LaP: Learning at Parties

I was at a party Friday night. It was full of costumes, revelry and merriment. At one point well into the night, we stepped outside and enter into a fantastic conversation about energy. I remember that I could see the nearly full moon reflecting in the window of the house. Djs behind the glass. Dance floor behind the DJ. I don't remember how the conversation even started. LC proposes Manhattan Project 2.0 for renewable energy. "Do it. Put 500 billion into it!!! (as opposed to spending it on the war on terror)". I wasn't aware of the Manhattan Project (until I asked). No, I was thinking about the Manhatta Project which I JUST read about in article about Spatial History on World Changing. It is similar to the Lost Creeks of Vancouver but I think that bringing spatial history and place into the discourse adds new layers of richness and relevance to the project.



Spatial history asks:

What did our cities look like pre European history?

What was this place???

What has it been?


Basically, anything regarding place.

Talk nerdy to me

 
Amazing Czech biking history from Fransisco.  What a nerd.

raftacular

It was always my intention to keep the RAFT project going after school. It was always my intention to develop a simple design that could be scalable, adaptable, modular and work with materials at hand. I am so grateful for having met the fantastic people at eatART who are now supporting (and storing) this project at the hangar. Our mutual love for the sea as well as things like civil disobedience, energy awareness, creativity, invention, and general mayhem brought us all together this weekend, dressed like pirates, armed with a potato canon and ready for adventure. ( : So fun!!!

evo lives on

I entered evo (my carleton ID grad project) into the core 77 / inhabitat / greener gadgets design competition. and received a notable mention. Cool! So did terry and shane. go carleton. Check it out over here. I'm flattered that 4 years later, the same design could even qualify for being green. Approaching emotional durability.



Eternally yours,
Sarah

thinking slow

Slow design is contextual so its definition changes depending on the scale and situation. To me it means taking the necessary time to consider as many facets around who and what the designed thing (object, system, experience) will effect over time. This includes the environment, the producers and the consumers, in the short run and long run. I am making an effort to expand the time frame in which I operate so looking at projects like the 10 000 year all mechanical clock designed by the Long Now Foundation. Extreme yes, but they are actually building the thing in order to talk about applied long term thinking.

A typical intended outcome of a slow design process is to effectively slow down the flow of materials and/or pace of life. Less consuming equals less waste. Careful planning equals less waste. Taking 2 extra minutes to crush the cans and bottles from mad max and bring them up the dock equals less waste. To me slow design adds yet another layer on top of all the eco / sustainable design strategies I've been learning about through school, the green building world and my current job. I feel like slow implies a sensibility around the way we consume that is not about sacrifice but rather quality and pleasure. It also doesn't mean we have to walk every where and do every thing slowly but more about taking the necessary amount of time to understand what is often hidden behind the shiny surface and the allure of bigger better faster now. Because it's killing us.

And there's my slow rant for now. Time to go to work.

i want to build a windmill

yesterday morning i got up early and spent some time watching Bruce Sterling and TED talks. wasn;t the smoothest stream but it was worth it. got me thinking again how burning man is a festival for the privileged. no doubt about it. we go there, we build it, we tear it down and then we go back to join every one else. point is keeping it local is great but we must!, (rather i don't want to) forget about out there. this is the most inspiring thing i have ever seen.

future histories: burning man 2007

Burning Man 2007 was fantastical cosmic dream. Described in three words: another world experience. This years theme, the Green Man asked us to think about our relationship to nature, and then proceeded to bring us a lunar eclipse, a meteor shower and a full on double rainbow which emerged after a severe desert sand storm. Was the weather trying to answer this questions for us? Was it trying to tell us that this complex relationship is evolving before our senses and that just like any relationship, it is reciprocal and it needs us more than ever?



I went there for a number of reasons.. some personal some professional. the latter was meant to be an investigation into people’s attitudes towards the mainstreaming and marketing of social responsibility and sustainability, both in Black Rock City and the everyday. My questions were quickly answered on the Monday night when Paul Addis preemptively burned down the man in the name of shaking things up Gonzo style. I decided from then on to simply immerse myself in the present and enjoy the culture of Black Rock City for exactly what it is. I was blown away by all of the incredible art work, burners had clearly spent much time and energy on this event. Back home, I found an article in business magazine talking about rising corporate involvement (page 66) at Burning Man. Others liken it to an inevitable disneyfication of the event. Nevada's next tourist destination. But my favourites are still the trustafarian peacocks. They pretty much rule.

