Networked Culture

"Only on condition of a radical widening of definitions will it be possible for art and activities..."

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:16:40 -0700

““Only on condition of a radical widening of definitions will it be possible for art and activities related to art [to] provide evidence that art is now the only evolutionary-revolutionary power. Only art is capable of dismantling the repressive effects of a senile social system that continues to totter along the deathline: to dismantle in order to build ‘A SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART’… EVERY HUMAN BEING IS AN ARTIST who – from his state of freedom – the position of freedom that he experiences at first-hand – learns to determine the other positions of the TOTAL ART WORK OF THE FUTURE SOCIAL ORDER.” – Joseph Beuys”

sfmoma: wiblog: Visionaries like Buckminster Fuller see the...

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 21:18:40 -0800

sfmoma:

wiblog:

Visionaries like Buckminster Fuller see the world differently, and sometimes it takes everyone else a while to catch up.

The biannual Compostmodern conference on design and sustainability is coming to SF with designers, entrepreneurs, scientists, architects, and other thinkers who will discuss their vision for how creative innovation can make swift and important changes to the problems facing our world. I just found out that early-bird registration closes today, so GET ON THAT!

This conference looks fantastic.

"The time has come for global action to build a new world economic system that is no longer based on..."

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:44:30 -0800

““The time has come for global action to build a new world economic system that is no longer based on the illusion that limitless growth is possible on our precious and finite planet or that endless material gain promotes well-being. Instead, it will be a system that promotes harmony and respect for nature and for each other; that respects our ancient wisdom traditions and protects our most vulnerable people as our own family, and that gives us time to live and enjoy our lives and to appreciate rather than destroy our world. It will be an economic system, in short, that is fully sustainable and that is rooted in true, abiding well-being and happiness.” – Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley of Bhutan”

- http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/1221

Spotted on car bumper

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 17:11:14 -0800

3 stickers:

Fuck Terrorism. Desert Storm Veteran. Mystery Spot.

Measuring Social Impact: A series of posts from PopTech

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 07:02:36 -0800

Measuring Social Impact: A series of posts from PopTech:

“Each PopTech Edition explores an emerging theme at the edge of change from the perspective of some of the remarkable innovators shaping it. Here, we examine evolving techniques to accurately gauge the real impact of initiatives and programs designed to do social good.”

Easter Island reconsidered (Hunt and Lipo talk)

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 06:39:43 -0800

In the most isolated place on Earth a tiny society built world-class monuments. Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is 1,000 miles from the nearest Pacific island, 3,000 miles from the nearest continent. It is just six by ten miles in size, with no running streams, terrible soil, occasional droughts, and a relatively barren ocean. Yet there are 900 of the famous statues (moai), weighing up to 75 tons and 40 feet high. Four hundred of them were moved many miles from where they were quarried to massive platforms along the shores.

Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo began their archeological work on Easter Island in 2001 expecting to do no more than add details to the standard morality tale of the collapse of the island’s ecology and society—-Polynesians discovered Rapa Nui around 400-800AD and soon overpopulated the place (30,000 people on an island the size of San Francisco); competing elites cut down the last trees to move hundreds of enormous statues; after excesses of “moai madness” the elites descend into warfare and cannibalism, and the ecology collapses; Europeans show up in 1722. The obvious lesson is that Easter Island, “the clearest example of a society that destroyed itself“ (Jared Diamond), is a warning of what could happen to Earth unless we learn to live with limits.

A completely different story emerged from Hunt and Lipo’s archaeology. Polynesians first arrived as late as 1200AD. There are no signs of violence—-none of the fortifications common on other Pacific islands, no weapons, no traumatized skeletons. The palm trees that originally covered the island succumbed mainly to rats that arrived with the Polynesians and ate all the nuts. The natives burned what remained to enrich the poor soil and then engineered the whole island with small rocks (“lithic mulch”) to grow taro and sweet potatoes. The population stabilized around 4,000 and kept itself in balance with its resources for 500 years until it was totally destroyed in the 18th century by European diseases and enslavement. (It wasn’t Collapse; it was Guns, Germs, and Steel.)

