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Have I cracked the the telepresence conundrum?

Doors of Perception
Friday, 22 January 2010
Last evening I particpated remotely from my home in France in a pre-event in Amsterdam of ElectroSmog International Festival for Sustainable Immobility. I didn't use the fancy gadget in the photo above. My set-up yesterday was a bit, but not a lot, better-organized than the remote recording session (below) I did for a BBC radio programme last summer. I said my bit to deBalie via skype, and followed the rest of proceedings, which were chaired by Eric Kluitenberg, on deBalie's livestreaming feed. The deBalie session was not, I know, a major event in the greater context of events concerning sustainability, media, and design. But I'm proud, nonetheless: I have not yet set foot in an aeroplane in 2010, and Read more...

20. Bubble-glazing

Doors of Perception
Friday, 22 January 2010
Here is a late addition - number 20 - to our story of last week: 19 reasons to be cheerful after Copenhagen. Instructions: cut-to-fit; spray with water; bubbles face inwards. Done. (thx Miranda, for the new word) Read more...

19 reasons to be cheerful after Copenhagen (+1)

Doors of Perception
Friday, 22 January 2010
The outcome of Copenhagen is depressing if you only look at what happened at the official summit, and persist in the belief that those guys are "world leaders". They are not: they are followers, guardians of a dying regime. So don't look at them. Hundreds of thousand of groups are already busy, in countless ways, preparing their communities for the changes and shocks to come. Elements of an alternative global framework have started to emerge. Several hundred of these groups helped draft a 'People’s Declaration' from Klimaforum09 entitled System change – not climate change. It's a much better read. Meanwhile, I thought it would be both festive and restorative to share with you the following 19 highlights of our 2009 Read more...

20] Bubble-glazing

Doors of Perception
Friday, 22 January 2010
Here is a late addition - number 20 - to our story of last week: "> 19 reasons to be cheerful after Copenhagen. Instructions: cut-to-fit; spray with water; bubbles face inwards. Done. Read more...

Doors of Perception projects portfolio

Doors of Perception
Monday, 18 January 2010
Bulb-planting has started early at Doors HQ: - We've posted summary descriptions of the last ten years' Doors of Perception projects - the idea being that we plan to do more projects like these ones, only better. We've also tidied up the garden shed: - All City Eco Lab posts are now in one stack; [City Eco Lab never had its own website]; - So too are all posts on new economic metrics; - We've started a new category on transition and resilience; here we reflect on our encounters with the Transition movement and the ways it is building resilience in communities around the world; - News on new and recent books by John Thackara are now collected in Read more...

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today's news

Interactive Architecture dot Org
The definitive book to date…

Here a book I’ve really been meaning to post about for a long time. Published by PA Press, Michael Fox and Miles Kemp have put together as they call it “a processes-oriented guide to creating dynamic spaces and objects capable of performing a range of pragmatic and humanistic functions. These complex physical interactions are made [...]

Rachel Armstrong – Living Architecture

Rachel Armstrong teaches at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, where she is advocating a new approach to architecture – one that sees buildings becoming living things. One of the best things about working at the Bartlett are some of the extraordinary people that you spend time with day to day and while [...]

Kiefer Technic Showroom Facade

Created by architect Giselbrecht + Partner ZT GmbH this amazing project is called “Dynamic Facade” better known as the Kiefer Technic Showroom in Bad Gleichenberg, Austria.

Olafur Eliasson @ MCA Sydney

One for those lucky enough to enjoy the Australian summer whilst we’re freezing up here in London- Olafur Eliasson’s Take Your Time exhibition is now on at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA). Not that we Londoners have anything to complain about really, as we got his Weather Project back in 2003, and judging by [...]

Hear Here – an acoustic theatre – Ric Lipson

Sound is an integral part of the way we understand the space surrounding us. Size, quality, timbre, texture and the atmosphere of a space can all be inferred by the way in which we experience sound. Based on ideas from the Suffolk island of Orford Ness, Ric Lipson’s acoustic theatre ‘Hear Here” has been developed [...]

Sniff – Emergence Exhibition

The final piece in the Emergence Exhibition is “Sniff” by Karolina Sobecka and Jim George. Sniff is an interactive projection: an animated dog follows passers-by, discerns their behavior as friendly or aggressive, tries to engage them and forms a relationship with them based on the history of the interaction. As the viewer walks by the [...]

