one’s own contribution will make a difference. Witnessing between two people, or witnessing a situation of others interacting, is not as profound an experience as when being witness to such situations in real life.

The network offers a complete new witnessing perspective that was never available before. This ‘third witnessing’ perspective unfolds the rhythm and behaviour of all participants as a whole and potentially affects individual behaviour. For instance we can see how all the cars move and identify where traffic jams can be expected. As a result we can adapt our own trajectory. Such ‘alive information’, which changes all the time, is input for participatory systems. It allows effects of human behaviour to be identified real time and because this information is available to all who participate, this influences what people will do next. Dynamics in networks can be difficult to predict. When looking at the financial markets, no one can determine the flow. The phrase that is used again and again, is that people do not trust the market when it goes down and that trust is restored when the markets go up. To decide to jump in the f low is a matter of chance or ‘blind trust’. One cannot be certain how the flow will go. The third witnessing perspective includes all whom participate and addresses and responds to all who participate.

Between witnesses a sphere emerges, in which the possibility to act becomes manifest. Networks offer spheres that people are sensitive to and also include possibilities to act. When designing participatory systems, the third witnessing perspective is fundamental to its dynamics. The grand challenge is how the first and second witness perspective (me and you) can become part of these dynamics. How people can accept responsibility for words and deeds of their own self and other selves? How do people relate to each other in network environments?

In the process of witnessing, when negotiating trust and truth, meaning emerges. A witness signifies what he or she witnesses and culture is distinct in this signification. In Surinam a blue ribbon around the wrist of a child is a sign that someone close to her died. If I do not know the sign, I miss the meaning of the ribbon and may just think it is a bracelet. Through shared experience the process of signification is informed. Often though, meeting so many strangers in real life and online, we have no other option that to project our own culture to what we see or hear.

When meeting strangers processes of projection and identification define how we are witness to each other. In networks online, fewer cues for interaction are available than in physical reality. This opens up a space for projection that may hardly match desired off line physical interaction at all. Interacting with ‘intimate strangers’ is a new experience for human kind and inspires a possible new communication paradigm.

In media and in networks, large groups of people identify easily with people and situations. Dynamics of mass psychology as we know for many centuries, for better and worse, are fuelled with thousands of ‘likes’. Truth is no longer at stake; feelings take over. History has shown that such dynamics can be very detrimental for individual human beings, minorities and for larger groups of people as well. Careful deliberation, inspired by shared ref lection, results in negotiation of trust and truth. Facts matter, and include feelings as well.

Self-witnessing is core

When operating in the global network environment, self-witnessing is a necessity for preserving one’s own well-being as well as for the capacity to communicate with others. Reflection on one’s own ideas, actions, feelings and culture in relation to others inform the balance individuals need to maintain. In real life this is already not an easy process as children have to learn. In network environments this is a greater challenge. Also reflection includes daring to hesitate whereas in the digital world everything is ‘on/ off’. At the same time in networks, third witnessing perspectives contribute to the sense of self. Social networks function as mirrors in which we try to look good. If we smile, the network smiles.

We easily adopt images into our own construction of self. Self-witnessing should include the taking of responsibility for one’s words and deeds. Having an autonomous self that decides to be witness, is a condition for being able to be witness. In this decision process, one needs to be able to deconstruct the reality around. Imagination is fundamental to this capacity. Even though networks are full of imagery, deconstructing media and network noise, is not an easy task. Can we see the river when we swim in it?

The network consists of many individual contributions, but a single contribution bears fewer and fewer significance. This poses fundamental questions about the relation to self in network environments. Possibly it is not so much the relation to others that changes profoundly, but in the first place the relation to our selves that is undergoing deep change. Participatory systems have to address and facilitate the process of self-witnessing. In this process of being witness to one’s self, the self has importance, is significant and is fundamental to any witnessed participation.

In negotiating trust and truth, in deciding what actions to engage in, in expressing one’s perception, in telling stories about what happened, imagination inspires perception, thinking, feeling and reflection. Imagination helps to realize that things can be different. Imagination helps to express emotions and feelings. Because one has imagination one can anticipate consequences of possible actions. Imagination inspires the telling of stories. But most of all, imagination helps to be able to distance yourself from the situation you are in. Imagination provides the distance that the witness needs.