What was up with the statues? How were they moved? Did they have a role in the sustainable balance the islanders achieved? Hunt and Lipo closely studied the statues found along the moai roads from the quarry. They had D-shaped beveled bottoms (unlike the flat bottoms of the platform statues) angled 14 ° forward. The ones on down slopes had fallen on their face; on up slopes they were on their back. The archeologists concluded they must have been moved upright—-”walked,” just as Rapa Nuians long had said. No tree logs were required. Standard Polynesian skill with ropes would suffice.

“Nova” and National Geographic insisted on a demonstration, so a 5-ton, 10-foot-high “starter moai” replica was made and shipped to Hawaii. After some fumbling around, 18 unskilled people secured three ropes around the top of the statue—-one to each side for rocking the statue, one in the rear to keep it leaning forward without falling. “Heave! Ho! Heave! Ho!” they cry in the video, the statue rocks, dancing lightly forward, and the audience at Cowell Theater erupts with applause. Progress was fast, even hard to stop—-100 yards in 40 minutes. A family could move one.

Stone statues to ancestors are common throughout Polynesia, but the enormous, numerous moai of Easter Island are unique in the world. Were they part of the peaceful population control and conservative agriculture regime that helped the society “optimize long-term stability over immediate returns” in a nearly impossible place to live?

During the Q & A, Hunt and Lipo were asked how their new theory of Easter Island history was playing on the island itself. Shame at being the self-destructive dopes of history has been replaced by pride, they said. Moai races are being planned. Polynesians were the space explorers of the Pacific. They completed discovering every island in the huge ocean by the end of the 13th century, colonized the ones they could, and then stopped.

Easter Island is not Earth. It is Mars.

—Stewart Brand (sb@gbn.org)

Triple Pundit talks Compostmodern13

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 09:43:03 -0800

Eda Goksel’s post on being involved with Compostmodern. Go Eda!

http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/01/survive-thrive/

Martin Montero: Essential tools to start a social enterprise.

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 14:40:10 -0700

Martin Montero: Essential tools to start a social enterprise.:

A compilation of the best resources to help you get your social enterprise planed, designed, launched and creating a sustainable impact.

Over the past few months a conversation has been evoling in the social entrepreneurship scene around the topic of super heros and how we can…

The Synthesizing Mind

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 17:36:18 -0700

The people I have come to call “Evolutionaries” are generalists for this very reason. Their critical insights are a result of thinking as a generalist must think—with a passionate but broad curiosity that fans out across culture and sees connections, patterns, transitions, and trends where others only see discrete facts and details. An Evolutionary must be able to look at the movements of nature, culture, and cosmos as a whole, yet without denying the infinite detail that surrounds us.

– Carter Phipps

I love this. Time to make like a mycelial network.

"The white man that landed here, he came with two great weapons. The Bible and the gun. If they..."

Tue, 29 May 2012 22:01:27 -0700

“The white man that landed here, he came with two great weapons. The Bible and the gun. If they don’t humble you with the Bible, they’ll crumble you with the gun. They’re still praising the Lord and passing the ammunition all over the world.”

- Lewis Michaud, of the Lewis Michaud Library, Harlem, New York.

Social Design Talks at the Young Foundation: Mariana Amatullo 5/30

Fri, 25 May 2012 10:21:52 -0700

We can only understand the future as a possibility. But it is one that implicates designers deeply. are the makers, strategists, visualizers, dream weavers and communicators whose work is essential to envisioning the material and immaterial forms of a more humane world.

– Mariana Amatullo

Hear more from Mariana, Co-Founder and VP of Designmatters at Art Center College of Design at this upcoming talk: Design Education for Social Impact: Why it matters, what it takes.

May 30th, 6:00pm - 7:15pm.. Held in the MIchael Young Room, The Young Foundation, 18 Victoria Park Square, Bethnal Green, London, E2 9PF.

Book tickets here.

"One hundred years from now, the role of science and technology will be about becoming part of nature..."

Wed, 23 May 2012 12:41:25 -0700

“

One hundred years from now, the role of science and technology will be about becoming part of nature rather than trying to control it.