Leo Nunez – Emergence Exhibition

Another piece of work from the Emergence Exhibition “Propagations” by Leo Nunez is a system of cellular automatons, made up by 50 robots. Different states emerge from this complex system. These states are defined not only by the interaction of the robots with the spectators, but also by the interaction of the robots with their [...]

Emergence – Art and Artificial Life

I’ve just returned from California where I’ve installed Performative Ecologies at the Beall Center for Art + Technology for the Emergence Exhibition alongside the work of Marc Bohlen, Leo Nuñez, Karolina Sobecka and Jim George. Over a couple of posts I’m going to give a run down of the work on show but I recommend [...]

Decode

Last week the V&A in London opened a new show titled Decode – Digital Design Sensations. The exhibition, co-curated by onedotzero, showcases the latest developments in digital and interactive design, from small screen based graphics to large-scale installations. Exhibition poster: Prototypes from the Flowers series, 2009 Daniel Brown I was lucky enough to get my hands on [...]

London Lecture – Passages Through Hinterlands

As part of the Bartlett School of Architecture International Lecture Series there will be a FREE Digital Architecture Event this coming Wednesday in London. http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/architecture/events/lectures/lectures.htm#9 image credit: Shampoo, AA Design Research Laboratory Date:Wednesday 9th December , 2009 from 6.30PM Open to public, arrive early to avoid disappointment. Location:Darwin Lecture Theatre University College London Access through Malet Place. Map For a special student focused [...]

Doors of Perception weblog Reflections on design and the green economy by John Thackara
Have I cracked the the telepresence conundrum?

Last evening I particpated remotely from my home in France in a pre-event in Amsterdam of ElectroSmog International Festival for Sustainable Immobility. I didn't use the fancy gadget in the photo above. My set-up yesterday was a bit, but not a lot, better-organized than the remote recording session (below) I did for a BBC radio programme last summer. I said my bit to deBalie via skype, and followed the rest of proceedings, which were chaired by Eric Kluitenberg, on deBalie's livestreaming feed. The deBalie session was not, I know, a major event in the greater context of events concerning sustainability, media, and design. But I'm proud, nonetheless: I have not yet set foot in an aeroplane in 2010, and

20. Bubble-glazing

Here is a late addition - number 20 - to our story of last week: 19 reasons to be cheerful after Copenhagen. Instructions: cut-to-fit; spray with water; bubbles face inwards. Done. (thx Miranda, for the new word)

Doors of Perception projects portfolio

Bulb-planting has started early at Doors HQ: - We've posted summary descriptions of the last ten years' Doors of Perception projects - the idea being that we plan to do more projects like these ones, only better. - All City Eco Lab posts are now in one stack; [City Eco Lab never had its own website]; - So too are all posts on new economic metrics; - We've started a new category on transition and resilience; here we reflect on our encounters with the Transition movement and the ways it is building resilience in communities around the world; - News on new and recent books by John Thackara are now collected in one place - buy them all now,

Marketing, me, and the future of tv

A marketing whiz I know in New York asked me to do her a favour: answer some questions about the future of tv. At least, that's what I thought she asked. But when, a couple of days later, a large FedEx package arrived, it contained a tiny digital voice recorder and the instruction: "tell us your views about the future of the television" - ie, the product, not its content. Although deprived of the opportunity to pontificate about the evils of reality television and Fox News, I nonetheless narrated the following into the little machine and FedExed it (at my friend's insistence) back. For some reason, I never heard from her again. [ Transcript below] "For me, big televisions are

19 reasons to be cheerful after Copenhagen (+1)

The outcome of Copenhagen is depressing if you only look at what happened at the official summit, and persist in the belief that those guys are "world leaders". They are not: they are followers, guardians of a dying regime. So don't look at them. Hundreds of thousand of groups are already busy, in countless ways, preparing their communities for the changes and shocks to come. Elements of an alternative global framework have started to emerge. Several hundred of these groups helped draft a 'People’s Declaration' from Klimaforum09 entitled System change – not climate change. It's a much better read. Meanwhile, I thought it would be both festive and restorative to share with you the following 19 highlights of our 2009

Designing an associative life

Government departments or ministries responsible for sustainability, or "the environment", are too often constrained by small budgets and modest influence. Their very existence allows traditional departments - "industry", "economic affairs", "finance" or "transport" - to carry on their ecocidal ways as normal. A similar problem persists in business where Corporate Social Responsibility has long been treated as a sideline to the real action. A growing number of individuals in government or industry silos want to work collaboratively with their peers in other silos - but they are often stymied by a system that imprisons them. So what to do? Rather than rage against the iniquities of politicians, a new French organization called La 27e Region (The 27th Region) has set

