Cardboard Castles and Other Amenities...

What I Desire

2011-12-09T10:51:00.000-08:00

It is yes and please and may I and even no

It’s stop and go, it’s no and ok but I might cry

It’s kissing pea-soup breath cause I’m not sure if it’s ok to ask him to brush his teeth. It’s waking up in the dead of night and knowing the difference between me and the night by the ache in my sternum, the one clearly indicating something didn’t work. It’s getting out of bed alone, while he snores on his side, cause I don’t know if it’s ok to ask for comfort and I don’t believe anything he could give would feel like that anyway.

It’s will you fuck me, and will it hurt, and can I hurt you, and can we hurt together,
Here in the dark, holding hands and nothing more.

What I desire are big, messy, intense conversations on our first real date cause I thought making out in someone else’s bathroom leap-frogged all that small talk shit. It’s here are my demons and will-you-make-love-to-me eyes while talking about boundaries, and being bad at them. It’s you inviting a friend into the date cause this shit just got too intense and there’s no way your going to fuck Mr. Touble-Knowing-My-Own-Boundaries now. It’s drinking wine on the peer cause it’s knowing how to make the best of it cause it’s knowing there’s more than one way to love a cat out of it’s skin and into my heart.

It’s Pride at the White Horse, oldest gay bar in the Bay Are, 6 people on the dance floor and only one person I really want to fuck, two if I count myself. It’s the same the feeling as the first time I ever danced with a boy. It’s loving that feeling and nurturing that feeling and defending that feeling against the history of how that first time ended. The bloody reality of cliché.

It’s personal dates before I knew there was such a thing. Walking along 16th from Mission to Castro past all the hipster bars holding my own goddamn hand cause I just had to go dancing tonight and this is the era of no-more-friends. It’s know how to dance alone in the black like of the Bar, in the crush of a crowd, dancing with my eyes close for 5 seconds every 5 minute and wishing I felt comfortable enough to never open them again.

What I desire is finally learning to dance with my eyes closed cause it’s finally learning to trust that enough people love me cause it’s finally learning there is a power in being spent, through and through and knowing I already gave all I have to give. Tonight I’ll just be and those who want can be with me.

What I desire is standing in circle with young people and being people. It’s telling them stories of gender fucking cause I know violence isn’t the only way to end a queer love story and mine is a love story. It’s them saying gay people are problems in our community and having the courage to say “no we aren’t but lets keep talking”. It’s offer queer 101 to homophobes too young to have made up their own minds and it’s them asking “can I be queer when I grow up” and having the privilege to say “yes”

What I desire is to say yes

A Poem

2011-01-14T13:13:00.000-08:00

Here is a poem that came to me yesterday on the way to a date (which by the way was really nice.) Feel free to let me know what you think, what parts work for you and what parts don't. I'm especially curious about whether the title works?

Smoke

Sometimes you need little poison
Sometimes walking alone at night is lonely
And the ache inside feels like death awaiting
And sometimes you aren’t ready to give up on life
But sometimes life alone isn’t working
So Sometimes you just need a little poison

Cause sometimes you need to hurt yourself
Sometimes you need the pain out in the open
And cutting yourself isn’t what good-boys do
Isn’t what mamma’s-boys do
Isn’t what golden-boys do

Cause sometimes it makes marks they can see in dance class
And that’s not what pretty boys do in dance class
Cause than they look at you funny in dance class
Their eyes look confused in dance class
And their minds whirl with wonder in dance class
And then their eyes pop in dance class
And their minds judge in dance class
And they think “how sad you did that” in dance class
And “how sad you are that in dance class
In my dance class”
And sometimes you just need a little poison

Cause sometimes you need the pain on the outside
Even if just a hairs breathe away
Even if it hurts you
Even if it damages you
Even if it fucks you
And leaves you
Fallen, wet and rotting on a bed,
Brown and dirty quilt with flowers patterned
Never having meant to live much less die

Sometimes all you need is a little poison
Cause pain unseen is a wild child
With long nails
And sharp teeth
With lots of energy and no where to go
But through you

You see, sometimes a little poison’s the answer
Sometimes you need to suck it down
Suck it in
Suck it up
And hope it leaves you wholer than it found you
Cause cancer tomorrow
Ha
That sounds easy
That sounds outside
That sounds finite
Like you wish you were
Right
Now

And sometimes a little poison‘s the path.
Sometimes between death and feeling lies the bearable
And sometimes a little poison is the only way to go
To get
To get there
And sometimes a bearable hope is only found in the black dank smoke of a Luck Stripe
You etch across your lungs
Cause the stripes across your arm are unseemly
They declare your sick
Unhealthy

When really all you need is a little poison
Not to much to ask
Or expect
Certainly not sick
Maybe a little old school
But societies always appreciated an obscuring smoke
Over revealing wounds
Dark and smelly, much preferred
Keeps distinct their role in life
And your death

And sometimes you really just need a little poison
Sometimes uncertain friends aren’t the answer
Sometimes uncertain friends aren’t salvation
And won’t bring you closer to jeasus or muhamed
And sometimes friends don’t want to see
What lies behind the smoke
Cause sometimes they’d rather share a drag
Than risk being a drag
Or being dragged
Or feeling nagged
Cause sometimes we all have our own pain
And sometimes that pain’s an abyss
And sometimes I can’t get over mine
To save you from falling down yours
And sometimes the only hope we have is a little poison

But take hope
However you can
In a drag or a shag or even another fag
Falling down a similar hole
Cause it might not have a bottom
And we might not be able to fall together
But if you bang your story on your wall as you pass
I’ll bang on mine
And we can know we do not fall without notice
And we can rest assured that although the dark may swallow us
It need not consume us

And sometimes a little poison can be the largest salvation
And sometimes all you really need and all there really is and all there will ever be is a little poison
To share among friends

So suck it on up and pass it on down
And I’ll make a toast to the smoke
And the little poison we all sometimes need

Gay is Not the New Black, Why the LGBT Movement Needs to Get Off its Racist Asses and Deal with Race

2009-06-04T12:18:00.000-07:00

This is a really excellent article about how LBGT racism is hurting our organizing efforts. Mostly dealing with the fallow-out around prop.8, the article takes the critique beyond the racist backlash of LGBT commentators fallowing the November or the failure of No on Prop.8 to reach out to communities of color. The analyzes the structural racism in our community and how it is crippling our organizing efforts and dividing our community.

I found it on the Facebook page Gay is Not the New Black.

Two choice nuggets:

"But Kate Kendall, (of) the National Center on Lesbian Rights,... “The reason [the Black community] was an easy target (around,” she bluntly explains, “is that there continues to exist among many white LGBT folks outright racism or at least a relentless otherness when it comes to people of color.” (P.2)"

...

“Lawrence Ellis is among the LGBT organizers of color who saw the failure Kendall describes up close. He says that as he watched the campaign unfold from his perch in the Bay Area’s grassroots, he got mad: “The thought came into my head, ‘I don’t want to be a part of the world they are creating.’ ” So he took off work and began building connections among the small gay and lesbian organizations already active in Black, Latino, Asian and Native-American communities. They looked at data showing Blacks and Latinos to be a trouble spot and rounded up big names, including people like Huerta, to speak out in ads.

When the campaign declined to air those ads, they turned their attention to doing get-out-the-vote work in their communities. “With two days notice, we got hundreds of volunteers,” says Ellis, suggesting what would have been possible had the No on 8 campaign resources been better used. “Any campaign has to make strategic choices, but not building a true coalition, where you get to leverage existing networks—that is a fatal flaw.” (P.4)”

Maybe Marriage isn't the Answer?

2009-05-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

There’s a really interesting article at the Bilerico Project by Yasmin Nair about why we should abandon the marriage equality fight. I’m not sure quite where I feel about fighting for marriage equality, although I know it doesn’t feel like a fight for my rights. I like how Nancy Polikoff points out that although Prop. 8 was an attack on all lgbt people it doesn’t mean that marriage should be the national focus of the gay movement. Here are the nuggets from Nair’s piece (The comment section is actually impressively interesting):

The recent ruling will re-energize gay marriage advocates, but I suggest that we use it as an opportunity to drastically alter our course: Dump marriage now.

…

Today, the biggest rationale for gay marriage is that it would provide health care and benefits for spouses. Over the years, we have seen the gay movement withdraw its support for universal health care - which is what we fought for in the years of the AIDS crisis.

…

Over the last many decades, gays and lesbians were beginning to forge interesting and productive social networks outside marriage. Remember when domestic partnerships were actually seen as sexy and desirable and a really good alternative for those who didn't want to marry?

…

As we quibble about marriage, it's easy to forget that a rise in poverty and the lack of health care means that large segments of society are already denied their rights to decent education, housing, and a sense of security about their well-being.

…

As for the famous line about the 1000+ benefits that can only come through marriage - what about those who are excluded from those benefits simply because they're not married? And here's the basic question: Why should marriage guarantee any benefits that aren't available to those who don't want to marry? Why build up the power of the state to coerce people into marital relationships they don't want just so that they can get the basics like healthcare (sic)?

Image: http://www.familyequality.org/images/index_16.jpg

Labor Queer and Youth Online, Thoughts on my Mind

2009-05-27T15:01:00.000-07:00

There are two major avenues of thought that are going on in my life currently.

The first is an investigation of queer notions of family and how we fight for them. By this I mean a definition of family that moves beyond the two adults, monogamous, kid oriented definition. I was really excited to hear that the SEIU just embraced a more queer friendly understanding of family and has committed to fighting for it. (PS. the article is from BEYOND (STRAIGHT AND GAY) MARRIAGE written Nancy Polikoff, a really excellent blog about these issues [I haven't read the book yet, but really want to])

Laws and policies that narrowly define “family” as limited to two legally-married adults of the opposite sex raising their biological children are often used against immigrants, people of color and the working poor who are more likely to live in family structures that differ from this model.

Narrow definitions of family exclude many relationships that our members call family, including relationships with individuals for whom we have primary care-taking responsibility and relationships with individuals with whom we share economic and emotional interdependence.

Government and employer-provided benefits should support individuals with day-to-day responsibilities to care for and financially support minor children and dependent adults in all family forms, and should protect interdependent adult relationships.

The second thought going around my mind is an interrogation of the norms for youth-adult contact within the youth services non-profit world. This is especially tricky in the context of social network site like Facebook and Myspace. I've been fallowing danah boyd for awhile now because of her really insightful work around youth use of social networking. Today she posted an article about when, why, and how teachers should interact with their youth online.

All too often, there is an assumption that when teachers interact with students out of the classroom, they have bad intentions. This breaks my heart because, for all of the fear, most of the teachers that I've met in my line of work have really meant well by their students and their engagement with their students has helped their students tremendously. I've heard so many stories of teachers intervening and helping kids who really need it. Stupid things like giving them lunch money or being there to listen to their woes or helping a first generation kid learn about college.

Two Talks Worth Listening to: Ownership and Cultural Gentrification

2009-04-28T22:49:00.000-07:00

I’ve been listening to two talks (1, 2) from City From Below through Groundswell.