So much of science and technology has been about pursuing efficiency, scale and “exponential growth” at the expense of our environment and our resources. We have rewarded those who invent technologies that control our triumph over nature in some way. This is clearly not sustainable.

We must understand that we live in a complex system where everything is interrelated and interdependent and that everything we design impacts a larger system.

My dream is that 100 years from now, we will be learning from nature, integrating with nature and using science and technology to bring nature into our lives to make human beings and our artifacts not only zero impact but a positive impact to the natural system that we live in.

”

- http://100.steelcase.com/mind/joi-ito/

poptech: PopTech is heading to Iceland in just over a month! On...

Wed, 23 May 2012 12:40:24 -0700

poptech:

PopTech is heading to Iceland in just over a month! On June 27th, we will be kicking off our two-day conference in Reykjavik focused on the theme of resilience. We’ll be exploring how and why some social, economic, business, technological and ecological systems are able to “bounce back” from shocks and disruption, while others are not. How do we build a more secure future and sturdier selves to live in it? Such insight has powerful implications for how we can build these systems to anticipate disruption, self-heal, and adapt.

Today we’re pleased to reveal our first round of speakers who will be taking the stage next month. Whether it’s a theoretical physicist studying why cities succeed where companies fail or an architect building floating schools and hospitals to reach the rural poor in flood-prone Bangladesh, PopTech Iceland will showcase people examining resilience in its many forms from a variety of viewpoints. Speakers include:

Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson is the fifth President of the Republic of Iceland.

George A. Bonanno, PhD, is a professor of Clinical Psychology and director of the Loss, Trauma, and Emotion Lab in the Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. His research centers on how human beings cope with loss, trauma and other forms of extreme adversity, with an emphasis on resilience and the salutary role of personality, positive emotion and emotion regulatory processes.

Simonetta Carbonaro is an expert in consumer psychology, strategic marketing and design management. She carries out research in the area of consumer ethos and behavior, forecasting the direction of consumer culture.

Nico Muhly has collaborated on projects with Antony and the Johnsons, Björk, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Grizzly Bear, Jónsi of Sigur Rós, and Valgeir Sigurðsson in addition to numerous recordings of his own music, composer. His first opera, Two Boys, premiered at the English National Opera in June 2011.

Mohammed Rezwan is an architect and the founder of Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, a not-for-profit development organization in Bangladesh that uses boats to provide education, training and health care to thousands of people in that country’s most flood-prone regions.

Joy Reidenberg, PhD, is a professor of Anatomy and Functional Morphology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Her research into the anatomies of whales, dolphins and porpoises has enabled these animals to become valued “natural experiments” to learn about basic biomechanical relationships that affect all mammals, including humans.

Judith Rodin is the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the world’s leading philanthropic organizations. Prior to the Rockefeller Foundation, she was the president of the University of Pennsylvania, and provost of Yale University. She was the first woman named to lead an Ivy League institution and is the first woman to serve as the Rockefeller Foundation’s president in its nearly 100-year history.

Eben Upton is a founder and trustee of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and serves as its Executive Director. The Raspberry Pi is an ultra-low cost, credit card-sized computer designed to fill a much-needed technological gap in communities that cannot afford more traditional computing hardware and to provide children around the world the opportunity to learn programming.

Geoffrey West is a theoretical physicist whose recent work has focused on developing an underlying quantitative theory for the structure and dynamics of cities, companies and long-term sustainability, including rates of growth and innovation, the accelerating pace of life, and why companies die, yet cities survive.

Steve Lansing is an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute, a professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, and a senior fellow at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. His groundbreaking work on Balinese water temple networks has illuminated the complex interplay among society, religion and ecology in the maintenance of the Bali rice terrace ecology.

We hope you’ll join us for two lively days filled with compelling presentations, musical performances, short films, and collaborative sessions. We have a limited number of conference tickets remaining. Secure your seat today!

Resilient Design, my obsession, with a well thought through...

Mon, 21 May 2012 20:57:09 -0700

Resilient Design, my obsession, with a well thought through point of view from Bruce Mau.