Let me get this out.. . the most disappointing fact of the whole event was the poor design of the events calendar. Called the What Where When guide it was more like the What guide making it nearly impossible to locate any of the wonderful workshops being hosted on the playa for even the most skilled cartographer. Being the optimist that I am.. a combination of a 'word of mouth', 'keep it local' and the situationists 'drifter' approach to city life helped me get over this sad sad piece of design. I have decided to save the calendars for next level arts n crafts inspiration ( :


I did attend a the 4th Annual Black Rock City Gathering of the Tribes held on the day of the burn, and facilitated by my friend Sobey. The central theme looked at how we can collectively take the Green Man consciousness into the future. After a round of introductions and words by west coast movers and shakers we broke off into groups to explore this idea of our future histories. The concept is this: suggest topics on which to build the story of our future in the past tense as if telling it to our children. Topics that emerged were social networks and media, forestry, food security and toxicity, community rituals, education, safe healing spaces, gender issues, and space travel. I joined the space group which ended up getting paired with the forestry group. We all immediately agreed that this made sense. Forests in space? Why not. Here we go. Wasn’t it a grand day when we leapt up into space from BRC bringing with us infinite energy and a perfectly contained and thriving ecosystem, Ahhh voyeurism of epic proportions bringing new perspectives and notions of regeneration. I made quite a few strong connections there mostly with people from LA, and fully intend on following up with them. I would be incredibly foolish not to. General feeling is a huge push for permaculture and guilds in a very forward thinking, technically innovative and highly sustainable ways.



All week as I cycled around the playa, I kept thinking Bucky Fuller would have been proud of us seeing all of the geodesic structures out there in the temporary autonomous city, protecting us from the harsh desert elements. I was stoked to help assemble a few of them... 3 different sized steel rods that come together in 5s or 6s which form triangles which in the end forms a perfect dome. The question of bottom up or top down construction is a pertinent one and depends on the number of people there to help.

The Crude Awakening was probably the most epic art installation of the festival. A 4 story wooden reconstruction of an oil derrick with giant welded human figures worshiping the structure that saw a steady flow of curious citizens slowly climbing the stairs to take in a view of the city and desert from above. Immediately after the burning of the man, BRC experienced the largest pyrotechnic show in human history with tales of 900 gallons of jet fuel donated by NASA, 2000 gallons of propane at hand, and the full moon over head. A social sculpture emerged to simultaneously represent utopia and apocalypse and to allow us to rethink our dependence on fossil fuels in this 21st century. The next day I visited the ashes and embers, and the whole piece came together for me when I saw a crane attempting to plant a single red cedar in place of the derrick. WIRED's blog the Underwire writes about it and what follows is a conversation on the ironic or somewhat contradictory nature of this installation. Read it and decide for yourself.

Since returning to Vancouver.. besides coughing all the playa dust out of my lungs, I've been able to research the festival.. its history, politics, culture, the polemic views from both those who were present and not yet present. To me Burning Man was a chance for to redefine the paradigm, to expand and strengthen my ideas on what is and isn't possible. to experience first hand what it feels like to create something from nothing but time and energy. . to grow our tribes. It is where cultural producers and creators take responsibility for redesigning all facets of everyday life. It is a cultural vehicle for radical self reliance and expression which I fully intend to ride again.



Woot woot!

a is a

everything is changing again. i feel uneasy. lonely? maybe that's it. but how can that be? out on the water this weekend, i couldn't stop thinking about a is a. ayn rand. atlas shrugged. i'm thinking but i'm also just doing as i'm told. pit and that's about it. internally, i feel as though the weight of the world is on my shoulders as the huge freighter enters english bay carrying about 2ooo containers of ?? i phones and shoes? and yet i haven't really done anything, objectively speaking, to make an difference in the passionate quest I say I am on. towards sustainability. toward the enduring ability to sustain ourselves aka to not fuck things up for the future.

so. much. waste.

i want to send the madmax crew this link. on the bottled water industry. we go through so much of it.. and really why can't we just bring our own? why can't we recycle the bottles? why don't we want to? why must i fish through the garbage at the end of the race to sort the recyclables from the garbage. why do i find half a dozen half empty bottles hidden in all the pockets? why do i feel like its inappropriate to send the adults some intelligence?