The first talk is the problems of architecture in late-capitalist society through an anarchistic analysis (I think.) The first presenter, Shiri Pasternak, offers a short historicized analysis of property in a colonial setting (focused on the US.) She makes an interesting comment about the difference of capitalist notions of land ownership, in which decision-making is based on the needs/desires of the landowners, versus the more indigenous (northwest Canadian) notion of the people belonging to the land.

Now I have no idea what this means to those people (don’t really know which indigenous people she works with exactly) but it reminds me of the Land Group (ask me about it if you don’t know.) It makes me think about how “ownership” is an inaccurate description and ineffective mental paradigm in which to understand our relationship to the land. Our relationship to the land (at it’s ideal) has been based on a historic understanding that that ecosystem has evolved around human intervention for centuries. That for better or worse humans are intimately intertwined into the healthy operation of the natural systems in that area and as “owners” we have responsibility to continue providing the “services” (god damn this language) we humans have provided for centuries. I wonder what this would look like in an urban context? What would it look like if people felt responsibility to there homes? What about to the buses/trains or to the parks or the sidewalk?

This also connects to a conversation I was having with Sherry Wolf (of the Socialist Worker [I know scary]) about the use of “queer” in the LGBTQ liberation movement. Within a discussion about the effectiveness of reclaiming the epithet “queer,” Sherry mentioned being done with the “language war” between “gay,” “LGBT,” and “queer,” that there is a point where if you are not doing things it does not really matter what you call it. This is very true, however the property discussion reminded me of the importance of understanding where our language falls short. In both personal-spatial relations (“ownership” being one form) and LGBT liberation the real point is that there are not words that concisely express those ideas. It took me 66 words to briefly explain the Land Group’s beliefs about its relationship to the environment. Imagine if there was a one word that got even close to what I’m talking about and this is why it remains important to continue to analyze our language and how it impacts our ability to talk about the work we do.

The second talk is about gentrification, pointing out how as artists our job in capitalism has become to brand places as “cool” and then sacrifice them to gentrification. The talk also discuses means of creative resistance. Using the community determined zoning struggles in Williamsburg as a point of departure, a woman from Not an Alternative (I can’t tell who she is [from Dave at Groudsweel, the speaker is Beka Economopoulos]) began by discussing the popular story of Williamsburg as hipster-fucked gentrifying neighborhood devoid of any other population, which is inaccurate. She then broke down the traditional narrative of hipsters as a perpetually displaced people moving from one neighborhood to another acting as the protagonists in the story of gentrification. Not that pleasant if you ask me.

Using the cult classic The Warriors, Not an Alternative and the Williamsburg Warriors designed posters that cast hipsters (and other community groups) in a new narrative of “rebel outcasts.” Through this they provided a vision of the community the hipsters could not only identify with, but could also lead to transformation of the hipster identity. I think this is a great example of the ways cultural production can be leveraged to build coalitions between people who in the popular understanding are advisories, gentrifying hipsters and longstanding community members of color.

One great nugget from the talk was the line “It was our sense that any narrative has the potential to be misread in a useful way.” She talked about the computer mockup that developers created to present the “new” Williamsburg, she pointed out that the faceless “anybody” quality of these marketing campaigns present an opportunity for us to engage and rewrite the narrative of these advertising in ways that highlight the alienation of the community inherent and leverage them to activate the community. In the end all this work points Not an Alternative to move outside of the identity of counter culture or “not mainstream”, and instead step into the role of cultural producers and stand with the communities against gentrification and other forms of oppression.

Some Thoughts on This the National Day of Silence

2009-04-17T10:49:00.002-07:00

This is a letter I wrote to co-workers which I thought I would share with you all:

Dear co-workers, friends, and allies,

Yesterday a friend sent me a Facebook link about an 11-year old boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, who hung himself on April 9th, after enduring bullying at school, including daily taunts of being gay. Needless to say this really hit me. As someone who has suffered LGBT-based violence and harassment, it pains me to hear our children continue to be threatened by this hatred and bigotry. Since today is the National Day of Silence, which tries to raise awareness about LGBT-bullying and harassment, I thought I would send out this invitation for further dialogue.
As K pointed out in our staff meeting, our lives continue to be affected by wide spread injustice and oppression. I have had a similar struggles to celebrate with a good friend who is engaging in growing the love between her and her male partner through marriage, while being barred from expressing my love through that same institution. There is amazing courage to be found in publicly committing one’s love to another person as there is in admitting to oneself and one’s loved one’s that in this society some of us don’t have that opportunity (at least not in the same way.)
This is an invitation to dialogue, so what do you think? What is your history of violence and oppression? How do you think we continue to struggle against this and all other forms of bigotry? How do we redouble and refine our efforts to help our young people find new ways, ways of love and compassion, understanding and opportunity for all people? These are a couple of the questions on mind this day of a heavy heart; and questions the Hegada teaches us are good things. I invite anyone to share with me any questions or ideas you might be having about LGBT issues (or anything else for that matter.)

If love, compassion, and hard work are the answers it is heartening to be daily in such inspiring company.

Thank you,
Eli

Social Change Cause it Makes Me Happy, Well-Being and Social Networking

2009-04-16T09:52:00.000-07:00

An interesting article from Seed Magazine, in it Albert-László Barabási and James Fowler discuss networks, and how understanding them is changing everything from evolutionary theories to political campaigns. There’s a lot in the article I didn’t really get. For example scale-free networks, which as I understand it has something to do with networks being built around “nodes” or “hubs” which are units (whether people or cells etc.) which are connected to high numbers of other units. That is to say that in a network, say Facebook, there is not an equal distribution of “friend” connections. Instead there are people who have vastly more “friend” connections than others, in fact there are several “levels” of connectivity, and that some highly connected people tend to have connection in multiple different “communities.” These people are the “nodes” and “hubs” (the only difference I can see is the quantity of different connections, with hubs having significantly more.) One of the interesting things about scale-free networks is that they have found the same structure in a variety of seemingly very different network systems, for example, social networks and cellular networks.

For me, the meet of article was a reference to a study by Fowler and his colleague Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, which found that both behaviors like smoking and obesity and emotions like happiness and loneliness spread through social networks. What this means is that if your friend or family member starts loosing weight or is happy, you are more likely to loose weight or be happy. The really cool thing is that this is not only true for your friends/family but also for their friends/family. Meaning, if your friend’s mom is loosing weight you are more likely to loose weight whether or not you’ve ever met her.

This makes an empirical argument for all sorts of things like social welfare programs, civil rights, economic justice, etc. This is because these are all factors which affect people’s happiness and since our personal happiness is affected by the happiness of people in our social network, it seems fair to assume that as the happiness of our community rises so shall ours.

Of course, the other option is to attempt to keep those who are likely to be unhappy, the poor and oppressed for example, out of our social networks all together. This has, in fact, been the historic practice of the ruling classes and points to the need for connection between classes and communities as a strategy for social change. For example, one of the long standing traditions of the queer/lgbt liberation movements has been “coming out” to friends and family. This then demonstrates to people that they are being negatively affected by homophobia through their social network. Now, of course people didn’t use the language of personal happiness and its connection to social networks. Instead they thought of it as creating visibility and evoking empathy and understanding. However, I would hypothesize that these are based on instinctual understandings of the impact others have on us. Ie. We care about others because we know that they affect our lives (understanding that this is probably a huge oversimplification of why we care about others, but you get my point.)

Image: Wikipedia: Scale-Free Networks

Caught on Tape: CEOs Gone Wild

2009-02-25T09:19:00.001-08:00

A leaked audio (quicktime) recording between several CEO's reveals the CEO of Home Depot, Bernie Marcus, saying any retailer that isn't donating tons of resources to fight against EFCA is derelict in their duty and that people (corporate elite) should "Take 'em out and shoot 'em!" Thanks Inforshop for pointing it out.

Date! A Journal Retirement Party

2009-02-20T14:03:00.000-08:00

There’s been an idea kicking around in my head for awhile, A Journal Retirement Party. I’m getting to the end of my current journal and I want to throw an art-infused party. I thought it would be a cool opportunity to reflect on what has been and what we hope is to come, with people I love and/or admire (if you want more of a description see an e-mail I sent to some folks a week or two ago.)

My latest idea would be to call it Date! It could be an exploration of all the connotations of that word, the journal entry, the new romance, the fruit, and the understanding of time inherent within it.

This is a new idea so I’ll leave it at that. Feel free to leave me any thoughts or ideas.

THE E-MAIL:

So I had this idea which I think you all would make awesome collaborators for. A Journal Retirement Party. I'm getting to the end of my journal and it will soon be time to put it out to pasture. However, before I do it I want to celebrate these last couple of years and what they've been like, looked like, smelled like, felt like for me and my friends. I want to know where adventures have been had, what skins have been shed, and what conversations the moon has had. I don’t want this to be some self-indulgent wank fest, but a feast of life, art, and cheep wine. I want to invite talented artists who I/we like to come together, have an awesome time, and do what we’ve been called to do, BE ARTISTS. As I see it an artists job is to help people to remember the way their world was, to see how their life is, and to imagine what dreams the future could hold. This will be a collaborative performance/happening put on by a group of artists to explore this crazy world in all its divine multiplicities. I want it to encompass love, life, death, sex, teen angst, beauty, adventure, everything! If you’re still wondering what the hell I’m talking about look at the attached manifesto and/or think Francesca Lia Block’s Weetzie Bat.

Obviously the concept needs work, but that’s why Allah created more than one of us. So what are your ideas? What, if anything, makes you think “fuck yeah that sounds awesome?” What makes you say “Eli, that’s fucking stupid?”

Much love,
Eli

Some of my vision:

Space: My house. You walk into my covered deck to an obviously faux sacred space. I’m seeing candles and those fake electric candles scattered throughout with pillows all over the place and incense wafting through the space. Rubber chickens, plastic skeletons, and unicorns hang on the walls. There is a gender-queered old spirit (a performer) who helps guest walk the line between the glitter and the holy in order to find the playful sacredness. I want people to take it seriously, to draw voluble meaning from the experience, while realizing that that can be fun and playful.

Then you enter my living room where a series of visual art pieces draw you in and spin you around. Not being a visual artist, I’m hoping someone else will sink there teeth into that aspect. I’m would love to have some art being made as well as invite people to make their own. I’m think one thing which would be awesome would be a book binding workshop.

Program: I want to invite a few performing artists (poetry, theater, music, dance) to perform their journals in someway. This is where I would do my art. I would do some kind of ceremony, probably blending Islamic chants with queer drag and old school hippy something, to retire my journal. With in this would be an opportunity for others to retire their whatevers. I’m thinking there might be one or two rehearsals of this in order to better craft people’s individual working into a coherent journey for the audience.

The performance would last no more than an hour. After which there would be music and dancing. Again not be a musician, I would love to have someone think about how to push this beyond just having bands on a stage. Maybe the band could be in the center?? How could music be used to further people’s experience of this journey.

