Science, Culture and Integral Yoga

The BioArt of Eduardo Kac

Rich — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:29:09 -0800

Perhaps one of the most interesting disappearances of bio-technology is when its vanishing horizon is art....

BioArt is an art practice in which the medium is living matter and the works of art are produced in laboratories and/or artists’ studios. The tool is biotechnology, which includes such technologies as genetic engineering, tissue culture and cloning. BioArt is considered by most artists to be strictly limited to “living forms,” although there is some debate as to the stages at which matter can be considered to be alive or living. The materials used by Bioartists are cells, DNA, proteins and living tissue. Creating living beings and practicing in the life sciences brings about ethical, social and aesthetic inquiry. The phrase "BioArt" was coined by Eduardo Kac in 1997 in relation to his artwork "Time Capsule". Although it originated at the end of the 20th century through the works of pioneers like Kac and Gessert, BioArt started to be more widely practiced in the beginning of the 21st Century. Thus, it may be considered the first 21st century art movement.

"Move 36" makes reference to the dramatic move made by the computer called Deep Blue against chess world champion Gary Kasparov in 1997. This competition may be characterized as a match between the greatest chess player who ever lived and the greatest chess player who never lived. The installation sheds light on the limits of the human mind and the increasing capabilities developed by computers and robots, inanimate beings whose actions often acquire a force comparable to subjective human agency.

According to Kasparov, Deep Blue's quintessential moment in game two came at Move 36. Rather than making a move expected by viewers and commentators alike--a sound move that would have afforded immediate gratification--it made a move that was subtle and conceptual and, in the long run, better. Kasparov could not believe that a machine had made such a keen move. The game, in his mind, was lost.

The installation presents a chessboard made of earth (dark squares) and white sand (light squares) in the middle of the room. There are no chess pieces on the board. Positioned exactly where Deep Blue made its Move 36 is a plant whose genome incorporates a new gene that I created specifically for this work. The gene uses ASCII (the universal computer code for representing binary numbers as Roman characters, on- and off-line) to translate Descartes's statement: "Cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore I am) into the four bases of genetics.

Through genetic modification, the leaves of the plants curl. In the wild these leaves would be flat. The "Cartesian gene" was coupled with a gene that causes this sculptural mutation in the plant, so that the public can see with the naked eye that the "Cartesian gene" is expressed precisely where the curls develop and twist....more

The "Cartesian gene" was produced according to a new code I created especially for the work. In 8-bit ASCII, the letter C, for example, is: 01000011. Thus, the gene is created by the following associations between genetic bases and binary digits:

Genesis is a transgenic artwork that explores the intricate relationship between biology, belief systems, information technology, dialogical interaction, ethics, and the Internet. The key element of the work is an "artist's gene", a synthetic gene that was created by Kac by translating a sentence from the biblical book of Genesis into Morse Code, and converting the Morse Code into DNA base pairs according to a conversion principle specially developed by the artist for this work. The sentence reads: "Let man have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." It was chosen for what it implies about the dubious notion--divinely sanctioned--of humanity's supremacy over nature. Morse code was chosen because, as the first example of the use of radiotelegraphy, it represents the dawn of the information age--the genesis of global communication.

The Genesis gene was incorporated into bacteria, which were shown in the gallery. Participants on the Web could turn on an ultraviolet light in the gallery, causing real, biological mutations in the bacteria. This changed the biblical sentence in the bacteria. After the show, the DNA of the bacteria was translated back into Morse code, and then back into English. The mutation that took place in the DNA had changed the original sentence from the Bible. The mutated sentence was posted on the Genesis web site. In the context of the work, the ability to change the sentence is a symbolic gesture: it means that we do not accept its meaning in the form we inherited it, and that new meanings emerge as we seek to change it.....

The BioArt of Eduardo Kac (cont)

Rich — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:03:24 -0800

Clairvoyance

Odyssey

"Specimen of Secrecy about Marvelous Discoveries" is a series of works comprised of what Kac calls "biotopes", that is, living pieces that change during the exhibition in response to internal metabolism and environmental conditions. Each of Kac’s biotopes is literally a self-sustaining ecology comprised of thousands of very small living beings in a medium of earth, water, and other materials. The artist orchestrates the metabolism of these organisms in order to produce his constantly-evolving living works.

Kac's biotopes expand on ecological and evolutionary issues previously explored by the artist (for example, in his transgenic work "The Eighth Day"). At the same time, the biotopes further develop dialogical principles implemented and theorized by Kac for approximately two decades.

The biotopes are a discrete ecology because within their world the microorganisms interact with and support each other (that is, the activities of one organism enable another to grow, and vice-versa). However, they are not entirely secluded from the outside world : the aerobic organisms within the biotope absorb oxygen from outside (while the anaerobic ones comfortably migrate to regions where air cannot reach). A complex set of relationships emerge as the work unfolds, bringing together the internal dialogical interactions among the microorganisms in the biotope and the interaction of the biotope as a discrete unit with the external world. The biotope is affected by several factors, including the very presence of viewers, which can increase the temperature in the room (warm bodies) and release other microorganisms in the air (breathing, sneezing).

The biotope is what Kac calls a "nomad ecology", that is, an ecological system that interacts with its surroundings as it travels around the world. Every time a biotope migrates from one location to another, the very act of transporting it causes an unpredictable redistribution of the microorganisms inside it (due to the constant physical agitation inherent in the course of a trip). Once in place, the biotope self-regulates with internal migrations, metabolic exchanges, and material settling.....

