Introduction: What is Transcendent Cultural Technology Governance?

Biologist EO Wilson once said,
Humans have paleolithic emotions;
Medieval institutions,
God-like technology.

Wilson is a master of ant evolution;
He studies how leaf-cutter ants cooperate,
He said that after a species develops to its limit at the biological level,
will evolve towards social organization,
And gave birth to a society of cooperative altruism, complex systems of communication, and an equal division of labor.

If we discuss culture and technology,
Wilson's words are worth starting with,
Because in addition to culture and technology,
There is also a main shaft that needs to be buckled well from the beginning,
It is governance.

I practice and research in the digital community,
Especially the decentralized community and the underground community,
Including digital art, emerging technology and philanthropic actions, etc.,
Karma will serve in the public sector at the same time.

Therefore, during this period of time, I have come into contact with many people, including various ministries, administrative legal persons,
From high-level bureaucrats to actual front-line organizers,
Of course, there are also people in the industry, creators, and advocacy groups, etc.
What needs to be emphasized here is that issues related to culture or technology,
It is necessary to sort out the complicated current situation of multi-stakeholders.

As an example,
A while ago, I was chasing up the participation in the 2022 National Cultural Conference,
On the issue of the application of cultural technology,
The Ministry of Culture has said that this year it will establish an "inter-ministerial policy discussion platform" related to cultural technology.
The span here also includes my current unit.
The document stated that communication should be conducted on "cross-border cooperation mechanisms, innovation experiment sandboxes, and policy resource optimization."

Called last month to track progress,
After having transferred many times to sponsor,
They said that the planning of the policy discussion platform has been uploaded,
But nothing follows yet.

Let's not discuss whether the ruling direction will affect the original case and whether it will go ahead.
However, the "platform for discussing culture and technology" will be coordinated by information-related units,
I'm afraid it's a bit embarrassing for them,
Because the entire culture and technology is more oriented and broader.

Taiwan’s fishing, hunting and gathering from the Dadu Kingdom,
Walking through the agricultural society of Ming, Zheng and Qing Dynasties,
Then to the foundry era of Japanese colonization and the economic take-off of the Republic of China,
Now we have come to the information society that begins to emphasize innovation.

But these four societies will co-exist in 2023,
It does not mean that when one appears, the previous one will perish.
Therefore, the speed of technological evolution far exceeds that of the management system.

Last year, web3 was still being discussed, and this year artificial intelligence is involved again.
The whole process only took eighteen months.
This time, it was too late to update the review thinking and subsidy text.
Human emotions and governance are far from seeing the taillights of technological development.

Therefore, in the current situation where technology and forward-looking plans are leaders,
Effectively promote the development of democratic society and citizen participation,
It is a top priority, otherwise human beings will have technology that can never be adapted.

The triangle in the picture is the cultural and technological task that I personally collected.
They are: "Local diversified ecology", "International cooperation links", "Content market prosperity"
This is something that can be easily done in the information society.

Returning to Wilson's famous quote,
Maybe we can ask,
What is cultural technology? What is Governance Technology?
What is the transcendent imagination of cultural governance?

Allow me to carry out a subjective extension of the task triangle,
Continuing from Wilson, the upward direction is God's technology, and the downward direction is human civilization.

When technology impacts culture,
When diverse ecology encounters technology, it polarizes into a post-truth society.
Public Sphere disappears;

International connections encounter technology, and digital hegemony emerges.
Bargaining conflicts arise between media and platforms, and strong culture accelerates its influence through digital colonization;

When the content market meets technology, the Metaverse and the XR world are slowly being born.
Immersive work has become a grant darling, but the market hasn’t really been established yet.

on the other hand,
Culture can also drive technology,

There are so many new media artists and technology artists,
Before technology entered the public eye,
Through his works, he reminds mankind of the multiple aspects of technology, which is a diverse ecology;

Technology also enables the birth of a new cooperative solidarity economy,
Such as platform cooperativism, decentralized autonomy and new future art ecosystem, etc.;

Of course, technology also makes cross-border collaboration possible.
We have seen that many cultural activities no longer distinguish between national borders.
Even topics like glocalization are getting more and more attention.

