“Last year in the ninth grade I had to take a required class called Cultural Awareness. The only thing that I became aware of in that class was that it was a joke. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have a mean teacher, I just had a teacher that wasn’t that well imformed. The most I got out of the class was when we watched the movie “Mi Familia”.
Well now I have something for all those ninth graders that are suffering from the same problem, LA Culture Net, a web site that brings together artist and lovers of art in our community. It is a project of The Getty Information Institute. It may be the 90’s version of the French Impressionist salons, a place where people can discuss art and its form in a digital environment.
One of the people who is putting the web site together is Ju Hui “Judy” Han. She is a 25-year-old UC Berkley English major. Yes, you read right, an English Major. You probably think that you need some extensive background in science and technology to work in this field. She made it sound like using the Internet is not that complicated, no harder than programming your VCR.
I was expecting someone in a business suit with gold earrings. Instead, Judy was in slacks and a corduroy shirt. Not “Business Woman of the 90s,” more like “California Casual Woman of the 90s.” She can understand what people are saying. She’s not the corporate snob; she’s the friendly, down-to-earth type.
That’s a good thing, because she has to be able to relate to people. She has to be able to meet with all kinds of people in diverse arts organizations such as museums, galleries, art schools and other groups, and tries to get them involved in LA CultureNet.
Sometimes people give you the feeling that you’re a total loser unless you have the newest, most high-tech computer. Judy doesn’t see it that way. “Some people have no use for a computer,” Judy said.
At the same time, she added, it’s unfortunate that some people let their fear of unknown technologies keep them from exploring the ways that this new medium can benefit them.
Judy noted that budget cuts have made it hard for artists and arts organizations to communicate with the public. Electronic mail and bulletin board listings make this task a little easier. For example, through the Internet, a gallery could advertise its poetry reading. A new artist can show examples of his or her work, even if it wouldn’t be shown in a museum. Right now on LA CultureNet, you can see a profile of an artist who makes beautiful sand sculptures.
In one project, museums and arts organizations are creating a joint database of all their artifacts and art pieces, so that researchers can quickly locate the things they’re looking for. It’s not just for artists—the project also has class plans that incorporate artifacts and other web sites to teach about different ideas. For example, one lesson plan studies the effects of anti-Semitism, including writings by Jewish scholars as well as examples of anti-Semitic web sites.
One way of bringing this community together has been to have a “Web-raising,” which Judy described as kind of like a barn-raising, only it’s on computers. Recently, people gathered at a community center with about 30 computers and began to look at the Internet, see what kind of web sites are out there, and share ideas about how they could create web pages that would serve their organization. For larger organizations, that poses many administrative challenges: Who will design the web site? Who will update and maintain it? What are the costs involved and who will pay for them?
Having immigrated from Korea at age 12, Judy attended Rincon Jr. High and Nogales High School. She said she was surprised at how the work load in school was kind of lax, compared to her South Korean school, where she went to school at 6 a.m. and sometimes wouldn’t get home till 9 p.m. She said that the only hard thing in American schools was learning English.
But she’s not the type that only studies. She strongly recommends being involved in extracurricular organizations also, as a way of finding out what you like and what you’re good at. one of her main interest up until now was community projects. She said she has always been very involved in the community. While in college she protested against Prop. 187, the anti-immigrant proposition. She was also part of a feminist group called Korean American Woman with Attitude a.k.a. KAWA.
She and the other women in the group published a ‘zine to address some of the issues facing them, including violence against Korean women, information on the Korean language, an overview of writing by and about Korean women and more.
Just as the Korean women first formed a community, then created an expression of that community, Judy hopes to see an arts community create a web site and/or use of the Internet that serves the needs of the community.
The building of a community is a hard and tedious task. Creating one via computer may prove to be even harder, but I think the Getty should be given a hand. In a time when people have lost the idea of what a community might be, this project may help to build the thoughts in others minds. The coming together of different people and different ideas can never be bad.
Important facts about LA Cultural Net:
-LACN is totally free for the browser.
-The URL for LACN web site is http://www.lacn.org
-If you have any questions or concerns you can contact
[email protected]
or [email protected]”