Imagination is a very real part of human existence. Experiences are understood with the help of imagination, and imagination helps to convey experiences to others. Imagination is the vehicle through which people can address and respond to each other. Because I can imagine how you feel, I have compassion. Or because I can imagine the consequences of what you do, I judge your acts. Also, imaginary experiences can be as real as experiences in real life and bring well-being or suffering as result. When human beings identify deeply with a situation, imagination becomes part of perception.

Networks produce different types of images and visualisations of data. But imagination needs more. For imagination to flourish, people need to share ideas and perceptions they have, they need to identify with each other. Imagination and fiction play an important role in process of identification and participation and one needs to be able to distinct between what
is beneficial and detrimental to one’s self.

Self-witnessing is fundamental to be able to participate in healthy and reliable ways, also in online worlds. It helps to embrace what is actually happening now as well as opening up one’s curiosity, which facilitates engagement with what is happening now. In professional contexts this self-witnessing is crucial for being able to relate to one’s own role in a productive manner.

Even in hybrid contexts the physicality of experience plays a significant role while it is clear that new formats for disembodied presence are being introduced. How the impact of the continuous absence of human body will evolve is unclear. It appears that a clear set of rules of engagement makes it possible for human beings to participate. Friction and resistance between systems and human beings who participate, can lead to engagement.

Because people engage and participate, new structures emerge and also systems adapt. Rhythms between people and rhythms between systems and people adapt to each other. Such integration, between different rhythms in social, technological and biological realities, needs to be motivated and inspired for becoming part of human experience. A robust structure in rhythm allows people to create their own experience in between in which personal empty time-space emerges.

To create moments of attention, in which meaning can emerge, is a great challenge in a hybrid context in which most perception is peripheral. There is so much information and there are so many connections.
Through for example music human beings experience time and awareness of attention can be nurtured. Specific moments of attention are those in which shared experience is celebrated. Such moments are of significance for human beings to endure and enjoy periods of engagement.

When one is witness to another, this artistic research shows that dramaturgy and composition of relations, actions, place and time between systems and people, make all the difference for human beings involved. In witnessing, previous experience and imagination have significant impact. Outcome of this research is that when one is witness to another, self-witnessing and imagination are fundamental to this process. Both self-witnessing and imagination are affected in the networked world.

The relation to our selves is undergoing serious change because networks are like mirrors and reflect the self image we have. But shared reflection with others seems to be more of a challenge because the performance of self in network environments does not allow for lingering and hesitation. As individuals we have grown accustomed to using media and networks all day long. None of us realizes that we are actually part of a grand global experiment in which human communication becomes dependent on digital data. The artistic research presented in this book suggests that in this new networked global society human dignity matters and that the concept of witnessing indeed inspires reflection about this.

When we hear a step in the doorway, we imagine a person entering our home. When we hear a laugh in the distance, we imagine how our loved one is in joy. When we remember and create each other’s presence our imagination fuels our mind. And when we think about the children to come, we need all the imagination we have to develop participatory systems and structures in which children can live together, full of imagination, witnessing each other and negotiating trust and truth in friendly ways. We need all the imagination of the world for the planet and our own witnessed presence to survive.

The key question within the Participatory Systems Initiative is ‘how to design systems so human beings can participate and accept responsibility for their actions’. More and more people live in ‘communities of systems and people’ in which material infrastructures (for commodities such as water, electricity, telephony and connectivity) and immaterial infrastructures (law, education and media) are altering social structures significantly.

However, the building of material and immaterial infrastructures has not been contextualized with regard to the effect they have on social structures, larger organizational and business structures and even democracy and its constituencies. The question how systems have to be designed so human beings can participate specifically includes the possibility to take responsibility for one’s own actions in such a systems environment.

The assumption of the Participatory Systems Initiative is that because human beings can take responsibility for their own actions (and can be held accountable), social structures will synchronize with requirements of sustainability. Without the possibility to accept responsibility, human beings should not accept systems because they may be detrimental for those involved and cannot function under the rule of democratic law. Focusing on the possibility for taking responsibility in complex distributed systems environments, The Participatory Systems Initiative focuses on being and bearing witness, as a way to identify how human presence in relation to one another should be designed to include responsibility in order to safeguard that establishing trust and truth remains to be foundational for future social structures human beings inhabit.

Witnessed Presence and Systems Engineering is an exploratory and interdisciplinary research project and is an iterative project to which the development of a collaborative research platform nev01.test.mediamatic.nl is fundamental. The collaborative research platform is built in Anymeta, developed by Mediamatic Lab in Amsterdam.