The Future Body: Tissue engineering (Toward an Aurobindonian Bio-ethics?)

Rich — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:06:54 -0800

when Sri Aurobindo states:

"The new type, the divine body, must continue the already developed evolutionary form; there must be a continuation from the type Nature has all along been developing, a continuity from the human to the divine body, no breaking away to something unrecognizable but a high sequel to what has already been achieved and in part perfected.”(Aurobindo 1949/72)

One way to begin ones interpretative action is by first extrapolating the possibilities that are held out before us now. Unless we wish to risk loosing ourselves in simple magical/thinking this requires not only intuition and imagination but critical reflection on the biopolitical power dynamics driving the innovation of technologies that promise to facilitate the advent of the future body. That is why I do not use the term Aurobindonian-bioethics as a mere figure of speech but as a possible discipline which can provide a critique of technological innovations that seem to stray radically from the vision he set forth.

That said of all the bio-technologies available to us currently that would seem most in accord with his vision of fashioning a future body that is continuous with “the type of Nature that has all along been developing” is tissue engineering or tissue regeneration that employs the body's own cells for construction/reconstruction of its skin, cartilage, bone, and organs.

For any one interested in the ethical/economic/biopolitical/biocolonial dimensions of the bio-tech industry an excellent book is Eugene Thacker's The Global Genome. In the following passages he considers the emerging field of tissue engineering that highlights the salient issue I have referenced visa vie Sri Aurobindo's vision of the continuity of the Future Body with that which has preceded it.

“An important point here is that at no point in these processes are mechanical or nonbiological, nonorganic artificial materials or components incorporated as part of the core process of cellular tissue regeneration. All “natural” biochemical processes are maintained in their normal functioning and (according to researchers) only the extracellular, environmental context has shifted from the body's interior to the lab and back again. The regenerated tissue thus ultimately derives from the patient-subjects own biological resources... “

The Soul of a City: The Crystal Cathedral as Organizing Metaphor for (post)Modern Architecture at the Bauhaus

Debashish — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:38:12 -0800
The Bauhaus, founded in 1919 at Weimar, Germany by Walter Gropius, was arguably the most influential school of design in modern times, set up in the form of a residential creative community of designers, craftsmen, architects and artists. As part of its central ideal, Water Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus, envisaged a world made up of creative communities united spiritually in and around a materialized soul, which he likened to "a crystal cathedral." Today, Bauhaus influenced architecture is ubiquitous as the symbol of world modernity, but Gropius' dream is far from fulfilled. This article explores the historical dimensions of this ideal, the causes for its failure and the possible conditions for its postmodern manifestation.

Avatars in the Living Room: 2nd Life in Augmented Reality

Rich — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:09:26 -0700

This demo shows the use of Second Life as a platform for Augmented Reality. With our modified Second Life client, avatars and other Second Life graphicss can be superimposed perspectively correct on a live video stream and in real-time.

Future Bodies: Human Animal Hybrid Embryo ok'd in U.K. (Washington Post)

Rich — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:32:33 -0700

human/cow embryonic stem cells
Photo courtesy University of Wisconsin Board of Regents

Although some have concerns about the crossing of human and ape species, the possible creation of a hybrid Hanuman or other entities previously thought to belong only to myth :

"In April 2005, the National Academies -- chartered by Congress to advise the nation on matters of science -- released a report affirming that scientists should be allowed to create such entities if the experiments were approved by special review boards. The advisers came down against the creation of human-monkey or human-ape embryos, as well as experiments in which a human-like brain might develop in a non-human animal" wp.

The UK has just approved research for the crossing the boarders of human bovine species limits to harvest stem cells:

"The bill would allow scientists to continue injecting human DNA into cows' eggs that have had virtually all their genetic material removed, as well as other hybrid embryo processes for stem cell research. Scientists say the embryos would not be allowed to develop for more than 14 days. "wp

In England apparently there has been a long reasoned debate on the issue, one has to wonder however what is going on with embryo research in emerging nations where the market for experimentation may be seen in only the context of its exchange value. Whatever the case it appears our future bodies will in some way or other cohabit, or draw upon a physical (subtle physical) world shared with other species

What follows is a report from the Washington Post on recent events in England along with some further context of chimeras from the Center on Bioethics and Public Policy. rc...

Inter-species hybrids and chimera are entities created from the mixing of two or more different species. Hybrids are organisms whose genetic make up has been created by mixing the genes of two or more species; typically the gametes of two species are fused to create a single zygote. Chimera are organisms consisting of two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells; for example two fertilised eggs or early embryos may be fused together and develop as a single organism....

Design and the Elastic Mind: N.Y. MOMA

Rich — Sat, 10 May 2008 10:45:31 -0700

Design and the Elastic Mind at the New York Museum of Modern Art

In the past few decades, individuals have experienced dramatic changes in some of the most established dimensions of human life: time, space, matter, and individuality. Working across several time zones, traveling with relative ease between satellite maps and nanoscale images, gleefully drowning in information, acting fast in order to preserve some slow downtime, people cope daily with dozens of changes in scale. Minds adapt and acquire enough elasticity to be able to synthesize such abundance. One of design's most fundamental tasks is to stand between revolutions and life, and to help people deal with change. Designers have coped with these displacements by contributing thoughtful concepts that can provide guidance and ease as science and technology evolve. Several of them—the Mosaic graphic user's interface for the Internet, for instance—have truly changed the world. Design and the Elastic Mind is a survey of the latest developments in the field. It focuses on designers' ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and social mores, changes that will demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior, and convert them into objects and systems that people understand and use.