This is an new idea, so I don't have everything worked out, but here are some things I think it would be awesome to have in it.
-You!
-A book/journal making workshop.
-Some music (I have a friend I could probably get to do some stuff.) Also, maybe Tim would come on out.
-A visual art view. My living room could make a good gallery.
-A time for people to share snippits of their journals of the last couple of years (or whenever really.) This could include things that were funny, things that were momentous, or things people just felt like sharing. I'd want this to be curated in some way, so as to make it as interesting as possible.

Just Weird

2008-12-11T11:54:00.000-08:00

This is just absurd.

TCstreetsforpeople points out an odd collection of photos: American cemeteries that are completely surrounded by parking lots. From Roadside Resort, a handful of the sites, which are in Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

The Center for Future Storytelling: New Technology and the Changing Story.

2008-11-20T13:12:00.000-08:00

I just read that M.I.T. is launching the Center for Future Storytelling to explore how new technology will change storytelling, sounds like really interesting. From the NYTimes,

Starting in 2010, a handful of faculty members — “principal investigators,” the university calls them — will join graduate students, undergraduate interns and visitors from the film and book worlds in examining, among other things, how virtual actors and “morphable” projectors (which instantly change the appearance of physical scenes) might affect a storytelling process that has already been considerably democratized by digital delivery.

(Image: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/)

Materialism in the 21st Century; Not What You Think

2008-11-20T13:02:00.000-08:00

This is pretty interesting. Bruce Sterling discusses the end of The Viridian Design Movement. Check it out.

Image: http://greensource.construction.com/people

Marriage equality, Not That Queer and Quite a Bit Racist

2008-11-14T14:12:00.000-08:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage, homophobia, and racism in response to the passage of Prop 8 in California and the narratives of homophobia within communities of color, specifically African-American communities. Originally, I thought to address these as two separate issues. However, I am beginning to see how they are inextricably linked through a racist, classis, anti-queer pro-marriage equality movement.

First, let me offer a working definition of queer in this context. Starting, where all things start, with Wikipedia, queer:

..has sociopolitical connotations, and is often preferred by those who are activists, by those who strongly reject traditional gender identities, by those who reject distinct sexual identities such as gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight, and by those who see themselves as oppressed by the heteronormativity of the larger (gay and lesbian) culture (emphasis added.)

This last point is important. Queer, to me, refers to all people who are oppressed by the normative tendencies of the tradition glbt community, including poor people, people of color, trans and gender-queer, and anyone who lives in family units not defined by single-partner sexual relationships.

Is the struggle for marriage equality anti-queer? Yes, because as Nancy D. Polikoff , Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law, points out in Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage, gaining legal marriage rights for the LGBT community is the wrong way to obtain access to health care, hospital visits, etc. To many families are left out (see her introduction [PDF] for examples of people who have been fucked because their family does not fit into the narrow definition of single-partner sexual relationship.) Furthermore, as Polikoff points out,

Winning marriage equality in order to access our partners’ benefits makes little sense if the benefits that we seek are being shredded.

As the employer-paid healthcare system is crumbling around us, it makes more sense to struggle for universal healthcare than it does to fight for marriage equality. I know, I know, healthcare is not the only problem marriage equality will alleviate. For example, marriage equality will allow glbt married partners to gain social security partner benefits, child adoption, ect. However, this benefit will only be experience by a minority of Americans. Again Polikoff,

U.S. Census findings tell us that a majority of people, whatever their sexual and gender identities, do not live in traditional nuclear families.

Let’s start fighting for a system that benefits all.

Not only does the pro-marriage movement leave out many queer families, but it ignores the fact that for many queers, especially the poor and queers of color, there are larger issues, such as a discriminatory criminal justice system, racist immigration laws, and low-income housing, to name just a few. A story from Crag Willse, of Make Zine, may help to illustrate how many queers have been positioned outside of traditional gay politics:

…A few years ago, two propositions came up for vote in California: Prop 21 and 22. Prop 22 said something like, “In the state of California, only marriage between a man and a woman is legal.” ... Prop 21 was a “juvenile justice” bill that lowered the age at which children can be tried as adults, added time to prison sentences for youth affiliated with gangs, and redefined gangs in such a broad way that any youth of color just hanging out together could be defined as such. Many organizations in LA campaigned simultaneously against both propositions, recognizing links in these battles as being about social and economic justice. The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center only campaigned against Prop 22. They did nothing on Prop 21...

When the Center decided to do no work on Prop 21, they decided that youth incarceration is not a gay issue. They effectively positioned the needs of the youth with whom I worked outside of gay politics. The Center’s work was a crystallizing moment of defining who constitutes a legitimate glbt community, and whose needs our organizations will represent.

Thus we can see that traditional glbt organizing has failed to fight for pressing issues facing many members of the queer community.

Not only has the mainstream glbt community failed to support the struggles of poor people and people of color, the way it has gone about organizing for marriage equality has alienated many communities of color and has made efforts for queer acceptance in those communities even harder. Kenyon Farrow, in Is Gay Marriage Anti Black??, makes the argument that the “hijacking of Rosa Parks,” and other cultural icons from the black civil-rights movement, in the marriage equality movement ignores the historic racism within the glbt community.

…There have always been racial tensions in the gay community as long as there have been racial tensions in America, but in the 1990’s, the white gay community went mainstream, further pushing non-hetero people of color from the movement…

The reason for this schism is that in order to be mainstream in America, one has to be seen as white. And since white is normative, one has to interrogate what other labels or institutions are seen as normative in our society: family, marriage, and military service, to name a few. It is then no surprise that a movement that goes for “normality” would then end up in a battle over a dubious institution like marriage (and hetero-normative family structures by extension)…

These comparisons of “Gay Civil Rights” as equal to “Black Civil Rights” really began in the early 1990’s, and largely responsible for this was Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and a few other mostly-white gay organizations. This push from HRC, without any visible black leadership or tangible support from black allies (straight and queer), to equate these movements did several things: 1) Piss off the black community for the white gay movement’s cultural appropriation, and making the straight black community question non-hetero black people’s allegiances, resulting in our further isolation. 2) Giving the (white) Christian Right ammunition to build relationships with black ministers to denounce gay rights from their pulpits based on the HRC’s cultural appropriation. 3) Create a scenario in their effort to go mainstream that equates gay and lesbian with upper-class and white.

Thus, it is not only imperative that the glbt community rethink the issues it is fight for, but rework the strategies it is using to struggle for equality.

This is not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s the way to succeed. As Porp 8 proved, the glbt community needs to forge alliances with communities of color. These alliances must be honest and mutually beneficial, not tokenistic and appropriatory (I know, not actually a word,) and will likely result in a change in the issues the glbt community prioritizes. I want to be clear, I DO NOT think communities of color are predominately responsible for the passage of Pop 8 (See 1 and 2) and the narratives stating this ARE RACIST. However, it does point out a pressing truth, the glbt community cannot win equality without the support of people of color.

To conclude, we need to stop the stupid, racist, classis, anti-queer marriage equality movement and start fighting for issues that will actually help all members of our community like criminal justice reform, universal healthcare, and low-income economic development and services. These struggles must find ways to form true alliances between queers of privilege and poor queers of color, which recognize and correct historic disparities of privilege and power. As we celebrate the election of the first African-American president, let us learn the lessons his campaign taught us about coalition building across difference.

If you actually made it this far, thanks! What do you think?

Information Generation, the Next Freedom of Information Act

2008-11-11T18:11:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting story from the same article. It illustrates the fundamental failing of capitalism’s authoritarian information hording in light of the mass participatory internet-based knowledge generation. It’s often easier to generate and combine information, than to attempt to get it from authorities.

(A) project started by a professor in Brazil, in Fortaleza, named Vasco Furtado. It's a Wiki Map for crime in Brazil. If there's… (a crime) you can go and put a push-pin on a Google Map, and you can characterize the assault, and you start to see a map of where these crimes are occurring.

Now, this already exists as tacit information… "Don't go there. That street corner is dangerous…” But it's something society knows without society really knowing it, which is to say there's no public source where you can take advantage of it. And the cops, if they have that information, they're certainly not sharing. In fact, one of the things Furtado says in starting the Wiki crime map was, "This information may or may not exist some place in society, but it's actually easier for me to try to rebuild it from scratch than to try and get it from the authorities who might have it now."

Image: http://www.wikicrimes.org/

Social Surplus: a Wikipedia a Weekend.

2008-11-11T18:04:00.000-08:00

I’ve read this article before, but I came across it again and still really love it. Gin, Television, and Social Surplus discusses the notion of Civic Surplus, i.e. free time and what we do with it. This is one of those realities that give me great hope for the future. We have the time to solve our problems, we just have to learn how to use it, and we have to learn quickly. Some choice tidbits:

(H)ow big is that surplus? So if you take Wikipedia as a kind of unit, the whole project… that represents something like the cumulation of 100 million hours of human thought…

And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way, now that we have a unit, that's 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television.

Now, the interesting thing about a surplus like that is that society doesn't know what to do with it at first… It's precisely when no one has any idea how to deploy something that people have to start experimenting with it, in order for the surplus to get integrated, and the course of that integration can transform society…

It's better to do something than to do nothing. Even lolcats, hold out an invitation to participation. And that's message--I can do that, too--is a big change…

And this is the other thing about the size of the cognitive surplus we're talking about. It's so large that even a small change could have huge ramifications. The Internet-connected population watches roughly a trillion hours of TV a year. That's about five times the size of the annual U.S. consumption. One per cent of that is 100 Wikipedia projects per year worth of participation…

(These) are things that make me believe that this is a one-way change. Because four year olds, they just assume that media includes consuming, producing and sharing (sic).

When Right-Wing Corporate Media Isn’t Enough.

2008-09-21T18:38:00.000-07:00

Elliott Liu is a NYC-based writer, activist, and media-maker, with deep connection to the radical left and anarchist movements around the country. He writes Lines of Flight, one of the best blogs about these movements out there. Although it is clear Elliot has deep roots in poststructuralist political philosophy, his righting is chocked full of clear and thought provoking analyses of radical left news you will never hear on the mainstream media.

Smiles On TV, Smoke In The Streets: Part 1 is a great article discussing the protests and state repression that surrounded both major party conventions. Well worth the read.
The fallowing is a list of raids which all occurred in a 48 hour period in a preamble to the RNC:

The "Bushville" encampment for the poor and the homeless was surrounded by police, who arrested two people and dispersed everyone. The camp would be forced to move multiple times throughout the week.
Police smashed in the door of the Welcoming Committee's convergence center with guns drawn, and detained a group of youth, parents and children who were watching a movie inside
A Food Not Bombs house that had dedicated its kitchen to feeding thousands of protesters during the RNC was searched and sealed by police
Michelle Gross, a local organizer with Communities Against Police Brutality, had her car broken into. Mysteriously, none of her possessions were stolen, but all of her documents were thoroughly searched.
I-Witness Video, a media crew supporting civil rights, saw police come in through the attic of the house in which they were staying with guns drawn. (They were raided again later in the week, based on a bogus rumor that the group was "holding a hostage" in its office.)
An Earth Justice Bus carrying permaculture demonstrations and training equipment was seized and towed on its way to the Twin Cities. Its passengers were left on the side of the highway and had to walk to get help.
The Glass Bead Collective, a video art and activism crew from NYC, were detained without arrest and had all their video equipment confiscated.
The houses of multiple organizers connected with the RNC protests were raided. It's hard to tell from confused posts from the day-of, but somewhere around four houses were targeted. (Video of some of these raids are available here.)
In Oakland, the Long Haul Infoshop was raided by federal officials who carted off numerous computers. Activist networks are still speculating as to whether it was connected with pre-RNC raids that took place around the same time.

