Forget about swapping party pictures on Facebook and other “gee-whiz stuff,” says former Vice President Al Gore. “Web 2.0 has to have a purpose.”
And since it’s Al Gore, you know that purpose has got to be green.
“The purpose, I would urge all of you — as many of you as are willing to take it up — is to bring about a higher level of consciousness about our planet and the imminent danger and opportunity we face because of the radical transformation in the relationship between human beings and the Earth,” Mr. Gore said Friday evening at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.
— From Al Gore and the Purpose-Driven Web, in The New York Times
Gong Szeto would seem to agree with Al Gore. Szeto, one of our most interesting designer/thinker/activists, has just submitted his proposal for YOUROWNDEMOCRACY.ORG to The Buckminster Fuller Challenge. So while Gore remains focused on the environment, Szeto has taken up the similarly daunting task of considering how citizens of democracies everywhere can have a greater visibility and input into governmental processes and decision-making. Or, as Szeto himself daringly puts it: “Basically, I think democracy itself needs to be a really kick-ass app shared and “owned” by millions.”
Continue reading ‘Democracy 2.0?’
from Wichita Vortex Sutra, by Allen Ginsberg:
I’m an old man now, and a lonesome man in Kansas
but not afraid
to speak my lonesomeness in a car,
because not only my lonesomeness
it’s Ours, all over America,
O tender fellows–
& spoken lonesomeness is Prophecy
in the moon 100 years ago or in
the middle of Kansas now.
It’s not the vast plains mute our mouths
that fill at midnite with ecstatic language
when our trembling bodies hold each other
breast to breast on a matress–
Not the empty sky that hides
the feeling from our faces
nor our skirts and trousers that conceal
the bodylove emanating in a glow of beloved skin,
white smooth abdomen down to the hair
between our legs,
It’s not a God that bore us that forbid
our Being, like a sunny rose
all red with naked joy
between our eyes & bellies, yes
All we do is for this frightened thing
we call Love, want and lack–
fear that we aren’t the one whose body could be
beloved of all the brides of Kansas City,
kissed all over by every boy of Wichita–
O but how many in their solitude weep aloud like me–
On the bridge over the Republican River
almost in tears to know
how to speak the right language–
on the frosty broad road
uphill between highway embankments
I search for the language
that is also yours–
almost all our language has been taxed by war.
Radio antennae high tension
wires ranging from Junction City across the plains–
highway cloverleaf sunk in a vast meadow
lanes curving past Abilene
to Denver filled with old
heroes of love–
to Wichita where McClure’s mind
burst into animal beauty
drunk, getting laid in a car
in a neon misted street
15 years ago–
to Independence where the old man’s still alive
who loosed the bomb that’s slaved all human consciousness
and made the body universe a place of fear–
Now, speeding along the empty plain,
no giant demon machine
visible on the horizon
but tiny human trees and wooden houses at the sky’s edge
I claim my birthright!
reborn forever as long as Man
in Kansas or other universe–Joy
reborn after the vast sadness of War Gods!
A lone man talking to myself, no house in the brown vastness to hear,
imaging the throng of Selves
that make this nation one body of Prophecy
languaged by Declaration as
Happiness!
I call all Powers of imagination
to my side in this auto to make Prophecy,
all Lords
of human kingdoms to come
Shambu Bharti Baba naked covered with ash
Khaki Baba fat-bellied mad with the dogs
Dehorahava Baba who moans Oh how wounded, How wounded
Sitaram Onkar Das Thakur who commands
give up your desire
Satyananda who raises two thumbs in tranquility
Kali Pada Guha Roy whose yoga drops before the void
Shivananda who touches the breast and says OM
Srimata Krishnaji of Brindaban who says take for your guru
William Blake the invisible father of English visions
Sri Ramakrishna master of ecstasy eyes
half closed who only cries for his mother
Chaitanya arms upraised singing & dancing his own praise
merciful Chango judging our bodies
Durga-Ma covered with blood
destroyer of battlefield illusions
million-faced Tathagata gone past suffering
Preserver Harekrishna returning in the age of pain
Sacred Heart my Christ acceptable
Allah the Compassionate One
Jahweh Righteous One
all Knowledge-Princes of Earth-man, all
ancient Seraphim of heavenly Desire, Devas, yogis
& holymen I chant to–
Come to my lone presence
into this Vortex named Kansas,
I lift my voice aloud,
make Mantra of American language now,
I here declare the end of the War!
Ancient days’ Illusion!
and pronounce words beginning my own millennium.