The exhibition will highlight examples of successful translation of disruptive innovation, examples based on ongoing research, as well as reflections on the future responsibilities of design. Of particular interest will be the exploration of the relationship between design and science and the approach to scale. The exhibition will include objects, projects, and concepts offered by teams of designers, scientists, and engineers from all over the world, ranging from the nanoscale to the cosmological scale. The objects range from nanodevices to vehicles, from appliances to interfaces, and from pragmatic solutions for everyday use to provocative ideas meant to influence our future choices. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.

Please visit the online exhibition of this mind blowing exhibit of futuristic design at the link here....

Future Bodies: Discipline, Control, & "the Yoga of Resistance"

Rich — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:58:01 -0700

Michel Foucault
In speaking of the disciple of the body especially, when the task of disciple is simultaneously intended to improve its utility for production, here are some riffs on Foucault's: Discipline & Punish. Historical context is primary and Foucault's archaeological method helps uncover the rupture within the Enlightenment whose legacy still haunts us, as Deleuze observes, because they have now morphed into technologies of control.

In the European tradition Foucault traces the disciplining of the body back to medieval Monastic exercises, which were intended to facilitate renunciation of the world. These exercises were transformed when adopted by the socio-political regimes of the 17th & 18th century, (especially military, pedagogical, and industrial) into a method for maintaining control over the actions of the bodies it governed through disciplining processes. These disciplining practices have co-evolved with technology (and are in fact technologies in themselves) to become ever more omnipresent as tools of surveillance and control. Going forward it will be the omnipresence of ubiquitous technologies (bio-technical/computational/networked) that will largely determine the environmental parameters in which our future bodies must structurally couple.

Resistance to the virus of docility, to the infection of the gaze, to the insertion of discipling technologies is often the unintended consequences of the mechanisms of control themselves, as William Gibson says, "the street finds its own use for things". The future is a random other. For example, what we know as the internet today has evolved from technology first designed for survival after a nuclear holocaust.

Activism whose interests lie in discovering alternative, non coercive, paths to human development would be well served to find patterns created by resistances to, and ruptures from, the paradigms of control and technological will organizing the human resources of the planet. Such an activism proceeds by both locating those ruptures in the paradigms of organizational control and cultivating resistance practices to them in ones own life and community. One such practice to resist the discipling machinery of global socio-economic power exchanges is yoga. Although the aim of yoga is to achieve a frictionless flow between individual and cosmos, the many and the one, a yoga such as integral yoga whose concern is not merely a transcendental urge but an immanent concern for the world, is a unique resistance form because its own monastic traditions of psycho/physiological practices, established well before the body was appropriated by the exercises of technicity, allows one to leverage the silence of ones own embodiment as a method of resisting external regimes of control. rc..

Could Science and Art Become One and the Same?, by Greg Wendt

ronjon — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 01:00:00 -0700

Science aims to help us gain an understanding of reality, yet how can that which is dictated by the laws of logic be used to explain the parts of reality that are non-logical? -- Is it possible that art can be used in a scientific way to create a more accurate expression of reality and a greater understanding of human experience?

A recent article by Jonah Lehrer in SEED Magazine called "The Future of Science....Art?" asks whether art is better suited than science to portray the reality of inner experience: ...

Goodbye To All That: Nature and the Future Body in Sri Aurobindo

Rich — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:08:20 -0700

This is the first part of a longer meditation on the future bodies. I have entitled this section “Goodbye To All That” which is the title of Robert Graves autobiography in which he recounts his experiences in the trenches in WWI. What he is saying goodbye to is the passing of an era: of the naive, carefree, class based culture of Edwardian England, which did not survive the war. Sri Aurobindo wrote the passages referenced here at about the time the Edwardian era ended and the great war began. Because our views and valorization of nature are cultural constructions, to appreciate why Sri Aurobindo extrapolates a certain form of naturalism into the future body we must first excavate his conceptions of “what is natural.”

The context of his writing referenced here on evolution and the future body seems to flow naturally out of a post-romantic protestant view of Nature he must have been exposed to growing up in England which lived on well into the Edwardian era. To the British upper classes it was a view of nature as pristine, which they enjoyed in well manicured English country gardens, not yet smeared with the blood of the trenches. Above all nature was clearly distinct from the machinery given to us by culture.

In forming his view of nature Sri Aurobindo took account of Ruskin's, Carlyle's, and Arnold's critique of industrialism. This view of nature was certainly valuable for sacramentalizing nature at a time when the Industrial Revolution was rapidly desecrating it. Today however, the interpenetration of nature by information technologies and genetic engineering has added enough complexity to what it means to be natural/human that we can no longer escape environments which are increasingly mediated by technology. Electricity undergirds much of our phenomenological experience of the world, bio-technology sustains our physical presence in it. In such a brave new world the continuity of the already developed evolutionary form with all its biological naturalism seems to be a reality to which we have already said goodbye

But, what is important for us in Sri Aurobindo's vision of the future body ....