I highly recommend adding Elliot to your RSS feed.

(Image: http://minamipictures.com)

A Recession at Work: The Personal Side of the Working Poor

2008-08-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

Our Cupboard was Bare, by Heather Ryan, is a powerfully personal look at the struggles of being a single parent in a time when people are loosing or unable to find decent work. As part of Salon.com's Pinched "a new series of personal essays about life during a recession," Ryan's essay is as powerful for the response (both vicious attacks and heartfelt support) as its content.

Brand Obama and Grassroots Activism: Two Interesting Articles

2008-06-25T11:36:00.000-07:00

Two interesting articles I’ll share with you.

Beyond Brand Obama explores the impact of “the change” candidate:

Those of us hoping to build communities, improve our schools, invigorate our local economies, restructure our land use, or reduce our energy dependence mustn’t equate a presidential campaign with substantive change. Obama may be a convenient conceptual placeholder for these concerns, as well as a person capable of dismantling a good amount of America’s more fascistic and militaristic infrastructure….Obama can help legislate some of the structural changes that will make it easier for us to renegotiate our civic, social, and commercial relationships with one another. But the job of actually changing society and its priorities will happen from the bottom up. He can help write laws that make it easier for us to build transportation alternatives, but we have to actually go do it.

In Grassroots Lobbying: Use Ideas, Not One-Click Campaigns, Heather MacIntosh, the President of Preservation Action, lays out a convincing argument and guide for grassroots non-profit lobbying that moves beyond form letters and e-mail surveys. In it, she argues for making relationships with local congressional offices and getting involved in the early stages of policy creation.

(Image from: Obama Porn [safe for work])

Data Visualization is Sweet

2008-06-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

I am a huge fan of data visualizers both because they make it easier to process information and because they demonstrate the malleability of information. What information is considered “important” or “relevant” enough to be included is of huge importance to the story that is told. Here is a cool visualization of the Alberta Gonzala Congressional testimony form Many Eyes, a website that allows you to create your own visualization.

The Power of Stories

2008-05-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of weeks the universe has been saturating me in reminders of the importance of stories. Three nights ago I went to the International Day for Telling Life Stories presented at the Berkley Library by the Center for Digital Story Telling. The event started off with a powerful story by and about Erika Huggins, “… a former Black Panther, political prisoner, human rights activist, poet and teacher (From the program bio.)” Huggins, quite amazingly, was able to simultaneously own her story in a deeply personal and powerful way, while also underlining and encouraging the universal message inherent within. Namely that we all have individual stories with great power and worth. It was truly informative example an age-old artistic struggle to take something personal and make it universal without loosing the “human face” that comes with individual specificity.

If your having trouble seeing the importance of stories I offer this advertisement for the Mexican newspaper Milenio. The two complimentary cultural narratives of the apathetic idiot (Homer Simpson) and the lone un-nuanced violent “warrior” (John Wayne) lead to an uninterested, uninformed, and violent leader. In an era with a failing public school system and a world besought with potentially cataclysmic change (the rise of totalitarian authority, global warming, The global food crisis, to name a few) Homer Simpson has become an American hero. Like Wayne before him, he has become the safe standard. The depth of Homer’s stupidity and the extent of Wayne’s violence justify the slightly lesser ignorance and aggression prevalent in certain sectors of our country. By the way, I’m not talking about poor or working-class America, I’m talking about the people we accept to lead our country.

For another example we can look to (listen, actually) to an NPR story that ran on All Things Considered on May 16 titled Aid Efforts Stymied by China, Myanmar Tragedies. The story discusses the lack of stories and images about the devastation, which has resulted (in part) from Myanmar’s government not letting journalists and aid-workers into the country. According to the story, a professor at Colby College, Philip Brown, doing research (PDF) on the relationship between media coverage and donations around disasters found that 1 minute or 1 news story would raise the amount of donations by 13-18% that day. Comparing the amount of money raised for the South-East Asian Tsunami and the cyclone in Myanmar 10 days after the event found that the former had raised $7 million compared to only $600,000 for Myanmar. According to Brown’s research the amount of new coverage was not the only important factor, it also matters what kind’s of stories are being told. Another problem with the coverage of Myanmar is that it is almost devoid of personal stories of the tragedy.

The power of individual stories comes from the possibility for one person to relate to another’s situation even when their lives are (or seem) very different. The Global Lives Project is attempting to use technology to tell people’s stories from all over the world. The project is to shoot 10 24 consecutive-hour-videos of 10 different people’s lives from all over the world. Since not everyone can afford to travel around the world personally meeting people from different places, the Global Lives Project offers people a chance to see what one day might be like in different parts of the globe.

Personal stories are important not only in generating top down charitable giving, but in culturally empower (having the ability to affect one’s culture) those populations often excluded from traditional sources of cultural action (the news media, professional art venues, etc.) I recently had the honor of attending my friend Laura Hadden’s (check her out) Naming Ceremony for her class of the First Voices Apprenticeship Program at KPFA.

The mission of the First Voice Apprenticeship Program is to facilitate community building and creative empowerment through healing, creative expression, and the adaptation of information technology. The "First Voice" exists deep within ourselves, it is the consciousness or intuition that leads the way.

The Ceremony was a wonderful reaffirmation of the need for people and communities to tell and hear their own stories.

All this has lead me to seriously reexamine my own story. Chris Carlsson’s Nowtopia (review coming… when I finish it) has stimulated me to consider the connection between the Back to the Land Movement (which my parents were involved with for awhile) and the more resent permaculture and urban gardening movements. I am currently working on a audio documentary about a piece of land my parents bought with roughly 16 other people in 1971 and have considered fallowing the wider cultural threads to present day subcultures. It is good to be hearing so many stories lately. I hope you all are remembering to tell your story and to listen to others’.

Images: Center for Digital Story Telling, Eyeteeth

Public Art Gets A Little Protection

2008-05-01T17:10:00.000-07:00

Public artist, Kent Twitchell, just settled a lawsuit over the destruction of his mural of the artist Ed Ruscha. Twitchell sued under the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA), which is intended “to prevent any destruction of a work of recognized stature.” The settlement included the building’s owner and the Department of Labor, and was for 1.1 million dollars.

Although I am a huge fan of protecting public art and other forms of free expression, especially since we are often forced communicate with each other through private property or space. I think it is unfortunate how society defines “work of recognized stature.” It is sad that we continue to destroy certain forms of street art, which are produced without permission. The right to use public spaces for personal expression is a key issue. By label certain forms of public art “vandalism,” the government forces artists seeking public legitimacy to ask permission of the state in order to publicly express themselves. And how free is free-speech if you have to ask permission before you do it?

(Photo Credit: Walker Art Center)

Longing for Queer stories

2008-04-27T21:31:00.000-07:00

An interesting article in the New York Times about young gay male marriage. The article explores why gay men are marrying in their 20’s, without the social pressure, which, according to the article, explains why straights get married young. The final answer ends up being a combination of the desire for commitment and the need for social legitimacy.

The appealing part of the article is not the social analysis, but the subject, happy queer stories. For sometime, I have been noticing that there is a lack of stories about queer people. When I went to see “Brokeback Mountain” I remember being surprise that the person I saw it with was crying. To me there was no doubt how the movie would end, the same way all mainstream queer stories end violent or AIDS related deaths. This really struck me. Where is the cultural narratives which help young queers see how they might live happy fulfilled lives?

There are of course such stories, one must simply dig for them. A few suggestions to wet your appetites. Inlaws & Outlaws is a great movie that explores love and commitment in it’s myriad of incarnations. Summer Storm is a very compelling coming of age story out of Germany, which delves into the conflicts of growing up gay in a straight world, and what an alternative might look like.

I would love to hear about any other suggestions people might have.

Free Tibet From An Often Unheard Of Voice

2008-04-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of media attention of the Free-Tibet movement. Here is an interesting interview with Samdhong Rinpoche, the Prime Minister of the government-of-exile of Tibet.

(Picture credit: http://www.himalmag.com/)

Cool Sculptures Joshua Allen Harris

2008-03-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

Joshua Allen Harris' inflatable sculptures.

Why Optimism Matters

2008-03-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

A great article at Worldchanging about the politics of pessimism and the need for optimistic sustainability thinking. "The politics of impossibility" as Alex puts it is:

1) An explicit statement that we are incapable of actually solving the planet's most pressing problems, and that to consider doing so is "unrealistic."

2) A mostly unstated assumption that the reason embracing bold solutions is unrealistic is because those solutions involve unbearable costs.

3) A rarely voiced belief that "realism" ought best to be defined as "in the interests of those doing well today," and that "unbearable costs" ought best to be defined as "any meaningful change in circumstances whatsoever."

4) A widely practiced stance that, therefore, expressions of concern and extremely modest, almost symbolic, small steps and half measures are the appropriate course of action.

Vs.

The politics of optimism:

1) That realism ought best to be defined as "within our capacity" and "necessary."

2) That we have the capacity to create and deploy solutions to the world's biggest problems, and the magnitude of the consequences of failure (both for ourselves and generations to come) demands that we act immediately.

3) That it is possible to act in such a way that the prospects of most people on the planet are improved. While certain costs will be incurred, the returns on those investments will be quite attractive, not only in ecological stability, international security and human well-being, but in terms of plain old economic prosperity. These solutions will make the future better than the present for the almost everyone, and greatly improve the lots of our children and grandchildren.

4) Therefore, defining our win scenarios, imagining the kind of future we want to create, describing the solutions that will make building that future possible, and publicly committing ourselves to success are the appropriate course of action.

The article is well worth a read.

Exposing What is Hidden, BLF Rocks

2008-03-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

I'm a really big fan of The Billboard Liberation Front who, like Reverend Billy, use culture jamming to challenge the supremacy of consumerism to dictate our physical and social landscape. By making minor alterations to billboard the BLF

Expose(s) what is hidden. Some advertisers are too shy about what they really mean, BLF will help them make their message clearer. Case in point: the 2005 improvement of Johnny Walker where "Drink responsibly" became "Drink yourself blind".

Check out the piece about their talk at the Vooruit over at We-make-money-not-art.

The Next Flight, Green or White?

2008-03-24T11:27:00.000-07:00

A new article from Worldchanging about how demographic shifts are leading people back into urban cores, what will happen with all the suburbia that now exist, and the green implications of a US population concentrated in cities.