convergence

Something(s) From Nothing But Time
salvaged materials, time and energy
spring 2007

what happens to an object, a relationship, a community in disarray when you put something as simple as time and energy back into it? simple actions reproducible by anyone with access to the proper tools offer opportunities for new life, and another story.

the table and chairs.
because my research is focused on notions of collaborative and ecological design, the table, for me, is where it all happens… the table here was restored and assembled from salvaged materials: the base was found in a Mount Pleasant alley and the surface was found in a very old and scary Strathcona basement. the chairs were adopted, used, broken and are now in the process of being repaired and therefore diverted from the landfill. the table invites us to slow down and appreciate. conversations. the exchange of ideas. the mapping of information. the sharing of food. it may simultaneously connect us to - and differentiate us from - other creatures, places, and times.

the nests.
each nest above you was woven not by a bird, but by a student or faculty member from the Emily Carr Institute for a workshop called Finding Home, which took place at the SFU WOSK Centre for Dialogue on February 22, 2007. a truly collaborative effort, the materials were gathered from various locations around Vancouver, the North Shore and the Gulf Islands -- many from the fallen trees hit by this winter's storms. Through the act of weaving, of adapting, of working with the physicality of natural materials, these nests served as a metaphor for each of our own journeys in creating a sense of home for ourselves, our families, our communities, our world. The metaphor extended to being playful, local and resourceful.

How About That Weather
digital print, cardboard
spring 2007

this time map delineates the two years I will have spent at Emily Carr. It is a work in progress designed to help me see where I am, where I’ve come from and to suggest where I might be going… . . evolving concepts and influences such as new genre public art, the spime and the changing role of time within the design process are plotted on the bottom forming the foundation which supports my work, my community involvement, my experiences, my everyday observations, my life.

the spectacle

after a heated class today, I asked Vytas about artwork today that does not resort to creating spectacle in seeking innovation. the reason I'm interested is well the exact same thing must happen everywhere. art design media.. music.. . professional sports. science (bio) technology etc. etc.etc. somebody provocative suddenly 'makes it' and eats cake in front of everyone else. its totally exclusive. and it makes you wonder about everything. substitute Terence Koh for Karim Rashid or Marilyn Manson its very beautiful or admirable in one way and YET. it just doesn't sit right. the question came up.. in order to earn kudos or validation amongst the art community, does work have to situate itself within a socio political framework, or better yet does it have to become a spectacle? wandering through the books at InForm, I opened Bruce Mau's and David Rockwell's book "Spectacle". Seems recently the notion of the spectacle is becoming increasingly interesting to designers.. maybe because of its combination of performance / engagement with production for an audience... often at a grand scale.. it's a big loud book. very red and black. I much prefer "World Changing" to look at but even it is much too heavy. I love getting lost and exploring the ideas from les situationiste internationale, society of the spectacle, psychogeography, experimental travel (love it). although I do not know how useful it is, in the context of today.. . the small ones sure can be fun. I am remembering Diana.. . a true artist.



I like what you said about .. not having all the time in the world for everything. meaning and discourse can be attached to anything. and how much time we spend doing this is a choice we get to make, if we're lucky.

the issue, I think, is really about energy and ethics. creative process takes energy. moving things takes energy. choosing takes ethics. where do we choose to put our energy. sorry, but i don't want to market myself to help EA.

tonight, at BuyLow, I saw a photograph of Britney Spears with a shaved head at the grocery store. fascinating. RLC taught me (among many other things in a mere hour) that the word fascinating means to be both interested and repulsed to varying degrees.

energy

is one of those concepts I want to understand. because it is relevant in so many ways yet I have a tendency to avoid it. and I think most of us do. last semester, I gave a talk to the ECI 2nd year industrial design students on time wind water and energy. in preparing for the early morning, I learned heaps about BC Hydro, bill 30, micro hydro, wind power, and politics. powerpoint here.

watching A Valentine for Campbell by Waiting to Boil a Frog (via SWiG listserv) it's about coal, mercury and beautiful British Columbia. now, when I finally do tell people about this blog, it will be here. embedded and waiting.. .



for us to act.

the air is getting warmer.
spring is near.