One Laptop Per Child Versus Intel--Who Speaks for India and China?

ronjon — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:48:28 -0800
Here's an interesting article re the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) Project. I disagree with the article's conclusion (it omits the vast online support to be provided to olpc students), but I think it deserves further discussion here on SCIY. What do you think?
At the Consumer Electronic Show this week, the One Laptop Per Child foundation was supposed to make two announcements—the number of computers it sold under the Give One, Get One holiday program and a new olpc machine made jointly with Intel. But now Intel has pulled out or been pushed out of the project with olpc, depending on who you believe. It’s a mess and a mess of huge dimensions that encompasses a conversation of profit vs. nonprofit, nationalism vs. colonialism, technology vs. pedagogy, rote vs. experiential learning, Western design vs. Eastern design, good intentions vs. bad intentions. It doesn’t get bigger, or nastier. ...

What I'm optimistic about (and not), by Ray Kurzweil

ronjon — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:34:01 -0800
Optimism exists on a continuum in between confidence and hope. Let me take these in order.

I am confident that the acceleration and expanding purview of information technology will solve within twenty years the problems that now preoccupy us. -- Consider energy. We are awash in energy (10,000 times more than required to meet all our needs falls on Earth) but we are not very good at capturing it. That will change with the full nanotechnology-based assembly of macro objects at the nano scale, controlled by massively parallel information processes, which will be feasible within twenty years. Even though our energy needs are projected to triple within that time, we'll capture that .0003 of the sunlight needed to meet our energy needs with no use of fossil fuels, using extremely inexpensive, highly efficient, lightweight, nano-engineered solar panels, and we'll store the energy in highly distributed (and therefore safe) nanotechnology-based fuel cells. Solar power is now providing 1 part in 1,000 of our needs, but that percentage is doubling every two years, which means multiplying by 1,000 in twenty years.

Almost all the discussions I've seen about energy and its consequences (such as global warming) fail to consider the ability of future nanotechnology-based solutions to solve this problem. This development will be motivated not just by concern for the environment but also by the $2 trillion we spend annually on energy. This is already a major area of venture funding.

Consider health. As of just recently, we have the tools to reprogram biology. This is also at an early stage but is progressing through the same exponential growth of information technology, which we see in every aspect of biological progress. The amount of genetic data we have sequenced has doubled every year, and the price per base pair has come down commensurately. The first genome cost a billion dollars. The National Institutes of Health is now starting a project to collect a million genomes at $1,000 apiece. We can turn genes off with RNA interference, add new genes (to adults) with new reliable forms of gene therapy, and turn on and off proteins and enzymes at critical stages of disease progression. We are gaining the means to model, simulate, and reprogram disease and aging processes as information processes. In ten years, these technologies will be 1,000 times more powerful than they are today, and it will be a very different world, in terms of our ability to turn off disease and aging. ...

Eco Machines: Biomimicry in wastewater treatment

ronjon — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 13:46:15 -0800
I can vouch for John Todd's research. I knew him back in the 70's and was impressed then with the quality of his work. His "Eco Machines" are the outcome of 30 years of research and trial and error experimentation. ~ ronjon

Social responsibility, sustainability, and 'natural capitalism' are becoming new models for governments and corporations in the 21st century...

The ECO Machine - a wastewater treatment system that naturally treats sewage and industrial waste to re-use quality. An important consideration as fresh water becomes one of the most important commodities in the new millennium...ECO Machines bring advanced wastewater treatment technology, and unsurpassed aesthetic, economic, and environmental advantages to companies, communities, and resorts both at home and internationally.

ECO Machines accelerate nature's own water purification process. Unlike chemical-based systems, ECO Machines incorporate helpful bacteria, fungi, plants, snails, clams, and fish that thrive by breaking down and digesting organic pollutants, pollutants that normally deprive the water of oxygen. This clean, simple approach efficiently transforms high-strength industrial wastewater and sewage into water clean enough to be recycled for reuse. ...

Can a skyscraper be ecological? - The Singapore Editt Tower

ronjon — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:30:46 -0700
...it is evident that this site is an urban “zero culture” site and is essentially a devastated ecosystem with little of its original top soil, flora and fauna remaining. The design approach is to re-habilitate this with organic mass to enable ecological succession to take place and to balance the existent inorganicness of this urban site. -- The unique design feature of this scheme is in the well-planted facades and vegetated-terraces which have green areas that approximate the gross useable-areas of the rest of the building. -- The vegetation areas are designed to be continous and to ramp upwards from the ground plane to the uppermost floor in a linked landscaped ramp...

A crucial urban design issue in skyscraper design is poor spatial continuity between street-level activities with those spaces at the upper-floors of the city’s high-rise towers. This is due to the physical compartmentation of floors (inherent in the skyscraper typology)... In creating ‘vertical places’, our design brings ‘street-life’ to the building’s upper-parts through wide landscaped-ramps upwards from street-level. Ramps are lined with street-activities: (stalls, shops, cafes, performance spaces, viewing-decks etc.), up to the first 6 floors.

Ramps create a continuous spatial flow from public to less public, as a “vertical extension of the street” thereby eliminating the problematic stratification of floors inherent in all tall buildings typology. High-level bridge-linkages are added to connect to neighbouring buildings for greater urban-connectivity. ...