(Picture Credit:www.theatlantic.com)

On The Mind

2008-03-06T11:08:00.000-08:00

Some stuff I’ve been checking out

The Happy City: Paris goes happy, and discovers interacting with people (even strangers, even just enough not to collide while walking down the street) makes people happy.

SAN FRANCISCO IN 2108? - The Hydro-Net Vision of the Future: A plan to transform San Fran (yeah I said it) into the Ecotopia we all knew it could be. Really pretty pictures.

Sk-interfaces (Part 1): Sounds like a really interesting exhibit in Liverpool. Immolation, which explores the US’ use of incendiary weapons (think fire bombs) on civilians, through both the macro (landscape) level and the micro (cells of skin) level.

Oysters To Be Used To New York Waterways

2008-03-01T12:27:00.000-08:00

An interesting article from The New York Times about an experimental project to use oyster beds to help purify Hendrix Creek, in the Brooklyn.

Scientists in the last several decades have developed a better understanding of the ability of oysters to filter water. As an adult oyster feeds, it can filter 5 to 50 gallons of water a day, depending on its size and the temperature of the water.

During this process, it absorbs nitrogen, algae and bacteria, depositing them in the sediment at the water’s bottom. The oyster beds also serve as the foundation for an ecosystem that can support other marine species, like eelgrass, which in turn absorb other waste materials and provide habitats for fish.

Seeing Like The Beasts: Human-Anmial Sensory Perception

2008-02-26T16:07:00.000-08:00

Here is an interesting project I found on We-Make-Money-Not-Art. Chris Woebken and Kenichi Okada, in collaboration with MBA students from the Oxford Said Business-school, have developed toys that alter human sensory perception in order to imitate animals’.

(Image: We-Make-Money-Not-Art)

Students Doing It For Themselves!

2008-02-26T12:33:00.000-08:00

Worldchanging has a cool article on The University of Canterbury Students’ Association, which is hosting a green orientation week along with other sustainable initiatives. It’s really awesome to continue to see different student groups at different educational institutions encouraging their schools to go green. My favorite initiative is the “Eco-My-Flat”:

Incorporating community-based social marketing techniques, the team developed an 'Eco-My-Flat' competition. It is to be run over March to promote sustainable student lifestyles, with a workshop each week covering the themes of energy, waste, transport and consumption. Research by Canadian environmental psychologist Doug MacKenzie-Mohr shows that methods advocating change for sustainability need to address specific barriers to behaviour change using a variety of techniques. Therefore, the competition not only gives information, but also guidance from a professional facilitator and a chance to learn from discussion with their peers at the workshops, as well as incentives in the form of prizes.

Internet = Freedom in China?

2008-02-12T13:17:00.000-08:00

Behind the Great Firewall from the Guardian deals with huge increas in internet use in China and debates whether it can be an instrument of change.

What We Have Is All They'll Have

2008-02-12T11:43:00.000-08:00

If sustainability is harvesting, designing, using, and end-of-life management in ways that will work for hundreds, if not thousands, of years than one important concept to understand is that future generations will only have access to the resources we have today. That is to say every generation does not get their own Amazon forest. The resources we use (or don’t use) today will be all the resources future generations have access to. What are the Sustainability Implications of Peak Population? By Alex Steffen (The broskie) deals with the implications of trying to build a sustainable now, while also realizing that it is going to have to work for or be recyclable by future generations. It’s a typically interesting thought exercise, and for those of you less familiar with The Broskie I recommend you take a look.

Art Projects That Are Actually Interesting

2008-02-07T12:26:00.001-08:00

I really neat exhibit from Platform 11, a lab out of the Royal College of Art in London. Check out we-make-money’s post on it.

I really like open-source protesting, where students from the lab brought blank green signs to “protest” in front of the Westminster's Houses of Parliament in order circumvent The Serious Organized Crime and Police Act 2005. The law states that it is illegal to protest within 1 km of the building. However, Tony Mullin found a loophole allowing for blank signs. The students are making the protest available online for any group to past in their own political message onto the blank green signs using green screen technology. Pretty cool.

Dash Macdonald’s Imagine Being a World Leader is a neat project where he plans on providing training 8-9 year olds to give their own professional political speech.

Improve Everwhere in Grand Central

2008-02-05T10:43:00.000-08:00

Here's a sweet performance by Improv Everywhere in Grand Central Station.

Who Da' Nerd; Cell Phones and Laser Tag

2008-01-31T11:03:00.000-08:00

I can't tell if I'm getting more nerdy (hard to imagine) or our world is, but either way this is pretty cool. There is a group in Spain playing what is affectively laser tag with cell phones. It’s pretty cool.

Global Street Art

2008-01-31T10:56:00.000-08:00

I recently started a new job, which leaves me lots of free time to play on the internet. Since it does not leave me any other kind of free time I am forced to do my blogging here at the café. I tell you this so that you will understand all the typos that are likely to occur (Typing while standing up is harder than it seems.)

However, I did want to talk about a cool project going on. Rodrigo Lopez, RIPO, and ABOVE are traveling around Latin America, stopping in 18 countries in 6 months. Dubbing it The South Central Tour, they have put up some really fascinating public art pieces.

I checked out ABOVE’s website and found it the most appealing. Although it took me quite awhile to have any idea of what his work was getting at (I’m slow like that), it became interesting on two levels. One, direction as the main theme of his work and critique is pretty cool. We often miss the things that are not on our eye level be they below or above. As an avid looker, I can say that looking up often makes me feel like a tourist, as if I should already know what is above me or not care. Second, it is always awesome to learn of artists who are just doing it. This is a constant challenge of mine and I love the helpful advice he gives. Who knew you could easily create a whole years worth of euro-rail passes from one official pass using a computer and Photoshop. Also, I love his quotes:

"Opportunity is missed by most people becauseit is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
-Thomas A. Edison

It's Nice to See Democracy is Alive and Well in Florida

2008-01-30T10:49:00.000-08:00

Florida Primary voters reporting problems at polls.

The First Green Homeless Shelter

2008-01-28T12:14:00.000-08:00

The New York Times today reported on Crossroads, a homeless shelter in Oakland, CA, that is being reported as the first green homeless shelter in the US.

Some Links I've Been Holding on to

2008-01-25T15:09:00.000-08:00

I just started a new job and it has been keeping me pretty busy. As such, I have not been able to post some of the interesting things I've found lately. So, here is a list of some interesting articles I've run across.

Mobile Phone Credits as Currency in Kenya points out that due to the recent violence in Kenya and the dependence of the population on mobile phones for their communication needs, mobile phone credits have become a better currency than the government issue money. It goes on to discuss communcation needs in times of disruption.

Reaching Out to Muslim Victims of Domestic Violence talks about what efforts are being made to address issues of domestice violence in the Muslim-American Community and some of the challenges that are being faced.

let's define our terms: what is a "social networking technology"? does just that.

Interesting Though

2008-01-25T15:03:00.000-08:00

An interesting bit of food for thought at Worldchanging.

I've been thinking about the fate of declining suburbs, bombed out shrinking old industrial cities and the drying up ghost towns of the high plains, when I came across a journal note mentioning something Bruce Sterling said to me this fall in San Francisco:
"The ruins of the unsustainable are the 21st century's frontier."

Good Reminder

2008-01-14T19:13:00.000-08:00

The Revolution Will Not Be Designed is interesting (and blissfully short) reminder that when dealing with human problems we must deal with human interactions (including political, social, and cultural.)

In particular, design metaphors obscure the ideological—and political—decisions involved in tackling societal issues… Conceiving of global ills as design challenges may sometimes be in order, but only when a consensus exists on goals, budgets and relevant values. Such is rarely the case.

“Design thinking” describes a moment in the pursuit of social good that hardly ever arrives: when all the hearts are in the right place, all opinions have been brought into line and all that needs to happen is the change itself. If the model has intellectual benefits, it’s doubtful they outweigh the deficiencies of ignoring the long process by which consensus is built—a.k.a. politics.

Cool Videos

2008-01-14T19:02:00.000-08:00

Scribemedia.org is a really cool organization producing videos (of impressive quality) of speeches in a wide range of subject. I really like this one that us(es) text/typography and a spoken audio track… to visually express the emotion/thought/intonation behind… Vince Vaughn’s monologue of ‘The Perfect Girl’ in Wedding Crashers.

Youth Activism Rocks

2008-01-13T13:03:00.000-08:00

Great heads up from YP4, When Abstinence Fails, High School Students Demand Maternity Leave by Laura Hadden points out a group of high school students in Denver demanding maternity leaver from their high school. For more info check out the Denver Post article. One of the most brain busting things about this issue is how worried many people are about schools encouraging teen pregnancy. Although, I think it’s safe to say that most people would be better served to wait till they are more mature before having kids, it seems when people are asking for maternity leave encouraging teen pregnancy is no longer the issue. We should be making it as easy as possible for all youth, including pregnant youth, to get an education.

(Image Credits: Denver Post)

Numbers, Please

2008-01-13T12:33:00.000-08:00

An interesting article at Worldchanging about corporate green accountability, product backtories, and the winnowing of sustainable companies from those simply greenwashing. The article challenges a piece by Chris Anderson, of Wired, about the sustainability of paper distribution. The basic argument of the Worldchanging piece is that Wired should know its own environmental backstory and, through this knowledge, should be able to produce hard numbers about how it is and is not sustainable. The article also makes the connection between this knowledge and good brand imagery. The comments had a particularly interesting discussion.

Entrepreneurialship is the Way to Sail

2008-01-11T16:57:00.000-08:00

Over the summer I was having sushi with a friend and her mother. During a discussion of how to fund art projects the mother, who has been involved with art and art administration for roughly 30 years, began talking about entrepreneurialship as an alternative to grant-based funding. Basically, her argument is that making money while doing art is not as hard as it seems, it allows for greater freedom, and applying for grants can force one to model (and often corrupt) ones work around the grants you can get.

I saw this calendar by Nebraskans for Peace on eyeteeth and it struck me as a really simple yet sweet way to fundraise and get a message out.

PEW Study of Youth and SNS (Social Netwoking Sights)

2008-01-10T18:28:00.000-08:00

Pew put out another great report: Teens and Social Media. This report fleshes out what I noticed earlier - teens are much more protective of the content they post online than adults are. Yet, this report is sooo much more than that. Here are some of the new findings to whet your appetite:

Digital images - stills and videos - have a big role in teen life. Posting them often starts a virtual conversation. Most teens receive some feedback on the content they post online.
Email continues to lose its luster among teens as texting, instant messaging, and social networking sites facilitate more frequent contact with friends.
More older girls than boys create and contribute to websites.
Girls have fueled the growth of the teen blogosphere.
Teens from lower-income and single-parent households are more likely to blog.
Teens who are most active online, including bloggers, are also highly active offline.
Most teens restrict access to their posted photos - at least some of the time. Girls are more restrictive photo posters.
Content creators are not devoting their lives exclusively to virtual participation. They are just as likely as other teens to engage in most offline activities and more likely to have jobs.
African American teens are more likely to look for college information online.
Girls are more likely than boys to look up health, dieting, or fitness information on the Web.
The number of teens who report instant message use has dropped since 2004.
Visiting a chatroom has declined significantly in popularity since 2000.
Fewer teens are buying products online.
Wealthy teens are more likely to engage in multimedia Web activities.