Brenda Brathwaite: Gaming for understanding | Expressing difficult subjects through interactive media

Thu, 03 May 2012 07:32:44 -0700

See on Scoop.it - Design for Social Innovation

For decades, Brenda Brathwaite has been a major figure in the field of game design. Famous for her work on the role-playing series Wizardry, she’s also known for her work on Def Jam: Icon, Playboy: The Mansion, and Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes.

It’s never easy to get across the magnitude of complex tragedies — so when Brenda Brathwaite’s daughter came home from school asking about slavery, she did what she does for a living — she designed a game.

In 2008, she began work on her non-digital series, The Mechanic Is the Message, dedicated to expressing difficult subjects through interactive media. Train, a game derived from the events of the Holocaust, won the Vanguard Award at Indiecade in October 2009.

See on ted.com

Rules of Thumb

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 14:51:00 -0700

I met Alan Webber last week and liked him immediately. We were attending a small conference at Cal., and worked together on a brainstorming exercise to explore how to make a city more like a platform. It was a great conversation. We hopped the same bart train home and had an equally interesting conversation about economic development. He was clearly someone with lots of experience and wisdom and great ideas – but beyond that, he was friendly, open, playful and fun.

Someone at the conference asked me “Is that Alan Webber?” “I don’t know” I replied, not knowing who Alan Webber was. When I got home, I went to find out a little bit more about my new conference buddy. I’m glad I did this after I met him, or I would have been completely intimidated and probably acted like a total dork blocking what I hope is a connection that can grow, since we share many interests and are bound to run into one another again.

Turns out he was a key contributor to the city government that revitalized of the city of Portland, Oregon, a longtime editor at HBR and co-founder of Fast Company magazine amongst other equally impressive accomplishments. After learning all this I still felt like a dork for not knowing who he was, since I was an avid reader of Fast Company back when it launched.

So there are two points. The first is, Allan Webber wrote a damn good book called Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths about wining in business without losing your self. I bought it immediately and read it in two sittings. It was pragmatic, optimistic, useful and completely down to earth. If, like me, you didn’t read it when it was no doubt, on the best seller list, read it now. I guarantee you will find pearls of wisdom you can apply to whatever you’re doing. And the second is: if you are, like me, a self-effacing introvert who gets intimidated by other people because of their exterior personas, break that habit. People are just people. Find out who they are and see if you like them no matter what their accomplishments. I’m learning this lesson again and again.

Maisie Andrews, Founder and Chair, Goodies in Hoodies

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 07:11:58 -0700

See on Scoop.it - Design for Social Innovation

Goodies in Hoodies is a youth action group that creates activities and opportunities for young people through a volunteering reward scheme, reducing relationship barriers and aiming to diminish anti-social behaviour.

At the age of 16, Maisey conceived and founded the youth project Goodies in Hoodies to dispel the negativity associated with teenagers in hoodies on a Fairwater estate. It is now a widely acclaimed project and recognised as an example of best practice across the UK.

See on leadingwalesawards.com

Buckminster Fuller and the Geodesic Dome

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 07:51:12 -0700

Via Scoop.it - Design for Social Innovation

Dedicating his life to making the world work for all of humanity, Buckminster Fuller‘s practice can’t be catagorized into one field but instead worked to solve global problems surrounding housing, shelter, transportation, education, energy, ecological destruction, and poverty. By the 1960s, Fuller had found a mass following because of his radical idealism and his visionary thinking which promoted sustainabilty and low ecological impact.

Via citymovement.wordpress.com

Keep an eye on this: Public and Collaborative NYC

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 15:13:58 -0700

testingpubcollab:

Our Initiative

Public and Collaborative NYC is a program of activities, developed by Parsons DESIS Lab and the Public Policy Lab, to explore how public services in New York City can be improved by incorporating greater citizen collaboration in service design and implementation.

Public & Collaborative NYC is grounded on the assumption that citizens, especially as they become ever more connected, can collaborate with each other and with government to improve their lives. The program addresses four related questions:

Read More

siliconvalleyryangosling: Hey girl. Calling out systemic...

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:27:01 -0700

siliconvalleyryangosling:

Hey girl. Calling out systemic sexism within tech needs to be done by the whole community. And that’s the kind of callout validator we really need.

SVRG responds to this and this.