William McDonough: The wisdom of designing Cradle to Cradle

ronjon — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:33:04 -0700
Here's another provocative TED video. McDonough shares some of his most inspiring work, including the world's largest green roof (at the Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan), and the sustainable cities he's designing in China. -- This blip is 20 minutes.

Stewart Brand TED Video: Why squatter cities are a good thing

ronjon — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:48:52 -0700
I highly recommend watching this 3-minute video blip of Stewart Brand's TED talk. (See also SB's 1-hr. "City Planet" talk at Google.) ~ ronjon

Imagine Peace Tower, an artistic vision by Yoko Ono, dedicated to John Lennon

ronjon — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 16:23:19 -0700

The new IMAGINE PEACE TOWER in Iceland

I dedicate this light tower to John Lennon
my love for you is forever

Yoko Ono
Videy Island, Reykjavik, Iceland
October 9th 2007

Burning Man 2007 Art Theme: "The Green Man"

ronjon — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:55:11 -0700

His name means the Green One or Verdant One, he is the voice of inspiration to the aspirant and committed artist. He can come as a white light or the gleam on a blade of grass, but more often as an inner mood. The sign of his presence is the ability to work or experience with tireless enthusiasm beyond one's normal capacities ...

And I have felt....a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

~ William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey

Burning Man 2007: What is Burning Man?

ronjon — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 09:31:24 -0700
Every year, tens of thousands of participants gather to create Black Rock City in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, dedicated to self-expression, self-reliance, and art as the center of community. They leave one week later, having left no trace. Read Burning Man's mission statement, 10 Principles, and learn more about this incredible experience. ...

Beautiful Solar Wind Pavilion Design Proposal

ronjon — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 08:00:00 -0700
Thanks to RY Deshpande for referring this article.

Our built environment should integrate clean tech and renewable energy generation of all forms and this is an example of that concept. Michael Jantzen proposed a design for California State University at Fullerton that would turn the everyday gathering pavilion into a discussion on sustainability. The pavilion could serve as the gathering place for up to 300 people. From the images, notice the wind turbine and the solar panels on the roof. Towering into the air at 150 feet tall, any energy harvested from the turbine and solar panels could be used by the university. Inside, there's a cylindrical digital projection display screen, roof-mounted fogging nozzles to cool the interior, and benches that can be stored inside the floor when not in use. ...

Apple tops Business Week's list of World's 50 Most Innovative Companies

ronjon — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:54:20 -0700
Not so long ago, no conversation about innovation would be complete without the story of 3M inventor Art Fry’s eureka moment that led to the Post-it Note. Today, that tale, which verges on cliche, has been almost universally replaced by the story of the iPod, Apple’s omnipresent icon of design.

It should come as little surprise, then, that Apple tops the BusinessWeek-Boston Consulting Group’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for the third year in a row. That sort of staying power speaks volumes about the sort of innovation that matters today. Unlike the Post-it Note, which proves the value of lone inventors, the iPod epitomizes today’s innovation sensibilities. These include the ascendance of design, the focus on the user’s experience, and the power of ecosystems: The iPod is a hit because it works so seamlessly with the iTunes software. The company’s much-anticipated iPhone, which launches in June, will likely keep Apple high on our list next year too. ...

Apple: The third act

ronjon — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:33:15 -0700
...at the dawn of a new era of digital lives in which computers are only part of an expanding consumer-electronics industry, the odds are on Mr Jobs and Apple as the winner. In the past six years Apple, with its iPod player and iTunes service, has come to lead the (legal) digital-music industry roughly as Microsoft dominates the PC industry with Windows. On June 29th Apple will enter an even bigger market when it launches a new mobile phone, called the iPhone.

Ostensibly, Mr Jobs's ambitions for the iPhone are modest. He expects 10m to be sold by the end of next year, about 1% of the world market for handsets. Apple has sold ten times as many iPods. But these numbers belie the significance of the iPhone—and Mr Jobs's ambitions for it. Rather, it represents the latest step in the transformation of Apple, from a computer-maker to a consumer-electronics company, which Mr Jobs made official this year with the symbolic dropping of the word “Computer” from the firm's name. His success in this transformation so far, and the expectation of a new phase thanks to the iPhone, explain why Apple, one decade after nearly collapsing, is now worth more than $100 billion and is to be included in America's blue-chip elite, the Standard & Poor's 100 index. ...

It's easier being green: Toronto's St. Gabriel's Passionist Church

ronjon — Wed, 16 May 2007 14:33:36 -0700
Designed by Roberto Chiotti of Larkin Architects, this $10.5-million facility – which received prestigious Gold certification from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system – proves once and for all that green building need not be expensive, or unpleasant to look at or inhabit. If anything, it makes a case for sustainable architecture that's so compelling, it's sad to think it remains the exception.

Surrounded on every side by some of the most dreary and depressing architecture, St. Gabriel's (670 Sheppard Ave. E.) stands as a beacon. Using poured-in-place concrete, recycled pews, specially treated glass and lots of (coloured) natural light, Chiotti has pulled off something miraculous. Essentially, he has reinvented that most ancient of architectural forms, the church. ...

