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via ThomasCott.com and "You've Got Mail":
Want to test out a cultural policy? Play this video game.
Posted on the blog Bad Culture, July 22, 2010
Last week saw the launch of the beautifully named Medici's lever -- a web based tool designed to model the dynamics of cultural policy in an urban environment. Current pressures on cultural budgets in the USA and UK mean that the launch is timely. However, the launch would be timely whenever it came, since it offers a complex and subtle articulation of how cultural policy works. It is instructive and fun (yes, really!) to play with your different preconceptions and see how they play out. It would be wrong to say Medici's lever is the brainchild of any one person, but the closest approximation is John Kreidler [who] was Executive Director of Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley. Medici's lever emerged from that project: "I saw an opportunity to use systems modeling in a way that had never been possible at the Foundation. Given Silicon Valley's prowess in technology, its fascination with rational numbers-based thinking, and its leading position in video games, why not produce a computer game that provided a platform for thinking about the region's cultural future? 'Medici' contains three modules, two of which are games designed to assist with the education of cultural policy students, while the third is presented as an online laboratory that allows the user to simulate conditions in a real or imagined region."
Click to read the introduction as posted on the Medici website
Introduction:
An Online Laboratory of Cultural Dynamics
Lorenzo de' Medici (1449-1492) was a banker, statesman and amateur poet. During his reign as the de facto ruler of Florence, he was instrumental in establishing that city as the leading center of early renaissance culture, and ever after cemented Florence's international reputation as a leader in finance, art and architecture. The careers of Michelangelo, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Leonardo da Vinci and many other artists blossomed under his direct and indirect influence. The case certainly could be made that prosperity was the key driver of Florence's remarkable cultural achievements. But culture, too, was a lever that propelled the city's economic success during the early renaissance, injecting creativity and civic energy that attracted many of Europe's finest talents in art, religion, politics, banking, engineering and literature. Even today, Florence's historic and contemporary cultural assets continue to be major factors in its civic identity, economy, and urban environment.
Both before and after Lorenzo the Magnificent, regions around the globe have been plotting the cultural, economic and social dimensions of their development. The purpose of Medici's Lever is to provide an interactive online learning laboratory for exploring the complex interplay between culture, society and the economy, with emphasis on the role played by culture. Medici's Lever has three modules: two presented as educational games, and the other as a user-defined policy simulation. All three modules use the same underlying logic model, which is comprised of scores of interrelated factors, the most important of which are cultural literacy, cultural participation patterns, and the production and consumption of cultural goods and services.
The two educational game modules, SJ Renaissance and Viamare Culture, are designed for audiences with relatively little background in the concepts and history of arts and culture as vehicles for regional development. Like many computer games, SJ Renaissance and Viamare Culture have plots, characters, a geographic setting (San Jose, California and the fictitious European city of Viamare) and an infinite set of outcomes, some positive, others not. Both games recognize five theories of cultural development, each of which is personified by a different character. Select the character of your choice, and then explore the opportunities and limitations of that character's approach to regional development. As the game unfolds, you are presented with numerous opportunities to learn more about the use of cultural policies in a regional setting.
Freestyle, the third module of Medici's Lever, is designed for users with more advanced backgrounds in urban design, city planning, regional economics and cultural policy. Freestyle, has no plot or characters, but instead allows the user to "dial up" conditions for real metropolitan regions anywhere in the world. Within Freestyle, you can adjust for population size, immigration, birth and death rates, social cohesiveness and several cultural factors.
Medici's Lever is the final project of Cultural Initiatives, an organization that worked to implement a ten-year cultural plan for Silicon Valley from 1996 to 2006. For a complete inventory of free downloadable research publications of Cultural Initiatives, please visit www.ci-sv.org. Comments and questions regarding Medici's Lever can be directed to John Kreidler, Cultural Initiatives' retired Executive Director, at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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To connect to the third, FREESTYLE, version:
http://forio.com/broadcast/netsim/netsims/Medici/medici-freestyle/index.html
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