Territorial development books

It has always been a point of pride at Doors of Perception events to curate the bookstore as carefully as we curate the speakers. We do this because when a conference theme cuts across disciplines - as ours do - no single bookseller is likely to know which are the best supporting titles on sustainability *and* design *and* culture *and* business; we select them collaboratively. So it was a special insider's pleasure to encounter a display of books at La 27e Region's event in Marseille (see story above) on all aspects of territorial development. The word territorial has no direct English equivalent: in French (and also in Italian) it describes a synthesis of the soil, the land, the earth,

Hand-made clothes for all

This Louis Vuitton ad features shoes which cost about 600 euros (US$700) in the shops. I don't know how much Louis Vuitton pays for them, and I don't know how much they will be paying Tony Blair to help sell them but I'd be surprised if the unit cost to the company is what: 60 euros? half that? The numbers may be confidential, but it's no longer a secret that Louis Vuitton products are not hand-made by horny-handed French craftsmen. On the contrary: the labour-intensive aspects of Louis Vuitton shoe production take place in India. But final assembly and finishing happen in Italy - so the louche young man in the ad could well be genuine. This arrangement allows

From King Parakramabahu to ethical fashion

Some people blame the Enlightenment for our present troubles. The scientific revolution, they say, gave man ideas above his station. We frequently harm natural systems, goes the charge, because of our delusional belief that we are separate from, and have dominion over, nature. This myth of apartness, the charges conclude, dulls the responsibility we'd feel if we felt ourselves to be co-dependent members of natural community. History suggests that modernity is not uniquely to blame for messing with Gaia. During his reign as King of Sri Lanka from 1153–1186, for example, Parakramabahu asserted that "not even a little water that comes from the rain must flow into the ocean without being made useful to man". He went on to

In the Palace of the Popes

Is culture something that’s produced to be sold, or a description of the ways people live? It’s an old question, but last week’s Forum d’Avignon (see also my story below) put a new spin on it: could the culture industries lead the way out of the economic crisis? The debate did not take place on neutral territory. The Forum’s 300 grandees of media, economy and culture met in the Palace of the Popes. The event felt more like a papal conclave than a business meeting. But the Forum crowd was not to be diverted from earthly matters. The first day coincided with the leak of a dramatic missive from Société Générale warning its private clients to be ready for a

Post-GDP: metrics, aesthetics, or ethics?

So on Friday I'm immoderating a panel discussion about "After GDP" at the Forum d'Avignon, a uniquely French event which brings the worlds of culture, economy and media together in the Palais des Papes. By way of throwing an advance stone into the pond, I wrote this short background article for Les Echos. The French version comes first (thanks, Emilie!); scroll down for the English version.

epa!

The highlight of my visit to Musashino Art University's 80th Anniversary was this stunning fashion show called epa! (Thanks, Tatsu, for the pictures). An incredible amount of fine handwork was involved in the clothes and acccessories, but what struck me most was the energy of the staging and choreography, and the pagan storyline: these reminded me of a design-school graduation collection I saw back in 1984 called "Les Incroyables". It was by a young designer called John Galliano. Even earlier than that, back in 1954, Musashino art students moved in different ways....

From FarmVille to TransitionVille

If I were a PsyOps specialist at Monsanto, I'd have invented FarmVille. More than 62 million people have signed up to play the Facebook game since it made its debut in June, with 22 million logging on at least once a day. It's quickly become ">the most popular application in the history of Facebook. FarmVille players outnumber actual farmers in the United States by more than 60 to 1, and it would be hard to imagine a better way to distract people from re-localising food in real-life. "The whole concept of ‘I’m sick of this modern, urban lifestyle, I wish I could just grow plants and vegetables and watch them grow,’ there is something very therapeutic about that,” said

Spacing in

As you may have read in this month's newsletter, I'm a new fan of Spacing. This excellent new-paradigm magazine and multi-city blog (Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Atlantic, including Halifax) features daily dispatches from the streets of these places on "just about anything that involves the public realm of our cities" Under that heading, they just posted an interview with your correspondent, about 4 Days Halifax, on Spacing Radio. Listen closely and you may be able to hear the sound of Halifax rain pattering onto the microphone. (You have to click the button just below the signature of Andrew Emond; my bit is about 18 minutes in).