Apple ships 100 millionth iPod

ronjon — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 09:42:59 -0700
Apple said today (Monday, April 9) that it has sold its 100 millionth iPod, marking a major milestone in the product's history. -- Since introducing the iPod in November 2001, the company has unveiled more than 10 new iPod models. The music player has also sparked an ecosystem of more than 4,000 accessories, ranging from fashionable cases to speaker systems. More than 70 percent of 2007 model cars in the United States currently offer iPod connectivity.

Apple's iTunes Store has seen comparable success in selling items from its catalog of more than 5 million songs, 350 television shows and 400 movies. The company says it has sold more than 2.5 billion songs, 50 million TV shows and 1.3 million movies, making it the world's most popular online store of the digital media. ...

Dream Farm 2 - Story So Far: Its conceptual underpinnings and update with a potential site in mind

ronjon — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 18:47:40 -0700
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho: "Many people have asked what exactly is Dream Farm 2. There are several answers. First of all, Dream Farm 2 is a model of an integrated, ‘zero-emission’, ‘zero-waste’ highly productive farm that maximises the use of renewable energies and turns ‘wastes’ into food and energy resources, thereby completely obviating the need for fossil fuels. It is our answer to the energy crisis and climate change, and more. It is a microcosm of a different way of being and becoming in the world, and in that respect, nothing short of a social revolution.

In a way, I have dedicated the past 20 years to developing the idea, and trying to live up to it. -- The challenge now is to make Dream Farm 2 a reality, to put flesh on the bare bones of the diagram, so we can start building the best when the site is agreed. Watch this space. ..."

Powerful Ways to Save and Replace Oil, by Amory Lovins

ronjon — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 22:45:16 -0700
The world uses a cubic mile of oil a year, costing almost $2 trillion. Oil and cars are the world's biggest and most entrenched industries. Yet an inexorable half-century transition beyond oil has begun, squeezing oil between efficient use and alternative supplies...

Fleet turnovers take time: putting the first half-million hybrid cars on the road took nearly a decade. Yet in 2007 20 new hybrid models will enter the American market, and operating efficiency will finally become entrenched as carmakers' top design priority, locking in oil savings for decades. Biofuels, too, will continue double-digit growth as Brazil's 2006 oil independence and Sweden's 2020 off-oil goal spur emulation. ...

2007 TED Conference: Report #2

ronjon — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 13:40:24 -0800
...The first prize winner for 2007 is James Nachtwey, a remarkable war photographer who’s been described as a “one man human rights watch”. He’s been extensively honored for his work, winning numerous prizes for his work covering some of the most difficult images in the world.

He apologizes for using notes - “after spending an entire career trying to be invisible” speaking before a group is an “out of body” experience. The truth is, his images are so powerful and moving, I found it very hard to even follow his voice for much of his talk. As he said, “I have been a witness - these pictures are my testimony.” ...

2007 TED Conference now underway: Report #1

ronjon — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 13:27:04 -0800
The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, & Design) conference in Monterey, CA, USA, brings together more than 1000 thought-leaders, movers and shakers for four days of learning, laughter and inspiration. -- The first TED in 1984 included the public unveiling of the Macintosh computer and the Sony compact disc, while mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot demonstrated how to map coastlines with his newly discovered fractals and AI guru Marvin Minsky outlined his powerful new model of the mind. Several influential members of the burgeoning 'digerati' community were also there, including Nicholas Negroponte and Stewart Brand.

Those who have spoken at TED include Bill Gates, Frank Gehry, Jane Goodall, Billy Graham, Herbie Hancock, Murray Gell-Mann, Larry Ellison. Yet often the real stars have been the unexpected: Li Lu, a key organizer of the Tiananmen Square student protest, Aimee Mullins, a Paralympics competitor who tried out a new pair of artificial legs on-stage, or Nathan Myrrhvold speaking not about Microsoft platforms, but about dinosaur sex. ...

Regulating Nanotechnology and Designing the NGOs of the Future (WC)

ronjon — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:49:08 -0800
...If, in fact, full-blown nanotechnology erupts into our lives in 20 years, instead of 50, the results are likely to be as disruptive as the first century of the Industrial Revolution, but compressed into a much shorter time period. And, given that it might, it is the duty of those of us who would prefer an unimaginable future to an unthinkable one to take seriously the responsibility of handling nanotechnology carefully.

But it's also important to remember that we have a huge advantage that our ancestors lacked as they struggled with the first Industrial Revolution: we have a history of technology, and we understand that what technologies are adopted and how they are used is a matter of societal choice. We have the power to imagine, to anticipate and ultimately to steer the development of nanotechnology. ...

Jaron's World: "Why your next telephone may come mounted on a neck."

ronjon — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 00:09:43 -0800
I've been thinking lately about two seemingly unrelated questions that have a hidden and, I suspect, significant connection:

1. Why do you have a neck?
2. Why hasn't videoconferencing ever caught on? ...

It might sound strange at first to design a communication device that bobs around just as our heads do when we talk and listen. But when nature settles on the same solution to a difficult problem more than once, as it did with vertebrates and cephalopods, it is worth paying attention. ...

Yamaha Divide: Foldable Electric Bike

ronjon — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 17:54:18 -0800
...Being hyped as both an Object d’ Art for your home (it folds in half at the press of a button) and zippy commuter (uses an electric ‘smart power’ motor, based on something called the Passol motor unit). Free of petrol and oil apparently. Die-cast aluminium provides the curves and a Lithium-ion battery feeds the “permanent magnet synchronous motor“. ...

