Our Vision for Sustainable Culture in the Imagination Age

The photograph above is from a slide show created by Rita J. King and Joshua S. Fouts on Venice Beach, California in preparation for “The Transfer of Cultural Energy,” an event hosted by Dancing Ink Productions live from the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar on February 17, 2008 (See our video "Live from the Doha Forum"). The kaleidoscope slide show was a backdrop on the stage (panelists included Nashwa Al-Ruwaini, Howard Gordon and Cynthia P. Schneider), symbolic of the way cultures develop independently and then develop connections until the borders of one become indistinguishable from the others.

In flight between the Middle East and Europe on our global quest to explore the Imagination Age, we watched on a small screen as a tiny digital plane circled the globe, through time and war zones and the ever-shifting line of night and day moving with the earth’s ceaseless rotation. But it isn’t ceaseless, really. At one time, this planet wasn’t even here, and therefore, neither were humans. As difficult as this is to imagine, it is not nearly as challenging as envisioning a future in which the result of escalating conflict could lead us again to annihilation. A sustainable cultural alternative has arisen beyond this senseless path of destruction, and the mission of Dancing Ink Productions is to support the development of a new global culture in the Imagination Age.

Immersive virtual environments are the primary means by which people from all around the world are learning to meaningfully connect across multiple levels. The phrase “virtual worlds,” implies that immersion in such spaces is different from being in “real life,” but in fact both realms are one and the same, with the primary difference being that in the physical world, each human being is born into a complex lattice of socio-economic, cultural, geographical and genetic systems that may or may not favor the full development of creativity. The ability to live one’s life as a work of art has been limited to varying degrees by factors that are completely beyond one’s control. In “virtual” worlds, participants can create their own identities, narratives and circumstances, and thus exist beyond the limiting factors of the physical realm. To avoid the common misperceptions stemming from the phrase “virtual worlds,” however, we call the advent of sustainable cultural development the Imagination Age.

Active participants in the Imagination Age are becoming cultural ambassadors by introducing virtual strangers to unfamiliar customs, costumes, traditions, rituals and beliefs, which humanizes foreign cultures, contributes to a sense of belonging to one’s own culture and fosters an interdependent perspective on sharing the riches of all systems. Cultural transformation is a constant process, and the challenges of modernization can threaten identity, which leads to unrest and eventually, if left unchecked, to violent conflict. Under such conditions it is tempting to impose homogeneity, which undermines the highly specific systems that encompass the myriad luminosity of the human experience.

Cherished traditions and beliefs and the evolution of a transcendent global culture are no longer mutually exclusive. Strangers in the physical world simply do not approach one another on the street with the goal of understanding their differences. In immersive three-dimensional environments, with avatars created to project a sense of authentic self, protected from physical harm or discomfort, they do. The Imagination Age (which is based on the ability to creatively harness and utilize available technology for greater understanding, the development of a healthy interdependent global economy and meaningful participation in world culture and one's own life) represents a groundbreaking moment in human history.

Just because the Imagination Age is in its infancy doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taken seriously. It would have been impossible, after all, for Michelangelo to have painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel without someone, somewhere, first lifting a stone to etch the walls of a cave. People are just beginning to understand the implications of creating their own identities and narratives and inhabiting three-dimensional versions of one another’s ideas to collaborate on their development. Dancing Ink Productions is committed to fostering all aspects of the creative evolution of the Imagination Age.

Rita J. King, CEO and Creative Director
Joshua S. Fouts, Chief Global Strategist

February 2008~Paris, France