DAOs in CAOs

​Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO)     Centralised Authoritarian Organisation (CAO):

a potential example in action:
I work in the Digital Media (DM) department at Central Saint Martins (CSM)
a subsidiary of University of the Arts London (UAL)
 
DM is itself a subsidiary of CSM Technical, a department.
 
So, we can see this macro-organisation as a hierarchy/patriarchy
hosting a community of micro-organisations: UAL/CSM/Technical/DM.
 
This is the DAO (DM) nested in the CAO (UAL).
 
This lop-sided ecology is increasingly weighted in financial favour and
power as we move up the structure from multiple co-operatives e.g., DM to monopolistic corporate control.
 
This is how it is now.
 
The question then:
​Can institutional structures be made more equitable in as much as can the co-operative functionality
at the bottom be migrated up the structure?
 
I will attempt, at least to frame, the question more definitively after sketching out some
sort of example of how this asymmetry currently manifests as far as I experience/perceive it
​from a low proletarian level within the organisation/machine.
 
Universities generally function as feudal societies.
 
They have a Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, Rector, Schools, Deans, Professors, Lecturers and Technicians for example.
The also have departments dealing with functions such as finance and welfare
​as well as libraries and services like catering and building maintenance amongst others.
 
These intersecting entities are typical of general and specific social organisational strucure.
A ‘CAO’
Below is a typical example:

A highly established vertical hierarchy that has become hyper-normalised, reinforced and consolidated over millennia.
The CAO then as establishment monopole.
 
However, my colleagues and myself within DM function on a day-to-day level much more like a DAO,
cooperative, mutually referring and freely exchanging.
 
I can give some examples of my own experience.
 
A bit of context first:
 
My designated role is as a specialist CAD technician though I have a history within CSM as a Research Fellow and as an Associate Lecturer.
In this context my actual work practice, despite being labelled ‘Technical’, is considerably more than fifty percent
researching artistic and technical potential as well as teaching animation at Master’s level.
The ‘animation’ teaching is simultaneously technical, academic and aesthetic.
This tripolar dynamic continues despite CSM bringing in consultants who advised the school to separate these three components into distinct practices in order to save money (just my little gripebut true nonetheless).

Research:
An example of collaborative team activity that I have participated in is an ongoing practical implementation of quick,
affordable, home-made motion/performance capture research, construction and implementation.
This has clear implications for developments relating to animation production and experimentation.
So, in this context it has involved collaboration with animation staff and students as well as Fine Art, Performance,
Fashion and people from other departments and of course colleagues within our own technical team
who may be exploring and working similar systems. Motion capture suits and gloves being one example.
There are also 3D scanning technologies that have potential to work in conjunction with performance capture.

These collaborations have functioned in as much a peer-to-peer way to experiment with blended human/machine techniques
as much if not more than as me being a teacher.
Despite myself being the initiator once the process is under way very often all participants make significant contributions to process exploration.
 
This group process has helped to gain funding from higher up the management chain of command;
so there is both a hierarchical and decentralised set of processing at work in this example.
 
Teaching:
As far teaching goes I am responsible for teaching 3D Character animation to students primarily studying on the MA in Character Animation at CSM.
 
This involves delivering lectures on the practical construction of animated characters as both a technical and artistic activity.

The technical aspects involve CAD modelling of characters, rigging the characters and keying (animating) the characters.
The artistic aspects involve creating a method based character backstory, identifying drives and emotional responses in this context and
performing the character in accordance with a variety of animation principles.

Within the character animation team there is a co-operative spirit within the boundaries of an established but flexible syllabus.
We all have a range of experience in many different character animation styles,
traditions and innovative approaches to animation.
We also work collaborativley with staff and students from Performance, formally known as Drama Centre London,
a leading acting school that used Method Acting, Stanislavsky and Laban Movement Analysis, methods
​CSM Performance continues to develop.

Within the technical team there is a wide range of digital media skills.
Virtual fashion, coding, game development Virtual and mixed reality to name a few.

These intersecting departmental skills and technologies form a highly fertile hybrid environment.
The relationship with the higher hierarchy structure that often remotely determines financial decisions can
be frustratingly beaurocratic putting hurdles that become slow and arduous.

Whilst we recognise that some sort of management decision making  is neccessary in the current structural
social/financial way things are organised 

Hence the question framed at the beginning:

Can institutional structures be made more equitable in as much as can the co-operative functionality
at the bottom be migrated up the structure?

At this point I don't have a clear answer but the question remains pertinent and urgent within the current shifting
context of accelerated change driven by financial, communicative and social technologies.​

 

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