The initial content of the platform is the dissertation Presence and the Design of Trust, in which the YUTPA framework is first formulated, The YUTPA framework describes four dimensions of time, place, action and relation to be distinct for trade-offs of presence and trust (Nevejan 2007)[1].

The nev01.test.mediamatic.nl platform supports ‘surfing’ through an emerging body of knowledge in which every contribution can be seen it its own right. Fundamental to the design is the presentation of contributions as a series of ‘units of meaning’ to which metadata (expressed in a meta-language) are attributed by the principal investigator. The meta-language contains a new ontology for thinking about witnessing, presence and trust. The collaborative research platform builds on the hypothesis that meaning emerges because metadata are authored.

Between 2008 -2010 principal investigator Caroline Nevejan conducted 20 in-depth interviews with experts in India, Great Britain and the Netherlands on how witnessing, having presence and establishing trust, is affected by information and communication technologies in their day-to day practice. These interviews are filmed, transcribed, and published on www.being- here.net.[2] These interviews provided a more in-depth understanding of the 4 dimensions of YUPTA resulting in the identification of a number of specific factors per dimension.[3]

Together with Satinder Gill (Cambridge University) Caroline Nevejan edited a special issue of the Springer publication AI & Society, Journal for Knowledge, Culture and Communication, in which 11 scientists and academics elaborated on the notion of Witnessed Presence.[4] The special issue is published in February 2012, both in the journal and on nev01.test.mediamatic.nl

This body of knowledge is extended by the artistic research project Witnessing You in which thirteen artists contribute autonomous work and their reflections. This research took place between 2009 and 2012.

First pilots using the site as a collaborative research and design tool took place in 2011. As of 2012 the Being-Here collaborative research platform has been adopted by the European Institute of Technology (EIT) as a test bed within the ICT Labs research programme Mediating Presence. The Mediating Presence project is jointly directed by Caroline Nevejan and Charlie Gullstrom (KTH-Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm).

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Note 1: Nevejan Caroline. 2007. Presence and the Design of Trust. PhD diss., University of Amsterdam. These interviews are filmed by Leen de Baat and can also be accessed at www.systemsdesign.tbm. tudelft.nl/witness
Note 2: Results are analysed together with Frances Brazier and described in the article ‘Granularity in Reciprocity’, special issue Witnessed Presence, AI & Society, Journal for Knowledge, Culture and Communication. C. Nevejan & S. Gill (editors). Volume 27:1, Springer (UK), 2012
Note 3: Special issue Witnessed Presence, AI & Society, Journal for Knowledge, Culture and Communica- tion. C. Nevejan & S. Gill (editors). Volume 27:1, Springer (UK), 2012.
Note 4: Foucault, Michel. 2004. Parrèsia, Vrijmoedig spreken en waarheid. Trans. Ineke van der Burg. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Parresia, Original text Discourse and truth: The problematization of parresia, transcript of 6 lectures by Foucault at Berkeley, University of California in 1983.

The Witnessed Reflection methodology focuses on shared reflection by orchestrating situations in which people accept response-ability and addressability for their words and deeds to each other. Witnessed Reflection builds on the notion of Parresia[5], in which a participant is entitled to speak up in a specific situation and reveal the truth according to him or her. In this study artist’s contributions are understood as acts of Parresia, in which artists freely speak and approach the truth from their different perspectives.

The artists invited to contribute to this project have been chosen specifically because their work reflects an understanding of human condition in the current dynamics of today’s world – around the globe. Because artists engage with human experience in such profound ways, a tacit understanding of today’s footprint on the future is sketched between the different contributions. Such a sketch informs further research and design of participatory systems in this case.

Some of the invited artists use information and communication technologies as their medium; others do not. All of the artists involved are asked to make autonomous work and reflect upon this work from the perspective of the research question ‘What happens when one is witness to the other?’ Some artists create work specifically for this project, others elaborate upon work at hand or reflect on past projects from the perspective of the research question. During the creation process several moments of interaction take place between the artists and the researcher.

The principal investigator engages in a conversation about being witness and bearing witness with each artist individually, in which the research context is elaborated upon. After this conversation each of the artists surf through the site and start to create the concept of their own contribution. Three dinners are organized during which 4 or 5 artists present their work to each other and reflect about witnessing and the artwork they are proposing. Then each of artists consider or make their own work of art and start to publish their own reflections in the being-here collaborative platform. A second conversation between each artist and principal investigator is organised in which the artist’s work is the topic of engagement from the perspective of the research question. Each of the artists then finalize their contribution. Last the principal investigator reflects with the artist about the work to attribute keywords to each article that the artist published in nev01.test.mediamatic.nl.

