Hello baby hawk

Walking home yesterday, we had an encounter. So close to home. In the city.

359 nodes and 2799 links

PSFK conference in SFO

Yesterday I went to my first conference as a creative strategist with Ci. Oooooh moving up! PSFK hosts creative idea conferences in cities around the world and yesterday's took place at an old military base near the water in San Fransisco. Many of the speakers focussed on technology enabling community building and one particular speaker from Apple - Chris Riley - spoke of three highly influential people - Stewart Brand, Alice Waters and Paul Hawken. I just had to thank him at the end of the day. Another highlight was Max Schor from GOOD Magazine. Very refreshing, humbling and thought provoking. He asked the audience as he was getting started - "How many people want to make things better?" Not a single person did not raise their hand. The room was certainly filled with optimistic bright creative (and nerdy) bodies, minds and souls.

The best surprise for me was the fact that the Long Now Foundation was just next door and I got to see the prototypes for the 10 000 year clock! I was in heaven. I had done quite a bit of research on Stewart Brand for my thesis. Some call him the smartest man in America. Look him up! The Foundation exists for the sole and brave purpose of encouraging us all to adopt a long term view. We're talking centuries and millenniums. What a breath of fresh air considering the conference was all about trends and what they mean and where we're going.

More in line with the 'short view', I couldn't get over how many people were talking about Twitter! This is something I have not really been interested in adopting - maybe because I find the name a bit irritating. Hmmmm.

Some of the recurring themes I noticed during the day - take risks, do the right thing the right way and the business model will follow, don't be afraid to fail, be considerate, listen to people, experiment, play, and of course - collaborate! Look outside your own discipline and geography for inspiration. Oh yes, and have fun!!!

Speaking of fun, here are some photos from the after party!
Thanks to Orange Exposure for the great photos.


Serge, Sarah and Rachel

Piers Fawkes and Max Schor

What a great day! Looking forward to more of this!

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!!!

RAFT :: being held hostage in gallery

Conceived as a floating structure, built mostly of salvaged materials, the project component of my thesis (RAFT) is used as a way to test and work through the creative possibilities that surround slow design. I use RAFT as a research tool – a conceptual and physical sounding board to uncover and develop a template for practicing slow design. The method was conceived primarily for industrial designers, and therefore more often than not includes a physical product output. It has the ability to transfer to other forms of sustainable design and production.

RAFT as platform

Updated sketches coming soon to a scanner near you. and who is YOU? aha I get a kick out that question. It's very Modest Mouse.

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?

playa soropta

hola! i´m writing today from changuinola panama. took a boat into town to check in with the internet world, and to pick up a few key provisionals namely chocolate and a hammock! i had no idea what this adventure would entail. so far i have not felt alone even though i have been travelling solo. lonely planet has really changed the nature and culture of travel. there is always someone going the same direction. i have not lost trust in people. in fact i am gaining it.



on my 4th night, i witnessed my first mama leatherback. we got to her just as she was laying her eggs, nest already dug, 153 cm in length (just the shell). Cesar, one of the locals working with us, was asking me about a few questions after a very silent 4 hours of walking under the rising moon and millions of stars.. do you have a boyfriend? si. do you have a son? no. do you have a sister? no. i have a brother.. he plays music... electrico guitar. and then he turns to me and says something like welcome to your first tortuga. o i got emotional for a number of reasons.. atlas shrugged, human nature, endangered species, dan and his audience, the gift of making music for people and its enormous potential to move the world. in a conscious direction. or is that conscientious? the best part for me was watching her slip back into the ocean.. where she goes.. no one will really know until she turns up again. could be in a few weeks.. could be in years.. could be never again.



i had this thought the other night.. if $ were no object, i would throw a music festival.. inviting all the musicians that i know and love. the fully down, trevor strange, keep yourself good company, milky way travellers, and of course franky! if more wanted to come.. great. bonobo? cat power?

i am realizing what i came here to do. and that is to gather strength... in order to face the world that i love. if that is all i do here, then that is enough.


ciao for now. xos.

playa soropta

well i did it.

i bought a ticket to panama.



to volunteer on a turtle conservation project on playa soropta for 5 weeks. ( :

http://www.turtleprotection.org/

soropta is on panama's carribean coast mid way down the horn. very close to an area called San San Pond Sak which is recognized by the UN as a globally important wetland based on it's uniquness and bio-diversity. i'm terribly excited although i have no idea what lies before me. haven't done my research yet but are you surprised? and who is you? i'm looking forward to being somewhere else. change of scenery. for scenery's sake. its temporary. i hope to come back with a renewed perspective on the great life cycle inquiry. i've proposed to my teachers that this trip is about biomimicry, immersion, invention, curiousity, transferable skills, biodiversity, community development. my passion lies in mobile-ness, culture and the environment. how to travel and be a researcher / designer / journalist concerned with the fate of our generations.. . pretty broad.. i know.



matt and jen, who i will be working with down there, have also been blogging about the soropta project. they are already down there walking the beaches at night and taking care of things. i met them at julian's birthday. enough said!

stay tuned internet. ( :

and, happy birthday mama!

sculpting my future

I'm getting interested in the idea of my workshops as a spectrum with the social side being arts n crafts night to the professional side as what's called integrated design process or IDP and . this is essential to achieving sustainable (or smart) design. basically it involves getting everyone to the table at the very beginning of the design process. makes perfect sense. don't want to be playing the telephone game.. . .

my new place is wonderful. the girls are amazing in what they do and how they do it. with so much grace. kristi mccrae came to visit last weekend which was SO nice. she calls herself a wild crafter. we went to the vancouver museum to see a show called from totems to turquoise.. a history of jewelry from the southwest to northwest coast. her present love is someone i met while traveling with yossi and remember thinking how wonderful this sunshine coast local was and soooo knowledgeable about the land on which he has grown up on. it was pretty funny to see him at the door. needless to say it was a wonderful visit.

I haven't been taking many photos lately.

now its time to start planning for the summer. part of the program involves landing ourselves a summer internships for 12 weeks to get some profession cred. but what I really want to is learn how to work and travel. the panama opportunity* is still strong in my mind as is sailing around vancouver island** as is burning man***. I'm really thinking about not having a home this summer and using the rent money to travel.

* http://www.turtleprotection.org
** http://www.vanisle360.com
*** http://www.burningman.com/

if and once I got to panama, I would have very little costs + I'd learn spanish + I'd learn muchos about tortugas. the van isle 360 race is expensive (~ $2000) but I must.. and apparently serge has bought be a ticket for burning man. that being said, I'm still going to shoot for the moon and try to land a position somewhere between design and architecture in the northwest pacific. currently updating my resume and portfolio... of course money is an issue as I'm just about to pay tuition + rent for this semester... i have enough but still as usual just riding 0.