Tech push and social pull

I've been reading a special issue of Innovations called "Energy for Change: Creating Climate Solutions" which claims to be "as thorough a survey of energy and climate solutions as has yet been compiled". (I'm not putting a link here because the publisher - naughtily - has changed a contents page into an order page since I wrote about the journal in my newsletter. ) Although authored for the most part by eminent engineers, and published out of Tech Central - MIT - the collection is not wholly about technological solutions. Alongside optimistic papers on electric cars, carbon capture, and nuclear energy, there's also a paper by Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka and of Get America Working, entitled "Engage People, Not

NYT > Art & Design
Wielding Iron Checkbook to Shape Cultural Los Angeles

Eli Broad dominates the arts in Los Angeles with a force that has no parallel in any major city.

Putting the Wrongs of History in Paint

The Belgian painter Luc Tuymans has become known for examining the visual residue of trauma and the collective desire to forget.

Arts: Two Cities, One Lasting Cultural Exchange

Organizations like the Chinese Culture Center have been working hard to demonstrate a sophisticated view of Chinese culture that challenges clichés.

Art Review | Outsider Art Fair: A Survey of a Field Hard to Define

The Outsider Art Fair is running this weekend, which makes this as good a time as any to ask, what exactly is an outsider artist?

Art Review | 'Arts of Ancient Vietnam: From River Plain to Open Sea': Ancient Sphere Where Cultures Mingled

“Arts of Ancient Vietnam,” at the Asia Society Museum, is filled with the kind of Asian art loans — matchless in quality, straight from the source — that we rarely see here anymore.

Art Review | 'Playing With Pictures': The Pastime of Victorian Cutups

A rejiggering of history is fundamental to this seemingly modest, yet strangely reverberant exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Exhibition Review | 'Rubbers: The Life, History & Struggle of the Condom': Unrolled, Unbridled and Unabashed

A fascinating new exhibition at the Museum of Sex about the history of the condom suggests that these commonplace objects are icons of far more than the phallus.

Inside Art: O! Say, You Can Bid on a Johns

The public will be able to see four works owned by Michael Crichton that Christie’s is to sell on behalf of his estate in New York at the evening auctions in May.

Art Review | 'Philagrafika 2010': What Is Printmaking Today? Philadelphia Dares to Ask

“Philagrafika 2010,” a citywide festival devoted to the print in contemporary art, includes exhibitions in almost 90 galleries and works by more than 300 artists.

At London Sale, a Giacometti Sets a Record

At $104.3 million with fees, an Alberto Giacometti bronze broke the world record price for a work of art at auction.

New Theater: Lincoln Center Raises the Roof

A new black box theater, designed by Hugh Hardy, will be perched on the roof of the Beaumont Theater with a terrace overlooking Lincoln Center.

At a Neglected Movie Palace, Cobwebs Are Given Notice

The ACE Theatrical Group has agreed to restore the once-majestic Loew’s Kings Theater in Brooklyn, which opened in 1929.

News Photos, on the Move, Make News

The entire collection of pictures amassed by the Magnum photo cooperative will be accessible to the public.

Museum Review | International Civil Rights Center and Museum: Four Men, a Counter and Soon, Revolution

The International Civil Rights Center and Museum opening Monday reminds us that a cataclysmic transformation took place over the right to be ordinary.

Art Review | Tino Sehgal: In the Naked Museum: Talking, Thinking, Encountering

For the solo show of the young artist Tino Sehgal, the great spiraling rotunda of the Guggenhim Museum has been cleared out. There isn’t a painting in sight.

Earl A. Barthé, a Master of Plaster, Dies at 87

Mr. Barthé, a fifth-generation plasterer, epitomized the old-time craftsmen who continue to provide a traditional flavor to the architectural jambalaya of New Orleans.

Intense Seeker of Powerful Elegance

The very particular artist Steve McQueen gives up the fight and agrees to discuss his new work.

Arts | Connecticut: Aldrich Celebrates Five Exhibits at Once

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum will simultaneously open five exhibits with cocktails, talks and a performance on Jan. 31.

Antiques: Honoring an Inventor’s Passion for Plastic

“Bakelite in Yonkers: Pioneering the Age of Plastics,” opening on Friday at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, surveys the work of the Belgian-born inventor Leo Baekeland.

Art in Review

Exhibitions by Robert Blanchon, Robin Graubard and Inka Essenhigh.

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