However, these aspects are far less far-reaching than the impact of technology.

Back to "Cultural Technology Policy Agenda"
Let me arbitrarily integrate the six programs into this triangle.
Digital communication and innovative research and development, on the international and market side,
Local cultural creation and innovative society, on the ecology and market side,
Citizen participation and public services, on the ecological and international side.

The former two Liberal Arts Institutes are entering their fourth year.
Some projects have gradually seen results, such as film and television, XR, etc.
So I want to focus on public service and civic engagement.

How can cultural tech help civic engagement?
How can cultural technology improve public services?
How do we actually involve the public in the action process?

Finally, two points of view are initially put forward,
One is about the culture of governance,
The other is technology about governance.

about the culture of governance,
I'm afraid the public is just empty words,
We can only rely on passive sampling or active mobilization.
to gather public opinion.

But the public is made up of different communities;
Different communities are created by blood, education, interests, and consumption.
Communities are both physical and virtual.

After the community is professionalized, it becomes an elite,
with Hannah. Oran agrees with the concept of freedom,
People are self-empowering.

Everyone here must admit that they are elites.
Only then can we discuss such a complex issue today.
But how do these elites achieve public welfare?
It must go through the deliberation and advocacy of a large number of grassroots communities.
to slowly bring the whole upward.

For example, Taiwanese society is like a Nordic social democracy.
Make social investment driven by innovation rather than capital.
I think the most important foundational work under this vision is
It is cultural technology.

Cultural technology makes the citizen participation process more convenient,
Make deliberation a habit and let different communities have their say,
Only in this way,
Only then will the community not be dominated by the elite, and only then will the public have a clear vision.
It’s about the culture of governance.

But back to the question, this is personal experience,
Since we agree that it is important to awaken awareness of grassroots action,
The contradiction currently encountered is:
"How to build grassroots democracy from the top down and from the bottom up?"
How to effectively inject relevant budget into the process of citizen participation without degenerating it?

We can see the evolution of policy terms,
First it was local creation, then it was participatory budgeting and youth deliberation.
Next may be cultural technology.
It’s not that the first two methods are bad.
But technology changes too fast,
How to integrate technology applications into local culture,
and convert vast resources into fuel,
Grassroots are likely to become less grassroots.

So we need to try technology about governance,
This is not necessarily high-tech, but interactive technology.
We are familiar with how resources are used: "Procurement cases, awards and subsidies, participation promotion BOT, etc."

But it is clear that a lot of capital will be created,
Bureaucratic redundancy, rent-seeking by intermediaries, and misalignment of actual innovation and subsidies.

I think it should be through:
Openness, transparency, integration of powers and responsibilities, and effective distribution technology ,
To slowly simplify the entire complex governance process.

A similar case is IPA. Qu Xiaowei launched g0v 10 years ago.
Become one of the people who "hack the government",
He joined the Institute of Cultural Studies four years ago and introduced many g0v concepts and collaboration tools to the Institute.

The simplest and most understandable initiative is,
IPA introduces Slack,
Let the colleagues of the Liberal Arts Institute communicate in parallel,
Try to mix the effect of flat discussions into a hierarchical organization.
This is a very simple open spirit.
Maybe it can improve the efficiency of internal discussions?

In short,
Openness and transparency allow different groups,
Gradually become clear about your position and the rules of the game,
And let the society share the results of subsidies or procurement.
The integration of power and responsibility is to re-allow the community to take control of its own initiative;
Distribution technology can use resources more equitably and effectively,

I have talked about a lot of imagination about culture, governance and technology.
But what is transcendent cultural and technological governance?

Finally, I return to my own familiarity with the digital world,
I like David very much. Graeber once said,
He wrote in "Utopia of Rules",

He said:"
The Internet has unleashed the creativity of vision and collaboration.
But what it really brings about is a strange inversion;
Creativity is finally incorporated into management services,
rather than upside down. "

I think this is probably a reflection of current culture and technology.
We do not have an innovative cultural and technological governance model;
Instead, let the old system manage cultural and technological innovation.
This makes all kinds of unexpectedness and diversity gradually disappear,
This is the last point I want to emphasize in this forum.