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Note 5: Foucault, Michel. 2004. Parrèsia, Vrijmoedig spreken en waarheid. Trans. Ineke van der Burg. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Parresia, Original text Discourse and truth: The problematization of parresia, transcript of 6 lectures by Foucault at Berkeley, University of California in 1983.

I am used to making images that do not need words to make people think. I hope the image raises questions and sometimes even answers these questions. In any case I want to trigger the people who look at my image, to think. I write captions and some times texts to accompany the image, but these texts talk about the situation in which the image was made and hardly ever address the image itself. In this research project I was forced to look at my own images and say something personal. I am a photojournalist and I find what I think mostly irrelevant. Now I was forced, and developed a new perspective on individual images that are usually part of a series. The individual image became isolated and created its own context.

Link to contribution here

In the Witnessed Presence research piece I have taken cases, events, from my own work. Using the Being-Here interface, placing these descriptions in a rich pool along with the work of other artists, other writers has revealed to me, many new associations. An example, as I cycle through and view the entries of the other artists, I find my own work back in the 'related things: art', 'related things: experience' column to the right. Aside from motivating me to view the entries of other participating artists and writers (motivational hypertext!) it was enlightening to see new vocabularies associated with entries that by theme and key word apparently are linked. Patterns emerging from the Zeitgeist soup or not, I see these connections as a nourishing reflection on my work.

Link to contribution here

I have not presented my work this way before. For me, the audience consists of people from the visual arts. In this different context I tried to convey what I do in a different way. It is an amazing experience that we as artists were capable to contribute to a theoretical model, and that this model can also be applied on our work as well. I had given it some thought before, but now it appeared that my paintings are capable of functioning as a model for thinking. In the meeting with the scientists, who think technically, it was interesting to realize that my paintings want to evoke emotions. In the meeting this happened as part of the thinking process, and that was surprising to me. The interaction with Caroline Nevejan was important as feedback on my work and as translation between the different worlds.

Link to contribution here

To think about your own work seen from a different, more applied, perspective, is always valuable. It provides a tool for reflection on your own work. Entering the texts about my own work in the website of Nevejan had a much larger impact. By attributing keywords, connections emerged between other contributions and my own work. It was inspiring to go from article to article by way of the ‘sidebar’. More important was that it gave me insight in new areas of agreement with other work and perspectives, which I had not realized before. This inspired me to think and write more.

Link to contribution here

Taking part in the Being Here project has been a wonderful experience for me. My work revolves around the relationships between cities and the people who live in these cities. My theme explored the experience of place through visual storytelling. In the photographs and video certain stories about the relationships that people have to place, are silently present. The theoretical model gave my work another dimension, because now I had to capture what it was about in within fixed meaning.
I enjoyed using the model, because it really makes your subconscious thoughts and motives visible, and in that sense serves as a great tool for feedback to the artist.

We have been practicing design in the realm of communication long enough for it to feel like an indispensable part of our being. We aren’t always conscious of its process or the reasons behind our conducts. Gradually, both have nested themselves comfortably in our ways of doing. Nevejan’s question has taken us away from this comfort zone to examine and dissect the process into fragments, elements, steps, motives, logics, habits and all the other bits and pieces. Deconstructing our process was a challenge; articulating that deconstruction was an even greater challenge, for the simple reason that it is hard to present that comfort zone in words. Words that can be understood by others, words that communicate. Caroline Nevejan’s sharp, critical thinking and her enthusiastic spirit have been an aid to this close examination of how we think, what we make and what we do. And for that, the participation of this project has been a rewarding experience.

Link to contribution here

My participation in the research project Witnessed Presence was very stimulating. I was asked to write about my work, why I use glass and the influence that a material can have on how humans witness each other. For me it meant time for reflection. It is always valuable to place one's own work in a totally different context. To formulate and write about my core incitement, call it focal point, is something that will remain a useful resource in my own current research on Optical Phenomena as Architectonic Elements. I like the structure of the website very much; how it connects different articles, not randomly but by our own chosen set of keywords.
I hope this work will stimulate more artistic research programs in the Netherlands.

