Cohousing-L Mailing List: The Hybrid Challenge

[Cynthia Winton-Henry (cynthia]

The Hybrid Challenge.

I write as one with a lifetime working in the performing arts and 
communication. I  helped my international art community meet and create 
together, first on go-to meetings and then on Zoom. I am in awe of all efforts 
to develop communicative spaces that meet as many needs as possible. In just a 
few years words like mute and hybrid are on our global lips. 

I'm in Fair Oaks Ecohousing, where we, too, are navigating Hybrid questions, 
which leads me to wonder if cohousers might appreciate some wisdom from the 
arts.

You've heard of multiple intelligences? Each art form activates and cultivates 
a separate, unique intelligence: Dance boosts our sense of individual and 
collective power. Music illuminates our experience of time. Stories build a 
sense of history. Poetry activates memory. It goes on. Dancing does not make a 
sense of history. Storytelling does not activate one's bodily sense of power. 
Dance, rhythm, and storytelling are our fastest ways to create a human 
connection.

Analytical thinking is a sorting, prioritizing art that creates order using 
mathematical and cognitive intelligence. Our cognitive arts are dominant in 
Western culture. They are also the slowest to create human connection. I think 
this contritubutes to the loneliness epidemic.

Both on Zoom and in live rooms, all intelligences come into play, as do 
individual desires and needs to accomplish different goals. Each of us has to 
navigate our own needs in a meeting. Some want connection. Some want clarity in 
the group process, etc. 

Enter The Hybrid Challenge. 

In the performing arts creators pay attention to the principle of assimilation, 
named by Suzanne Langer in her book Feeling and Form. It's a design principle 
where the artists understands that one art form will swallow up the others and 
be dominant. This is not unlike a cultural system that determines where and how 
we give our attention. Many of us are noticing the white culture swallows up 
others in North America.

In opera, music is the dominant form and swallows movement and speech. That's 
not a problem. The creator just needs to pay attention to how each art form 
competes for the viewer's attention. The dancing sometimes pulls everyone's 
attention and overrides the audience's connection to the music. It is possible 
for group communications to harmoniously collaborate as in an opera, ritual, or 
experimental form. 

In other words, the attention and perception or the participants are in the 
hands of an artist/designer.

Hybrid meetings today are in a tricky dance where two or more forms, each 
strive to do different things and can compete for our attention. Tensions arise 
as a result of using two forms as equals. Which they are not. Forms can 
collaborate and interplay but don't merge. Are we putting community building 
forms that are trying to include everyone in tension with communication forms 
that allow everyone to be heard? Is the emotional equally accessible to all 
participants when people are in the room and online. No.  Are emotions 
important to the experience? 

We can ask, "What do I want people to experience? What form will best support 
that?"

Zoom is a form designed for individuals in word-based exchanges. Many of us are 
messing with this, which is good for innovation. We use it for support groups 
and community building that highlights individual voices. I lead zoom dance 
sessions that gather info from whole body experiences and then give time to 
share what we notice. The data is often startling and potent which shows that 
Zoom can serve creative methodologies and access multiple ways of knowing. 
Still, Zoom isn't set up for the kind of dancing that connects and builds a 
sense of power in a group.

As we navigate our values around beauty, community, accessibility, inclusivity, 
decision-making, etc,  live room meetings offer multilayered, embodied, 
musical, and visually communicative experiences. More forms can be at play. 
Even subtle aspects of our movement, voices, and side stories are felt and 
shared. This is not possible on Zoom.

On the other hand, we also need to address details or want to hear from each 
individual. This is a perfect use for Zoom, as it was created for this purpose. 

In addition, Individuals might prefer Zoom if they are sensitive to conflict or 
activated by the sound and movement of others. The zoom screen provides a 
filter for people with sensitive mirror neurons. Zoom also makes it easier to 
focus on individual voices and content and allows everyone access to hearing 
and seeing each face.

The breakout rooms serve for relationship building and forms of "telling." 

If you want to hear all individual voices, move onto Zoom. If you want to build 
connection, sing, move, tell stories, or interact in more experiential ways, a 
live room is preferred.

Facilitators and communities may want to consider what they hope to accomplish 
and choose the kind of meeting or experience that achieves the group's needs. 
Individual participants can take responsibility for and communicate their needs 
without asking everyone to adjust to them. As a highly sensitive person (one 
out of five of us falls in this category), I take responsibility for my 
preferences and try not to project them on everybody. 

All of this being said, I prefer to be on Zoom for more business meetings and 
to meet in person for more community-building sessions.

Hybrid connection is an art. Glad we are learning as we go.

Cynthia Winton-Henry
Fair Oaks Eco-Housing