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Background: Literacy was once considered as the ability to sign your name and read the bible in Latin. Times have changed. There are now a multiplicity of literacies relating to all aspects of life- presenting copious amounts of choices, opportunities and potential outcomes.

Questions:
What new literacies are likely to emerge from the conditions present in today’s context?
How does literacy impact one’s ability to access and participate meaningfully in socio-cultural-economic systems?
What is the role of new literacies in the knowledge/experience age?
What can we learn from so-called pre-literate contexts?

Assumptions:
1) Literacy = Empowerment
2) Literacy = Imagination Potential
3) Lifestyle = Literacy
4) Imagination = Empowerment

Note: We view system ecologies as networks of dilemmas presenting multiple choices-possibilities and potential outcomes.

VUCA & THE ASYMMETRIC TRADITION

US Army War College credo, describes the qualities of our present context as being volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA). One might suggest that this context has long existed and is more of a tradition rather than a trend. Meaning that volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity within our systems and our environments has, for the most part, been the inspirational source and medium enabling for the emergence of literacy, imagination, innovation and change.

It is not our technologies but our literacies and their resulting imaginations that enable us to compete, achieve and survive.

ASYMMETRIC LITERACY (A WORKING DEFINITION)
It is beyond question that we do come to know many things indirectly, and that there appears to be an admixture of the indirect in every acquisition of knowledge. – J.M. Bochenski The Methods of Contemporary Thought

Literacy is a transformative “tool.” Literacies empower both the means and capacities required to identify and transform choices and opportunities in our environment into outcomes. Each literacy provides its own means of access and understanding through its own forms of knowledge acquisition and expression. Historically, literacies have emerged and evolved alongside social, cultural and technological change. The pace of this change is increasing, as are its implications on all aspects of human socio-cultural-economic achievement. The speed and ease with which we can now move from concept to percept has “catalyzed” the need for increased imagination and new forms of creative thinking around process and purpose.

An asymmetric approach to literacy would encourage development and refinement of unorthodox forms of knowledge acquisition and expression, in contrast and relative to, the symmetrical contexts of the learner/practitioner. Asymmetric literacy is acceptance and traversal of possibility beyond defined, practiced or codified limitations; in the ability to exploit and affect the most potential from the least characteristics latent or manifest within a system; and in promoting the ability to shape one’s own system of possibility and context rather than being shaped by another’s.

This form of literacy might emerge from a self-awareness and lifestyle that increasing one’s access to original experiences which people have had no prior contact or exposure. These experiences often result in obtaining new knowledge in turn augmenting one’s “scope of awareness and interpretation. It is assumed that the metaphors presented within these original experiences would help to fill in and bridge the gaps left over from symmetrical states of being and build a more complete and robust palette for the imagination. The goal of which would be to extend the breadth and depth of empowerment in individuals and organizations.

Conversely asymmetric literacy might focus on better understanding the characteristics and meanings of symmetries, patterns, codified limitations, traditions and conventions, whereby the asymmetrically literate would develop a careful appreciation for structure, harmony and balance in light of contributing and extending new benefits to the greatest amount of people.

How do we increase the capacity for individuals and organizations to identify- test and explore the conditions and possible experiences we wish to elicit from this atypical resource?

APPLYING MCLUHAN’S LAWS OF MEDIA TO ASYMMETRIC LITERACY:

What does it enhance?
Scope of possibility; empowerment
What does it obsolesce?
Symmetric Literacy; Perceived limitations
What does it retrieve?
Choice and Opportunity
What does is flip into?
Symmetric Literacy

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Purpose

The purpose of this material is to describe points of departure framing a foundation for exploration into nature of Asymmetry as it applies to Imagination, as a promising subject.  Our intention is to produce useful and teachable tools and methods for identifying business applications and identifying alternative and complementary knowledge products for education.

Introduction – Scope of asymmetry

Global Security defines asymmetry as it is described in the United States Army; “dissimilarities in organization, equipment, doctrine, capabilities, and values.”

For the purpose of framing our scope and use of asymmetry we describe Symmetrical Literacy as the widely held knowledge of, and participation in forms of learning, expression and living that are established and practiced. They are in balance with the way people read and write, interpret, intuit, act and interact towards and with each other and the world. Solely thinking within the constraints of this “space” limit individuals and organizations from making the leaps required to engage in new value creation.

}  Is there a shift of focus from symmetrical to asymmetrical literacy?

}  Are we facing an emergent need to combine and synthesize a spectrum of literacies into a more comprehensive whole?

}  Is there an all-encompassing ecology of literacies from which a more potent,

“full-spectrum imagination” can rise?