Working on witnessed presence was not easy. The information that was already available was very diverse and for me it was hard to find the right connections with the existing material. Like in normal life, everybody has his private experience and it's a challenge to feel the points of connection and to truly create a kind of resonance between thoughts, and more important: deeds. I went to describe my experiences on the topic, connecting my personal lifestyle to my professional ambitions. This proved to be very inspiring for me. But I feel it is only a first part of the work. I believe it's not a statement, but the first phrase of a dialogue. The second part is for you: reader, researcher or passer-by. You can create connections between my writings and other topics, articles, contributions. These connections will improve the value of this project. It will provide direction into the matter for others. The urgency to read my texts might come from another article that needs illustration or explanation. Vice versa, I believe other elements will illustrate or deepen my theories, thoughts and experiences. You are the right person to create these connections. Just by leaving your traces, you build the web of meanings and interpretations that will become more and more meaningful. The challenge of this project is to remain a work in progress!

Link to contribution here

To be asked to contribute to the Being Here project has been a very rewarding experience for me personally. The question or theme of ‘intimate strangers’, was an interesting starting point to reflect upon my work, and how I deal with and also how my work deals with the idea of the other, ‘the stranger’. It asked me to question how I create intimacy and the importance of intimacy as a tool, both with audience but also with people who I interact with on a daily level. One of the most interesting elements of the whole Being Here project is the cross referencing of articles from other contributors out of different fields. Like a Pandora's box when opened, it creates a network of contextually rich connections that exposes how similar themes run surprisingly through different disciplines.

Link to contribution here

We were very happy when Nevejan invited us to develop a presentation about our networked practice in her networked research environment 'BeingHere'. Our project Tele_Trust is inspired by the texts of media theorist William J. Mitchell: 'I am part of the networks and the networks are part of me... I link, therefore I am.' ('ME++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City'). In Tele_Trust we research the city as a hybrid network; our awareness of 'presence' in a networked society; and the changing awareness of our bodies in relation to the digital network. For Tele_Trust we create series of drawings and texts as conceptual models; and we invite the audience to explore the awareness of being a 'networking body' in performances, installations and 'social labs'. Nevejan’s 'BeingHere' is a rich thematical hypertext creating a great format and context to develop a reflective presentation of our artistic research; and it's theoretical, social and technical innovation. Furthermore, by using the interactive keywords we are able to connect with other and unexpected knowledge fields create new insights for future development of our work. Thanks!

Link to contribution here

I was pleased to be invited by Caroline Nevejan to contribute to her exciting concept of witnessing presence. In my daily practice I miss a theoretical approach sometimes, although I like to reflect on what I do. However as designers we are seldom asked to write something from a reflective standpoint. As you can see in my contribution I fancy models and structures. So the combination of a basic model to orient and à carte blanche to do whatever I wanted, proved very fruitful for me. I chose the form of a dialogue with someone outside the art world, for which I chose my husband Andreas Zangger. As a historian he brings in a more academic perspective.
In the dialogues we try to depict the concepts laying in my work and relate them to the Witnessed Presence project. This form proofed to be playful, fun and interesting.

I was pleased to be invited by Caroline Nevejan to contribute to her exciting concept of witnessing presence. In my daily practice I miss a theoretical approach sometimes, although I like to reflect on what I do. However as designers we are seldom asked to write something from a reflective standpoint. As you can see in my contribution I fancy models and structures. So the combination of a basic model to orient and à carte blanche to do whatever I wanted, proved very fruitful for me. I chose the form of a dialogue with someone outside the art world, for which I chose my husband Andreas Zangger. As a historian he brings in a more academic perspective.
In the dialogues we try to depict the concepts laying in my work and relate them to the Witnessed Presence project. This form proofed to be playful, fun and interesting.

The invitation to integrate a new iteration of the Biomodd project in the online Witnessed Presence platform offered me a new set of tools to analyse both my artistic practice and my interaction with the communities I work with. Biomodd had been running for several years, and looking at it from a fresh perspective through such concepts as ‘witnessing’ and ‘rhythms’, gave me a better understanding of its creative and social dynamics. By including some of my other projects and create lateral connections between the different art works, I discovered common threads and themes that I hadn’t clearly perceived before. My contribution became a layered and dense analysis that has already impacted the rest of my further artistic development. Publishing all of this on a cross-linked website put the projects in an even broader context. Through carefully chosen keywords all sorts of interesting – and sometimes unexpected – connections with other participating artists showed up, further deepening the newly acquired insights.

Link to contribution here