This from apophenia a really interesting blog by Danah Boyd, who studies youth's interactions over the internet. She talks more about the study here.

Radio Waves Rock

2008-01-10T17:35:00.000-08:00

I really interesting post at Eyeteeth (probably my single favorite blog, after yours of course) about Radio Anak Kampung Bantar Gebang, located in Bantar Gebang the larges dump in Indonesia. The station provides the ragpickers who earn their living in the dump hope and a chance to communicate to the outside world.

I cherish the hope that this radio will one day send out information about all the problems with which the community of rag-pickers are struggling. At this moment the rag-pickers need protection. If any of them should meet an accident, let's say wounded by a sharp object while turning over some garbage, or hit by a garbage tractor, it would be nice if the radio could announce it, so that help would be coming. We rag-pickers often have problems; if one of us gets sick, no one would care. And if that illness gets worse, the patient surely dies. The radio should give information about people in trouble.

The post is also has a lot of information on other alternative media (mostly radio) that focuses on social justice.

(Picture Credit: www.oxfam.org.au)

I Am A Big Fan

2008-01-10T17:08:00.000-08:00

I just listened to another of Caroline Casey’s radio shows and as usual it blew my mind. I first came across Casey’s work when my brother sent me a tape of hers (rather “randomly”) and I have been hooked ever since. Casey blends many different knowledge systems, including astrology, myth (from many different cultures), linguistically analysis, and traditional news to talk about how to manifest a better world.

Much of her point is that there are intelligent forces that can, and must be tapped to create a just sustainable world. Astrology, myth, and linguistics are all methods for tapping these forces. These intelligences are there to help us manifest, that is imagine, create, and appreciate, the stories we wish to be true.

I don’t do justice to her work. I highly recommend you check out one (or more) of her radio shows.

(Picture Credit: www.coyotenetworknews.com)

The Supper Bowl Greens Up

2008-01-02T16:06:00.000-08:00

Kinda

Brilliant Design

2007-12-11T15:35:00.000-08:00

Some brilliant adds from the World Wildlife Fund.

Christmas Giving Your Great-Great-Grand Kids Will Appreciate

2007-12-03T10:52:00.000-08:00

I have decided to take Christmas a little bit more seriously this year than in years past. Meaning I’m going to go to the cheap DVD store the day before Christmas and buy all my family DVDs, it is just a little to tacky, even for me.

So, I have been trying to get on ball with my holiday gifts. It is also important to me to put in the effort of giving responsibly. So here are a few things I have come up with. Warning if you are in my family you may be about to read what you are getting for Christmas. Do you really want to ruin the surprise???

The first idea I had was homemade Kahlua or infused vodka. While looking for a recipe online I came across a nifty sight Wikihow and its recipe for homemade Kahlua. Warning I have not sampled the Kahlua, as it takes a couple of weeks to infuse properly.

Another idea I’ve written about before is Etsy, an EBay for homemade goods.

The last tip I have is to check out Inhabitat’s Green Gift Guide. Here are a few interesting gifts I saw. There are many more and are worth a look.

Stocking Stuffers

GIFT TREES
Great things come in small packages, and these vials of tree saplings from Arbor Day Foundation make the perfect gift that grows. Choose from Redwood, Pine, or Spruce, and give the gift of flora.

$3 from Gift Trees

PLANT-ME PETS
These quirky little creatures, made of decomposing natural latex rubber, sprout into melons, tomatoes, and pumpkins. So cute you may not want to plant them, Plant-Me Pets make great desktop companions and are the ideal gift for that impossible-to-buy-for individual on your list.

$20 from Branch Home

Gifts That Give Back

BOGO SOLAR FLASHLIGHT (Buy One Give One)
Give the gift of light this year with the BOGO light - a fabulous solar-powered flashlight that costs just $25 - AND with your purchase of the flashlight, one is donated to someone who needs it in a developing country. We’ve written about it before because we love the product and the idea. Give the gift of light!

$25 from Bogolight

ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD XO COMPUTER
Here’s a gift that truly gives back. The beautifully designed One Laptop Per Child computer is the greenest computer around - combing education and social development with ingenious energy efficient product design. Best part? When you buy one of these beautifully designed uber-green computers for a needy child in a developing country, you get one for a little one in your life as well.

Donate-One-Get-One offer lasts through Dec 31st

(Picture credit Inhabitat)

Another Way to Get Things Done

2007-11-26T10:25:00.000-08:00

The several hundred vigilante women of India's northern Uttar Pradesh state's Banda area proudly call themselves the "gulabi gang" (pink gang) striking fear in the hearts of wrongdoers and earning the grudging respect of officials.

(Picture credit BBC)

Green Jobs, Needed Jobs

2007-11-25T10:55:00.000-08:00

I came across an interesting article in the New York Times about Van Jones’ “Green for All” campaign, which is trying to go get 30,000 youth trained in environmentally sustainable industries through a $125 million appropriation by Congress.
Mr. Jones’ whole point is that environmental sustainability is a non-starter without inclusion of all sectors in society, including low-income and people of color. He also thinks that green jobs can be the solution to social inequality and environmental degradation.
"(A) big chunk of the African-American community is economically stranded." (Said Mr. Jones) "The blue-collar, stepping-stone, manufacturing jobs are leaving. And they’re not being replaced by anything. So you have this whole generation of young blacks who are basically in economic free fall.” Green-collar retrofitting jobs are a great way to catch them.
(Photo credit greenforall.org)

Success is Failure

2007-11-20T01:34:00.000-08:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about success lately. How should I define it for myself? What is material success in the context of a life of service? Is there security in this context, and if so, what? These are some of the questions I’ve been thinking about.

Recently I read a 1983 commencement address Ursula K Le Guin gave at Mills College, in which she says that success is a macho term in relation to someone else’s failures. That instead of success, she hopes that people begin to make their homes in the (feminine) spaces of failure.

I do not entirely get what she is proposing, however, here are my thoughts. It is not so much that “failure” is the goal, that it is something so wonderful. Instead, it is understanding that if some people are going to live in “success” others must live in
“failure” and that, given those options, that which will be called “failure” is closer to how we should seek to live our lives. Let us take an example to better understand this. A “successful” housewife use to be (and maybe still is) a woman who kept her house, family, and life in such a way that promoted her husbands (material) “success.” Conversely, a “successful” husband* used the work of his wife to promote his ability to gain material wealth. All this “success” takes place ONLY because other people fail, living in poverty and despair. We must orient our lives away from “success”; away from dependence on other’s suffering; away from the subjugation of some people to others.

Instead we must find comfort and fulfillment in the “…helplessness, weakness, and illness, (in) the irrational and the irreparable, (in) all that is obscure, passive, uncontrolled, animal, unclean - the valley of the shadow, the deep, the depths of life (Le Guin, 1983).” Le Guin is right in that we do not really even know what this looks like. We only have vague “pioneers' tales” about this space (one I might recommend is The Fifth Sacred Thing). However, I think one big part of the puzzle is learning a kind of communalism. Doing away with our desperate grasps on our individualism, what we Sufis would call our nefs.

For me, a large part of this is reorienting my life towards being of service and away from being the problem solver, the Important One With Answers. It means viewing my life, and the work I spend it on, as a part of a whole that is larger, smarter, and more capable than “I” (the great individual) will ever be. In other words, whether I become a mechanic or a community artist I am still one person performing one function of a community made up of many individuals performing many different functions. Whether I keep my communities cars running or keep its eyes open to the world, it is all part of what keeps the community healthy. Thus, it is not about being important, but about being connected to a community I can be of service to and from which I can draw upon.

I do not think this is exactly what Le Guin was going for, but I think it is a good start. What do you all think?

Le Guin Rocks

2007-11-18T21:43:00.001-08:00

This is what I wish Sarah Lawrence had the courage to be. What I wish we all had the courage, permission, support to be. In 1983, addressing graduates at Mills collage Ursula K Le Guin said:

Success is somebody else's failure. Success is the American Dream we can keep dreaming because most people in most places, including thirty million of ourselves, live wide awake in the terrible reality of poverty. No, I do not wish you success. I don't even want to talk about it. I want to talk about failure.

Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure. You are going to meet disappointment, injustice, betrayal, and irreparable loss. You will find you're weak where you thought yourself strong. You'll work for possessions and then find they possess you. You will find yourself - as I know you already have - in dark places, alone, and afraid.
What I hope for you, for all my sisters and daughters, brothers and sons, is that you will be able to live there, in the dark place. To live in the place that our rationalizing culture of success denies, calling it a place of exile, uninhabitable, foreign…

So what I hope for you is that you live there not as prisoners, ashamed of being women, consenting captives of a psychopathic social system, but as natives. That you will be at home there, keep house there, be your own mistress, with a room of your own. That you will do your work there, whatever you're good at, art or science or tech or running a company or sweeping under the beds, and when they tell you that it's second-class work because a woman is doing it, I hope you tell them to go to hell and while they're going to give you equal pay for equal time

Tute Rocks

2007-11-18T19:00:00.000-08:00

Desmond Tutu spoke out against the Anglican Church’s stance on gay priests. YAY.

Articles of Note

2007-11-13T11:40:00.000-08:00

A couple of articles I thought were interesting.

From Ants to People, an Instinct to Swarm. It fascinates me, as an avid believer in the power of the individual, how if you take enough of use you can boil us down to some pretty simple rules of behavior. It reminds of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series.

Investment Firm Names Gore as a Partner is another sign of our ascendance into a sustainable society. It is good news that investment firms are taking an interest in sustainable business.

A Green State Requires a Green Mind

2007-11-10T12:12:00.000-08:00

I Just read The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk, which describes a post-apocalyptic San Francisco (Ahh, home sweet home) where an eco-friendly pagan revolution has transformed the city into a bastion of sustainability and witchcraft at odds with the corporate/theocratic totalitarian government to the south (go Nor Cal.) One of the big tenets of the book is the interdependence and co-creation necessary to make an sustainable city work.

State-Based Sovereignty Towards Bright Green Governance, explores what it will take to move our conceptions of government into alignment with a sustainable world. The article proposes a model (See picture) of the historic and future arc of governmental thought (in Western society) from a group consciousness in response to nature to individualism, into the future, back towards a group consciousness in co-creation with the natural world.

The story I am trying to tell here is a cultural journey from society and family of origin (no choice), to isolated individual (no choice), to autonomous individual (chosen), to empowered community, to co-created society.

The article goes on to tell an alternative story of the Maori arriving in New Zealand, to find their new home had a power they could not rule.

… when the voyagers did arrive in sight of the shore they were greeted by a land fully cloaked in red. The Pohutukawa (or New Zealand Christmas tree) that covers the coastline of much of our northern island was in full bloom. In response to the overwhelming statement of sovereignty before them, the Rangatira took off their small red cloaks and cast them into the sea, ceding their authority and that of their people to this new land.  

