Miracle and wonder, for positive purposes, in the land of Goethe

This blog is part of the blogging BaKaForum project I will be working on for the next few weeks. The BakaForum blog is at

http://BaKaForumblog2010.wordpress.com

There is a 24 year old Paul Simon song that comes to mind in anticipation of BaKaForum 2010, now just one week away. It is Boy in the Bubble, the first song on the Graceland album.

"These are the days of miracle and wonder

This is the long distance call

The way the camera follows us in slo-mo

The way we look to us all"

That refrain is heard repeatedly throughout the song. The rest of Boy in the Bubble uses words and music to evoke images of technology being used for lifesaving medical purposes along side acts of terror and war. Whether the camera follows us in slo-mo or normal speed, these days, cameras are everywhere. How we choose to use the cameras is a bit like the juxtaposition of images in Simon’s song.

Neil Postman, a communications scholar and commentator on culture, described technological change as “a Faustian bargain.” According to Postman “Technology giveth and taketh away, not always in equal measure.” In its own way, Simon’s song captures this idea rather well. Which brings us back to BaKaForum.

Images of the worlds we live in today are the building blocks of stories captured and presented at BaKaForum. The various screenings, sessions, and workshops while practical in purpose, convey a point of view that is designed to increase “cooperation in a world of cultural diversity,” a clearly stated theme of BaKaForum. This positive approach, to storytelling and the technologies that make media’s current incarnations possible, is encouraging.

But the realities of Faustian bargains in many parts of the world are also captured with a sense of realism in much of the work at BaKaForum. Somehow it seems a fitting metaphor for a conference convening in the land of Goethe, the great storyteller and probably Faust's best known expositor. Goethe artfully used the tools and media of his day to explore the complexities of life.

So in these days of miracle and wonder it is refreshing to come together, with storytellers from all over the world, for four days in a quest for cooperation in all its diversity.