Hanging Homes: Free Spirit Spheres, Habitat for the Un-Tamed Spirit

ronjon — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 17:33:42 -0800
Imagine a cluster of these hanging at Auroville! ...

Uses for these durable Spheres are limited only by ones imagination. Healing, meditation, photography, canopy research, leisure and game watching are just some of the things you could do.

Spheres can be hung from the trees as shown or from any other solid objects like buildings or rock faces. A web of rope is connected to any strong points available. This replaces the foundation of a conventional building. A suspended tree house uses the forest for its foundation. The occupants have a vested interest in the health of the grove. The supporting web also mirrors our connectedness to our surroundings. Each sphere has four attachments on top and another four anchor points on the bottom. Each attachment is strong enough to carry the entire sphere and contents. ...

'Waterworld China' wins top prize in international design competition

ronjon — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 14:27:26 -0800
Atkin's Architecture Group recently won the first prize award for an international design competition with this stunning entry. Set in a spectacular water filled quarry in Songjiang, China, the 400 bed resort hotel is uniquely constructed within the natural elements of the quarry. Underwater public areas and guest rooms add to the uniqueness, but the resort also boasts cafes, restaurants and sporting facilities.

The lowest level runs with the aquatic theme by housing a luxurious swimming pool and an extreme sports center for activities such as rock climbing and bungee jumping which will be cantilevered over the quarry and accessed by special lifts from the water. With a stunning visual presentation as shown here, it's no wonder this project took home the first prize. This is a fine example of an ultra modern facility co-existing amongst its natural environment. ...

Adaptive Environments: What is Universal Design?

ronjon — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 14:01:54 -0800
Universal Design is a framework for the design of places, things, information, communication and policy to be usable by the widest range of people operating in the widest range of situations without special or separate design. Most simply, Universal Design is human-centered design of everything with everyone in mind.

Universal Design is also called Inclusive Design, Design-for-All and Lifespan Design. It is not a design style but an orientation to any design process that starts with a responsibility to the experience of the user. It has a parallel in the green design movement that also offers a framework for design problem solving based on the core value of environmental responsibility. Universal Design and green design are comfortably two sides of the same coin but at different evolutionary stages. Green design focuses on environmental sustainability, Universal Design on social sustainability. ...

An Ancient Computer Surprises Scientists (NYT)

ronjon — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 14:04:39 -0800
...a century ago, pieces of a strange mechanism with bronze gears and dials were recovered from an ancient shipwreck off the coast of Greece. Historians of science concluded that this was an instrument that calculated and illustrated astronomical information, particularly phases of the Moon and planetary motions, in the second century B.C.
The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the world’s first computer, has now been examined with the latest in high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography. A team of British, Greek and American researchers was able to decipher many inscriptions and reconstruct the gear functions, revealing, they said, “an unexpected degree of technical sophistication for the period.” ...

The MIT Media Lab's One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Project: a New Prototype for Philanthropy?

ronjon — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:28:42 -0800
...The concept behind the project, which Negroponte unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, less than two years ago, is as simple as its name: give all children in the developing world laptop computers of their own. If we achieved that, he believes, we could bridge what's usually termed the "digital divide." The laptops would offer children everywhere the opportunity to benefit from the Internet and would enable them to work with and learn from each other in new ways. OLPC, the nonprofit organization that Negroponte set up to manage the project, has taken responsibility for designing the computer and engaging an outside manufacturer to produce it. But the nonprofit is not going to buy the computers. That, at least for now, is the responsibility of governments, ...

BioPower Systems, Ltd. - Biologically Inspired Ocean Power Systems

ronjon — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 13:28:16 -0800
BioPower Systems Pty. Ltd. is commercialising award-winning biomimetic ocean energy conversion technologies. We have adopted nature’s mechanisms for survival and energy conversion in the marine environment and have applied these in the development of our proprietary wave and tidal energy systems. -- Our technologies inherit benefits developed during 3.8 Billion years of evolutionary optimization in nature’s ocean laboratory.The resulting systems move and sway in tune with the forces of the ocean, and naturally streamline when extreme conditions prevail. This leads to low design thresholds and associated low costs. ...

Inc. Magazine introduces "The Green 50 - Do Good, Get Rich: The Eco-Advantage"

ronjon — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 12:45:25 -0800
Introducing the Green 50, a collection of entrepreneurial companies that are showing what it means to run good businesses, attack the most pressing problems of our time--and make serious cash along the way. ...

"Happy Birthday iPod: A revolution in your pocket; Welcome to the era of the shuffle"

ronjon — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 12:19:55 -0800
...the odds are good that even as you observe this, your own ears are exploding in sound -- maybe the just-downloaded croonings of Bob Dylan's latest offering, a classic Philadelphia Orchestra symphony or an amateur "podcast" featuring a barroom-style discussion of last week's NFL games. Or perhaps your device is displaying a scene from last week's episode of "The Office." -- If so, you are tethered to one of the 60 million -- and counting fast -- iPod music players sold by Apple Computer in the last five years. And though it may seem you are doing it simply because you like the music and are pleased by the award-winning industrial design, you can congratulate yourself for participating in something a lot bigger than the tiny iPod: a revolution that has helped topple the idea that record labels, studios and broadcasters should set the terms for how and when you entertain yourself. Instead, Apple's ubiquuitous gadget has ushered in the era of shuffle. ...

"Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century" ('Business Week' review)

ronjon — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 16:48:52 -0700
Ok, this review convinced me. I'm going to order my own copy of this new book, created by Alex Steffen, the executive editor of the amazingly informative website "Worldchanging.com," which Rich alerted us to in a recent post to SCIY. ~ ron

...Part encyclopedia of socially conscious companies and movements, part picture-book (it includes gorgeous color photographs by leading photographers such as Edward Burtynsky), and part how-to instructions on becoming a greener consumer or business, the nearly 600-page volume is an invaluable resource you can use without booting up your computer... And to justify the dead trees required to produce the tome—and set a compelling example for readers—publisher Harry N. Abrams printed each copy on 100% recycled, chlorine-free paper. Abrams also purchased wind credits (from www.renewablechoice.com) equal to the amount of electricity needed to manufacture the book.

"The Good Life: New Public Spaces of Recreation": Van Alen Institute exhibition, NYC

ronjon — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 16:15:47 -0700
I wonder if Auroville's planners are keeping up with the immensely creative work on urban design now underway around the world?

New York’s Van Alen Institute['s] The Good Life: New Public Spaces of Recreation, an exhibition at Hudson River Park’s Pier 40 showcasing dozens of projects either planned, under construction, or already realized that insert the rare combination of scenic refuge and pure pleasure into the hurly-burly of cities. “People are just desperate for these sites,” senior curator Zoë Ryan says. “Not everyone can escape the city during the summer, so this sort of destination has become increasingly important.” ...

Grokking the Transparent Network: Reflections on the 13th Digital Be-In, by Michael Gosney

ronjon — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 13:01:49 -0700
On May 29, 2004, the 13th edition of the Digital Be-In beamed in to San Francisco. The annual cyber culture happening featured Ram Dass and Wavy Gravy, luminaries digital and beyond, exhibits, live bands, DJs and an immersive visual environment. The theme of the event was “The Transparent Network. -- Be-In 13’s many co-creators addressed The Transparent Network theme through speeches, a curated art gallery, exhibits and installations, a video theater, more than 20 performances on three stages and immersive projections throughout the venue. Like past Be-In memes — “Freedom of Speech on the Internet,” “Cultural Diversity in Cyberspace,” and “Human Rights in the Digital Age” — The Transparent Network idea refers to current technical initiatives and social issues. But it is also an emerging archetype with broader meanings, and these more esoteric dimensions were explored as well. ...

Apple, Motorola to Help Fight AIDS with "RED" iPods & Cellphones

ronjon — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 14:33:46 -0700
In an initiative to contribute significantly to the AIDS affected, two global brands - Apple Computer and Motorola, have come up with products in collaboration with RED, an organization founded by U2 lead singer, Bono, and Bobby Shriver to fight against AIDS in Africa. ...

The Long Now Foundation: Fostering Long-term Responsibility

ronjon — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 17:52:47 -0700
Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span. The trend might be coming from the acceleration of technology, the short-horizon perspective of market-driven economics, the next-election perspective of democracies, or the distractions of personal multi-tasking. All are on the increase. Some sort of balancing corrective to the short-sightedness is needed -- some mechanism or myth which encourages the long view and the taking of long-term responsibility, where 'long-term' is measured at least in centuries. Long Now proposes both a mechanism and a myth. ... - Stewart Brand

Starship Dimensions: A Museum of Speculative Fiction inspired Spaceships

ronjon — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 11:37:37 -0700
This site is intended to allow science fiction fans to get an impression of the true scale of their favorite science fiction spacecraft by being able to compare ships across genres, as well as being able to compare them with contemporary objects with which they are probably familiar. ...

The Venus Project

ronjon — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 11:29:17 -0700
The Venus Project is a educational think tank operating out of a 25-acre Research Center located in Venus, Florida.

Experience tells us that human behavior can be modified, either toward constructive or destructive activity. This is what The Venus Project is all about - directing our technology and resources toward the positive, for the maximum benefit of people and planet and seeking out new ways of thinking and living that emphasize and celebrate the vast potential of the human spirit. We have the tools at hand to design - and build - a future that is worthy of the human potential. The Venus Project presents a bold, new direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture. What follows is not an attempt to predict what will be done - only what could be done. The responsibility for our future is in our hands, and depends on the decisions that we make today. The greatest resource that is available today is our own ingenuity. ...

"Future by Design" - A film by Academy Award nominated director William Gazecki

ronjon — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 10:49:37 -0700
"Imagine a world where war is outdated, there is no shortage of resources, and every human being enjoys a high standard of living."

The Story of Jacque Fresco -- A modern-day Da Vinci. Peer to Einstein and Buckminster Fuller, Jacque is a self-taught futurist who describes himself most often as a “generalist” or multi-disciplinarian -- a student of many inter-related fields. He is a prolific inventor, having spent his entire life (he is now 90 years old) conceiving of and devising inventions on various scales which entail the use of innovative technology. As a futurist, Jacque is not only a conceptualist and a theoretician, he is also an engineer and a designer.

“I found Future by Design totally fascinating. I admire Jacque Fresco enormously for his bold and brilliant imagination, his renaissance-man knowledge, and his humanism.” - Howard Zinn