The American Declaration of Independence is sighted as an example of a document that “…didn"t immediately result in votes or rights for "all men" [or women] (but) it did open a space to have a conversation about those rights. The idea that "we the people" have both the opportunity, and the responsibility, to self govern.” The idea that at the very least a space is needed within our conceptions of governance to allow for conversations is important.

However, the article fails to deal with how contradictory the idea of a union with nature is in Western society. Western capitalist society has been built on notions of the individual conquering nature and acting within society for his/her best interest. Although this is best displayed in American cultural ideas like Manifest Destiny, it can be seen throughout the Western world (think colonialism).

The shift in the model from group or individual at odds with nature and his/her society maybe necessary, but is going to be extremely hard. It is not only going to take the redefining of success away from individualistic accumulations of wealth, but will also require convincing people that the security that comes with wealth is better achieved through collaborative co-creation. It means addressing some of the most primal fears inherent in Western culture. That the forest (nature) is not full of big scary wolves that will eat our children if we do not cut down all the trees and kill all the animals, and that defending the children from real dangers is not best achieved through the individual actions of the father or mother, but through the collaboration of the entire community. This might be a necessary transformation, but it will not be an easy one.

Finally, it is important to point out that this cultural shift is what western cultures must go through. Throughout the world (and in reality, throughout Western society) different cultures will have to make the shift to a collaborative co-creative society in their own ways, dealing with their own cultural and historic baggage. Then these cultures undergoing massive transformations (never an easy thing) will have to find a way to fit together in some way in order to (at the very least) maintain our global ecosystem.

Public Transportation, a Whole New World

2007-11-09T15:53:00.000-08:00

As a first time big city liver, I am just beginning to be able to seriously imagine my life without the need of a personally owned car. Want Better Transit? Unionize! Is an interesting article about the benefits to be had through Bus Riders Union’s.

The Straphangers Campaign is perhaps the best model for the kind of resources transit riders unions can provide. But with advances in mobile technology, it's easy to envision a role for riders unions that goes much farther than online resource clearinghouses and communities. Imagine if it were possible to text complaints to a central online forum that automatically forwarded them to your transportation agency; let other riders know through a mobile network when there were problems on certain transit lines; upload a photo of someone who's harassing you on the bus automatically to a dedicated Flickr page, à la Hollaback (a place where women can post photos of their street harassers); or, contribute to interactive, user-generated maps of problem spots in the system that could help make the case for improvements.

It continues to amaze me how mobile technology is changing the way problems are conceived and dealt with.

Class and the Great Equalizer

2007-10-20T15:32:00.000-07:00

I was looking over my friend Laura’s blog the other day when I came across a really interest blog post from Apophenia. Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace is a very interesting (informal) look at the ways American class divisions are being reflected onto the internet, and social networking to be specific.

“Girl Pleasure Isn’t Wrong”

2007-10-19T17:10:00.000-07:00

Thus states the banner article today on Sexetc.org, a really cool sex-education website for teens by teens. If you got any questions you should check it out.

One More Reason Culture Matters

2007-10-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

This is a great interview with Michael Shellenberger, co-author of “The Death of Environmentalism.” In it he talks about his critique of the environmental movement’s constant doom-and-gloom narrative.

MS: A lot of the stories that you hear about ecological crisis are really tragic narrative, so they often start by suggesting that humans at one point lived in harmony with nature and that humankind violated nature either through pollution or through science or through the Industrial Revolution, and that we’re now being punished for that by nature with ecological collapse. That’s a very old narrative: it’s the story of humankind’s fall from Eden in Genesis, and it probably goes back farther than that. In the book we point out that, really, humans have always been in a much more complicated relationship with their surroundings. Obviously we ourselves are part of nature. We evolved from the earth, and we never fell from it.

We believe there’s a more powerful story that should be told. It’s a story of a constant overcoming of adversity. If you look back, humans today are living longer, healthier lives. We have better medicine. We’ve overcome an enormous number of challenges: mass starvation and all sorts of ancient diseases. The history of humankind is not a story of our falling; if anything, it’s the story of our having risen. That’s a very powerful story to tell because it allows us to feel powerful and strong when thinking about new challenges such as global warming. (from eyeteeth)

Got the Buying on my Mind

2007-10-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

After seeing What Would Jesus Buy I have been thinking a lot about what I buy, where and how it was made, and whether or not I need (or even want, as in it will make my life more fulfilling or fun) it.

The other day, after reading the “Consuming Responsible” section of Worldchanging; a User’s Guide for the 21^st Century (the book by my pals/bro at Worldchanging.com), I headed over to Bed, Bath and Beyond (sounds like Buzz Lightyear meats Martha Stuiter) to buy linen for my new bed. Low and behold I find Bamboo sheets, which according to “Consuming Responsible,” is “[0]ne of the most renewable resources for fiber…” It was a pleasant surprise to find that the store I choose for convince also gave me an environmentally healthy choice.

This morning I was perusing the May 2007 version of Paper Magazine and I cam across Etsy Does It, profiling Etsy.com, basically an Ebay for handmade goods. Not only is this a great resource for people who are trying to buy local, sweat shop free items, but there are some really creative interactive features to this website. If you are a web designer I strongly recommend you take a stroll through this site. One of my favorite is picks are Colors (it is just beautiful) and Geolocator (which could allow you to be geographically conscious of your purchases on the site.)

What Would Jesus Buy?

2007-10-01T14:24:00.000-07:00

I am back from my much needed summer away from stress and I have a must see to put on your calendar.

What Would Jesus Buy was produced by Morgan Spurlock (think Super Size Me) and directed by Rob VanAlkemade, features Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Quire. This is far and away one of the most enjoyable, well made, and thought provoking documentaries I have seen in a long time.

The major point of both the movie and the church is that the consumption habits of the United States is ruining out world and our culture. We often forget that the way we consume things creates a certain kind of culture. I just spent a month in Spain and one of the interesting things I learned about was a store called El Corte Ingles. This is a department store much like Sears. According to a friend of mine, when it first open in the 1940s many Spaniards were wary because they were afraid it would destroy their old shopping habits of going to different stores for specific items. Wal-Mart and its destruction of small shops in America is a great example of how consumption changes culture.

For those who live in the Bay Area you should check out the Food and Farming Film Festival in Berkeley.

337 Project

2007-05-31T10:37:00.000-07:00

1 building, 42 rooms, 94 artists, 3 months mix well and see what happens: The 337 project (vid). It’s pretty sweet. Adam and Dessi Price opened up their to-be-destroyed building to artists of all shapes and sizes to create a temporary art exhibit. The video is very cool. This project was inspired by the 11 Spring Project and reminds me of The Graffiti Project at Kelburn Castle.

Cool stuff

2007-04-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

Some really cool murals artists David Choe did for the Facebook building.

Benefit and Message: When Great Things Unite

2007-04-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

Michael Rakowitz's paraSITE project is a really awesome blend of material benefit with social message. The basic idea is of a plastic inflatable shelter for homeless people which provides a warm place to spend the night when hooked up to an outside heating vent. Worldchanging has a good post of the project.

Blogging Hoffman Style

2007-04-21T13:51:00.000-07:00

Mike Tronnes, co-founded the website Cursor.org, was a blogger before most people knew what that was. Like Abbie Hoffman, he used live news broadcasts to criticize the emptiness of TV news, while at the same time advertising for his website.

There is a interesting (short) interview of him at Eyeteeth. Talking about liberal funding he said,

Since most left-of-center foundations don't give grants for general operating support, unlike their counterparts on the right, our proposals have centered on specific projects relating to Media Transparency.

This has reminded of Van Jones speech in which he talked about the need to reorganize how we fund liberal organizing in order to encourage honest critical dialogue about the organizations we are a part of.

Worth the Thought

2007-04-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

A Thought for Manifestoists.

2007-04-21T13:34:00.000-07:00

I came across this article, A Manifesto for ustainability in Design, at Worldchanging the other day. The first thing that grab my attention was what the author, Allan Chochinov from Core77, said about manifestos.

I don't like the word manifesto. It reeks of dogma and rules—two things I instinctively reject. I do love the way it puts things on the line, but I don't like lines, or groups. So a manifesto probably isn't for me. The other thing about manifestos is that they appear (or are written so as to appear) self-evident. This kind of a priori writing is easy, since you simply lay out what seems obviously—even tautologically—true.

Of course, this is the danger of manifestos, but also what makes them fun to read. And fun to write. So I'll write this manifesto. I just might not sign it.

It makes me think about my own manifesto writing, which was definitely a lot of fun to write. However, it makes sense to say that manifestos draw lines, which are problematic, and that we should consider carefully which, if any, lines we want to draw.

Want to See a Compelling Image

2007-04-05T19:48:00.000-07:00

You all should check out the World Press Photo Awards for 2006. There are some pretty incredible images. This photo is a great example. The dynamics and contrast (numbers, costume, color,) are really quit amazing. It’s also interesting to how “truthful” images can be so clearly politicized. Anyway check ‘em out.

To See the Change We Are

2007-03-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

I just read an interesting interview by Ed Burtynsky an international photographer. Burtynsky is known for photographing landscapes that have been changed by industry. There is a really interesting short video of his work here.

The Final Rotation

2007-03-07T19:43:00.000-08:00

Here is a really interesting piece of art I found on Eyeteeth. Artist Matthew Moore created Rotation a replica of a development that was being built on property his parents had just sold. The project was made out of black-bearded wheat for roads and sorghum as houses.

What’s interesting is what the artist has said that this is not protest art.

“If I’m against development, then I’m a hypocrite,” he says. “As farmers we created the model for this type of growth. We came here, ripped apart the native desert landscape, and continually tried to increase our yield per acreage. It’s essentially the business model for any suburban development (from Eyeteeth.)”

This raises an interesting conception about the role of the artist (which is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.) Moore would seem to be suggesting that all he is not commenting on the development but merely reflecting it. If we posit that the artist is a mirror of zir (gender neutral his/her) society, is it better simply show the world artist sees or should the artist also direct the way the “audience” should feel about a piece? What do you think my glorious readers?

My Links of Choice; and Why

2007-03-05T18:32:00.000-08:00

So I look at all these weblogs and they all have links, but I always want a more specific understanding of what those links are about. So here are my reviews of my links. Enjoy!

Worldchanging: As many of my faithful readers have probably noticed this I love this site. This sight is dedicated to the notion that “a better world is here,” that the time for waiting for things to change is past and that we, as concerned and well intentioned people, have to start saving our world today. And the good news is that it is possible, today. The format is almost exclusively tools, ideas, models, and people which are moving us in the right direction. It strikes a nice balance between positive tools and alternate social models. The site is organized into seven categories; Stuff, Shelter, Cities, Communities, Business, Politics, Planet. Definitely worth a regular read. What I’ve used from Worldchanging: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

Eyeteeth: This is Paul Schmelzer’s blog. He is always posting something interesting about the convergence of art and society. I also appreciate his ability to intertwine socially relevant art posts with other with purely political pieces. His posts short and to the point, which I greatly appreciate, if I want to know more I can follow-up with the links on my own. What I’ve poster from Eyeteeth: 1, 2, 3, 4.