Both literacy and imagination standards are embedded within shared tradition of increasing complexity, competition and co-operation.  The imagination has always been, and will always be, the ultimate human resource: shaping and defining our achievements, or lack thereof.

We believe that multiple literacies add to and increase the “imagination potential” of individuals and organizations, and that this will emerge or be discovered more so within the realm of asymmetry.

Asymmetry is more than the opposite of symmetry, and represents a vast range of alternative possibilities to the imagination, beyond what is known and accepted. One form of asymmetry in action may be described as the unconventional, unpredictable, non-traditional utility of elements and properties found within everyday technological, political, economic social, cultural systems. We believe the complimentary concepts of symmetry-asymmetry are both present in every context and can be considered a continuum rather than a dichotomy. The shift in what is considered symmetric or asymmetric behaviors is always coming in and out of balance as technology, custom and routine are individually, socially and culturally negotiated. What is asymmetric is continually reframed and restocked by the rate in which ways of thinking are adopted and antiquated. Meaning we are defining what is symmetric by what we do collectively.

}  What great human achievement has not been asymmetric?

}  To what extent will the education of the left side of the brain, the concrete and sequential be automated?

}  Will educators of the future favor the study and development of the imagination as a discipline?

Forms of Asymmetry to be EXPLORED

}  Outside of the Known – Venturing into the unknown to survey new forms of possibility. Challenging perceived limits and barriers for the purpose of retrieving unique and beneficial knowledge.

}  Atypical Function, Typical Forms – Every variable in the environment can be leveraged either normally or abnormally. Inside or outside of conventional use, asymmetry in action is the nontraditional or novel utilization of resources disproportionate to another individual or organization.

}  Asymmetric Thought and Behavior – Exploring deviations from the excepted norms of how one should think and behave.  Seeing different, acting different and being different in light of motivations that exist for no other, providing glimpses into tomorrows normal.

Coping, let alone competing, within this context will be defined by individuals and organizations that; shape “issues” rather than be shaped by them (US Army); who have the ability to apply vision, understanding, clarity, and agility to volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous situations (Johansen); and integrate, non-linear approaches to seeing, knowing and doing- Integrative Thinking (Martin).

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Causes, values, motivations and concentrated actions become destinations as people and places become increasingly findable. How do situated technologies augment the lifecycles of these elements?

Through locative and social technologies what was once qualitative speculation now has the ability to shift into the domain of the measurable and recordable, generating a new species of data around the relationships between individuals, groups and their environment. Organizations such as Microsofts spinoff company Inrix “tracks the behavior of 750,000 vehicles, cell phone users, and others with digital devices to determine how Americans would react to different situations.” vividly illustrates the growing interest and unique opportunity to harness human geospatial data. Experimentation with this form of information makes practices like Suprise Modelling thinkable.

Intrix, being such a novel geographic information retrieval company is a weak signal pointing toward our data traces becoming a new form of communication that creates a social metric, which diversifies the voices authoring geographical data. As urban computing is further embedded in our daily interactions new potentials for informing decisions and revealing choices can be realized. Through our data traces we will be able to co-author custom, space, policy and our material culture in new ways. In the background of this emerging context personal behavior will become personal advocacy. Our implicitly authored data may be used to cast votes, leave gestural and locative commentary. It may become a new voice, and new way to speak.

New dialogues of power occur at the intersection of human behavior, emerging technology, and inherited infrastructures and processes. Locative technologies point toward real-time visualization that offers a new individual and collective vantage, which will undoubtedly inform urban “logistics of perception” deeply effecting social dynamics and personal action. How might near-future “geo-strategic” identity building, expression, and management demand a “re-socialization” between individuals and their environment? How will people adapt?

Locative technologies, situational awareness and mobile haptics are a form of contextual and behavioral stenography. They offer a fertile ground to deploy location and behavior based “passive or explicit multi-player citizen games”. These future games (or “systems”) could also act as a base for dynamically negotiating rules, goals, conditions, and social accountability. We discuss current weak signals in our environment, such as serious games like World Without Oil, and the BCN Formula Game that contain elements that can be recombined and resituated as a robust infrastructure for effective democracy populated with informed citizens engaging in civil participation through new media.

“Social learning/training” based on the affordances of locative technologies and a “re-socialization” around the concepts of city and citizen could be proposed. Consider the environment itself as an agent – that is, the city would be, communicable and mutable rather than only a background. It is possible to reinvent the social space of the street as a much-needed infrastructure of expression and presence to facilitate and realize influential social relations. These emergent systems can be designed as educational frameworks for interacting and understanding converging literacies in the new environment. A new literacy and curricula are a vital to better equip people for emerging contexts that will require augmented political and social mobilization.

The need for a new educational framework is evident. However, the curriculum and implementation is up for debate.