Keyword: Information

I thought of my keyword in terms of my disciplinary background in information science (or library studies). It's a concept that relates to performance in the sense that it is an act of communication, it exists between people in social contexts, and it relates to and impacts our structures of knowledge. Performance is information in all of its formats - visual, behavioral, textual, audio - and information can be studied as performance. For this reason it may be productive to look at information as a keyword.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines information in many ways, one of which can be related to performance:

1. The action of informing; communication of the knowledge or ‘news’ of some fact or occurrence; the action of telling or fact of being told of something.

Information is seen as an action, as related to knowledge transfer, and as a process involving human interaction. It is a process that is dependant on an imperfect state of knowledge, a social relationship, and a shared language. Information is also importantly produced by the imposition
of order or arrangement, this is how it is contrasted with raw data which is random. For example the "action of telling" imposes order through discourse and narrative. By extension we can say that curatorial practice, classification systems, genre, and norms of behavior also produce or construct information and define how to and who can access it.

The methods of imposing order and arranging facts are culturally specific. The potential barriers to information are language and the rules used to organize the information which are institutionalized in a culture, and misinformation. Misinformation problematizes the concept of information because, although it may be performed like information, it is the opposite. Misinformation is the same as being deprived of information - it results in ignorance.

This is an example of misinformation, masquerading like information. The image is a mishmash of ostensibly, First Nations symbols, confusing and conflating the particular genealogies of the various nations' stories resulting in a chimera that is part Japanese animation character and part orca, bear and thunderbird - as if these were superpowers. It certainly tells a strange story. The blurb of text is seductive but misinformative and also ironic - using First Nations' symbols as a way to tell a story about multiculural Canada - to tell the story about immigration and inclusion. This is not a very provocative example in the sense that, it's essentially information for children about a toy. But these mascots were designed for export - they tour the globe advertising the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, British Columbia, First Nations and Canada. Who is benefitting from this "information"?

http://www.vancouver2010.com/mascot/en/profile_s.php