Let the States tremble,
let the Nation weep,
let Congress legislate it own delight
let the President execute his own desire–
this Act done by my own voice,
nameless Mystery–
published to my own senses,
blissfully received by my own form
approved with pleasure by my sensations
manifestation of my very thought
accomplished in my own imagination
all realms within my consciousness fulfilled
60 miles from Wichita
near El Dorado,
The Golden One,
in chill earthly mist
houseless brown farmland plains rolling heavenward
in every direction
one midwinter afternoon Sunday called the day of the Lord–
Pure Spring Water gathered in one tower
where Florence is
set on a hill,
stop for tea & gas
A couple of posts on other blogs recently caught my attention. First, over on Design Observer, Dmitri Siegel wrote an interesting piece entitled Design By Numbers. It’s a good overview of data and metrics, and how designers need to grapple with these issues. The article ends with this proposition:
There is a great and growing need for designers who can have a critical dialog with the Numerati. These designers will be able to not only digest and learn from the statistical analysis, but will offer a counter-point to the short-term incremental gains that it can offer.
In general I agree with the author’s statement. However, I wondered if I detected just a bit of a reactionary stance in his “us versus them” construction. So I asked Dmitri Siegel about this (you can see my question in the comments). He responded with the following:
I believe that dialectics are part of how our language and system of meaning work and can only be shaped (not avoided). The trick is to cultivate dialectics that are productive and transparent (art vs. commerce, form vs. function, etc.). I think designers should dive in and help complete the data vs. ??? dialectic that will be so significant in their work in the coming decades.
I don’t mean to imply that designers should always argue against data. But if someone does not form an interesting counter-point to the persuasions of the spread-sheet the conversation will end.
For example, in my own work I find it very useful to remember that all the data you gather only tells you about your existing audience, and may or may not be relevant to the audience you want to have.
Well said. I think my initial question was put to rest, but Dmitri’s notion of “data vs. ???” left me wondering as to an answer, especialy since this is, in part, an issue of time and time-thinking. As Dmitri Siegel points out: “the Numerati will be able to make ever-more compelling arguments for short-term gain over long-term investment.”
Continue reading ‘Anticipating The Future, Together’
I was never a big Miró fan, and I’m not sure I am one now, but I certainly do like this review by Holland Cotter in the New York Times:
First there is this:
How to start? With dissection, which entailed taking painting apart, piece by piece, and throwing out essential things. This is what we see happening in the seven stark abstract paintings that open the show, all done in Paris in January to mid-February of 1927. The pictures look intact enough, with their handwritten phrases and clouds filled with dots, until you notice that something is missing: paint, or all but a minimal amount of it. Most of each picture is raw, untouched canvas on which the words and clouds drift like flotsam from a ship gone down.
A year later Miró gets rid of something else: skill. The wood panel used as a support in a piece called “Spanish Dancer I” is covered with a sheet of colored paper. A small rectangle of plain sandpaper is tacked on top of it. Glued to the sandpaper is a tiny cutout image of a woman’s shoe. That’s about it: no paint, almost no image, almost no artist.
And then this:
In this case the trip is fairly demanding but one I suspect that audiences with even a casual interest in how art is conceived and made will enjoy. From beginning to end, the particular audience I had in mind was a special one, art students.
For them the show could serve as a manual of anti-authoritarian moves. Unpopular Mechanics of Painting, you might call it. But it could also be a guide to living a creative life. This is particularly true for students who are under pressure to choose a single medium (painting, say) and stay with it; to firm up a signature style and stay with it; to get to the market early and stay there.
To these requirements, the Miró show says: no, no, no. Change mediums, like habits, as often as possible. Make your signature look a no-look or every-look, and keep changing that. Get to the market early if you want, but then go home and stay there awhile and work. Then stay longer. Destroy the artist you think the world thinks you’re supposed to be, and you’ll start to find the artist you are.
Pow.
I came across this absolute gem of a comment by Phoebe Sengers on John Thackara’s always inspiring Doors of Perception blog:
I am currently spending 6 months living in a Newfoundland fishing village, where the average personal income is ca. $13,000 (Canadian). The people in this town would not identify themselves in any way as being ‘green’. Two things have been amazing to see here: one is how sustainable everyday life is with many needs being met directly, locally on the island and little interest in the accumulation of conspicuous wealth; the second is how content people are with their everyday lives. This place really has helped me understand what a low quality of life we have in income-and-status-seeking contexts, and how a truly ‘green’ lifestyle is not about buying more green stuff but about ratcheting everything back - in order to have a *better* quality of life. And one thing people on this island do which is extremely striking to a workaholic academic like myself is that they put work second, or even third, after caring for their families, friends, and households. Everything in life is not about how much it affects your ability to work.