We-Make-Money-Not-Art: This site is dedicated to exploring “the intersection between art, design and technology.” There is often really interesting posts about the ways artists are using new technology and reconceptualizing old tools to create really imaginative art that makes important statements about our world. I find many of posts really hard to get through. They throw a lot at you without much filtering, but if you can get through them you can find some real gems. What I’ve used from We-Make-Money-Not-Art: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Inhabitat: This is a great site for useful information of environmental sustainability. “Inhabitat.com is a weblog devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future.” This site because it does not deal with art, however, as artists we need to push sustainability not fallow behind and Inhabitat has clear, practical, and efficient posts on a wide range of environmental design and technology issues. They are also great about posting simple articles for people without science or engineering degrees. What I’ve used form Inhabitat: 1, 2.

Coco Fuesco: Coco Fuesco is the shit. She has done really interesting performing for nearly twenty years. You have probably heard of her performance tour Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West with Guillermo Gomez-Peña (who is also pretty cool.) In 1997, during the South African Biennale Celebration Fuesco performed RIGHTS OF PASSAGE, which was a cool performance interrogating the past and present iconography of racial oppression in South Africa. If you want to read something by her you should checkout The Bodies That Were Not Ours (2001)

Community Arts Network: This is a great site with tons of information about cultural organizing and art based community development. I used many essays from this site in my final paper last semester.

feels like i’ve been driving north...: This is my home girls weblog. We have similar areas of interest in terms of helping people take control and recreate our culture and use these skills to strengthen their communities. She tends to approach these issues from a more social documentation media literacy point of view.

The Next Art Discipline

2007-03-05T17:53:00.000-08:00

If you haven't heard of bio-art, you should check it out. Here is a pretty good article from the Mcdowell News. I was wondering the other day what would be the next artistic discipline. Well, bio-art is going to be one of them.

...Of Interest II

2007-03-03T14:22:00.000-08:00

Couple of things worth checking out.

Michel Blazy's Post Patman is a really interesting look exhibit at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. We-make-money-not-art has a really interesting post on it. The exhibit is a series of sculptures made of organic matter. Through the process of decomposition the sculptures are always changing.

Transitions - Biographies between GDR and Federal Republic of Germany is a really cool photo exhibit at the German Historical Museum. “Just after the fall of the Wall photographers Angelika Kampfer and Ewald Hentze set off to photograph the people in a state they knew would soon no longer exist. They returned to photograph the same people in 1992 then in 2004 and 2005. Nothing remains of the pathos of work that could still be felt in 1989. The spaces captured in 1989 to a large extent recall the early 20th century. The factories, craft centres and schools have all since been modernised. The brief span of sixteen years saw the emergence of the tidy world of employees and sanitary workplaces, the fully rationalised world one has to get along in - some much better than before, others not as well.” (Quoted from Transitions at We-make-money-not-art.)

Human Powered Technology: Be the Power You Want to Use in the World

2007-03-03T14:09:00.000-08:00

In a world where sustainable energy creation is one of the largest problems facing the world, The Human Power Objects Workshop looks like a really important re-focusing of our conception of what is and what is not a source of energy. The workshop was headed by Myriel Milicevic and there is an interesting (efficient, i.e. short) interview with her at We-make-money-not-art. Milicevic wrote in the introduction to the online report that "While technology so far has been developed towards a state of minimum human effort, this workshop now explores the potential of using the human body itself as a renewable power source." There seems to be convergence from many different angles that humans should be actively engaging with technology. From one angle, lots of people are talking about how games like Dance Dance Revolution can be used as a weight loss option, especially for kids. There is also the fact that many places in the world are not connected to a power grid. For the millions who cannot afford generators, human powered technology is a possible solution. MIT D-Lab or Design that Matters - Kinkajou Power Challenge are two examples of great work being done in this area. Finally, human generated electricity is a sustainable alternative, especially if it is connected with normal day activity. For example, charge your Ipod while walking to class or using natural human traffic patterns (like walking through a turnstile at a train station) to create power. The whole interview is really worth a read.

Picturing the Numbers, Picturing the Problems

2007-02-27T15:31:00.000-08:00

You all should check out Chris Jordan’s “Running the Numbers”. It is a really interesting photographic representation of some pretty staggering statistics. For example, the picture shown “Depicts 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags, the number used in the US every hour.” I really like this image because it references the one of the major problems with using so many paper bags, that we have to cut down so many trees. Some of his other images are just interesting looking piles.

Popularizing the Sacred: From the Maori to the Sufis

2007-01-30T16:49:00.000-08:00

The pros and cons of the popularization of sacred symbols is a question I have been wondering about for recently. There are two interesting posts about this subject over at Eyeteeth. Urban Wandjina: Aboriginal Street-Art and The Face of Maori Resistance.

It seems common sense to me that cultures that don’t change disappear. There are many adages from my Western culture about this vary fact, “Trees that don’t bend break” est. I suppose the first question must be is this true? Is a culture more lasting if it is flexible or if it is more absolute? And does long lasting equal better? Or is there more value in a culture that does not change, even if it does not last?

What I wonder are the benefits, drawbacks, and responsibilities in popularizing an ancient and sacred culture. Last semester this came up for me in a directing theory class. I was interested in looking at ritual within theater and so drew upon my personal experience with ritual, which is Sufi Islamic (my order) ritual. So I decided to perform a scene from the play we were working on Insurrection: Holding History by Robert O’Hara, in a dhikr. I was worried that people would not understand the ritual because they did not have the cultural background (my class being almost entirely Western non-Muslim students.) However, what was surprising to me was how successful the piece was. What I discovered was that, although I’m sure the subtleties of dhikr were lost, much of (at least Sufi) ritual is universal. People not only understood that a ritual was being performed (an interesting question between performing and doing), they also saw and felt the ritualistic state that was being created. They also, most importantly, felt that the ritual had added to the quality and power of the performance.

However, this raises many of the questions above. For example, clearly this was not a sacred space (at least in the Islamic sense) and none of my actors had done their ablutions, a necessary part of a proper dhikr, so was this sacrilegious? Also, what is my legitimacy in using this culture “improperly”? On one hand I am Muslim and was raised so. However, I was not raised in a Muslim country with all the cultural knowledge that would endow. As someone who is questioning his faith and thus not practicing Islam does that change the legitimacy of my actions? Finally, and most importantly, what are the benefits and what are the consequences to treating religious culture in a none sacred way?

“So All May Eat,” What a Good Idea

2007-01-20T11:59:00.000-08:00

A good friend of mine and I have this running fantasy of opening a bookstore / cafe / CD store. Well here is a very different way of looking at the restaurant business. SAME Cafe is a restaurant in Denver, where meals is distributed not based on one’s ability to pay but on one’s need of food. The restaurant is funded through donations of patrons. There is also the opportunity for those who want to support the business but don’t have money to work for meal vouchers. Think this can’t work as viable business, check out One World Cafe, which has been going strong for three years now in Salt Lake City. What’s really cool about this is that it is a food distribution model that brings together those who can afford food and those who would normally have to go to a soap kitchen or food bank. For a more thorough article, checkout Worldchanging’s “Eat What You Want, Pay What You Can.”

The Individual?

2007-01-20T11:42:00.000-08:00

This was posted as a manifesto by Banksy, a British artist. I am not quite sure what to make of it, but I thought it was very thought provoking. It raises the question what is the role of seeing and honoring individual victims in the face of global problems. To me it relates to the whole notions of micro-lending that massive challenges like poverty can and should be tackled through the individual. I have edited it down, but would highly recommend the full version.

An extract from the diary of Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin DSO who was among the first British soldiers to liberate Bergen-Belsen in 1945.

Camp

I can give no adequate description of the Horror Camp in which my men and myself were to spend the next month of our lives. It was just a barren wilderness, as bare as a chicken run. Corpses lay everywhere, some in huge piles, sometimes they lay singly or in pairs where they had fallen. It took a little time to get used to seeing men women and children collapse as you walked by them and to restrain oneself from going to their assistance. One had to get used early to the idea that the individual just did not count. One knew that five hundred a day were dying and that five hundred a day were going on dying for weeks before anything we could do would have the slightest effect.

...

It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don't know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tatooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.

Source: Imperial War museum

Ashes to Art

2006-11-17T15:12:00.000-08:00

You all should really checkout Brazilian artist Alexandre Orion. It is a pretty ingenious idea of creating graffiti art by strategically cleaning car exhaust of the wall of an under pass. Learn a little more at Eyeteeth, which is worth a look itself.

Van Jones: a New Way to Organize the Future

2006-11-05T12:02:00.000-08:00

I just heard a speech by Van Jones on the Rabble Podcast Network, on the problems with current models for non-profit organizing. Van Jones “is the founder and National Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. ...Ella Baker Center is a national organization that challenges human rights abuses in the U.S. criminal justice system.”
In the speech Jones talked about the way the current non-profit funding structure forces organizations to lie. In order to get funded organizations have to make the preposterous claim that they have the solution to X problem and that they are the best candidates to implement that solution. He pointed out that to look at non-profit news letters we must be living in a socialist utopia bouncing from one success to another. The problem with this is that organizations do not know what each other are doing. There is not an honest conversation about what people are trying. Instead, Jones talks about a shift in how we talk to funders. Instead of claiming to have the solution, we should instead be talking about having a good idea, which is not guaranteed to work, but has a good chance. Then when doing our evaluations, providing an honest assessment about what worked and what did not.
Jones also challenged the current mythology surrounding non-profit work. The David VS Goliath story we are currently telling is problematic. Although it there are times when the courage the narrative inspires, it demands that there is something we are fighting against. This forces our movements to be issue based movements that are fighting problems, not providing solutions. Instead, Jones offered tale of Mr. and Mrs. Noah and their arc. That tale provides two fundamental themes. The first is that it is a legend about solving a problem. The second is the necessity of dealing with what Jones called “the unimaginable diversity.” “Will the green wave,” asked Jones, “raise all boats, or will there be eco-apartheid.” Will the environmental wave focus only on putting solar panels in the Hampton’s, or will sustainability be brought to South Bronx (it is).

Alternative Currencies: Local Economies and Local Communities

2006-11-01T18:34:00.000-08:00

It is undeniable that our current economic systems puts severe strains on our communities isolating people with busy schedules and no apparent motivation get to know there neighbors. Complementary monetary systems are being developed around the world in order to combat these alienating tendencies of our current capitalist model.
Alana Herro, of Eye on Earth (e²), has posted “Complementary” Currency Helps Local Communities at Worldchanging.com. The article is a good over view of some of the interesting things happening in alternative economics on the local community level.

Manifesto: Playing with Magic for You and Us

2006-10-31T18:13:00.000-08:00

Me and some friends are planning on doing a traveling Circus over Spring Break in order to explore public performance, carnival, and the "United States." Were hope to gain some insite about this land that we live and work in, and what it means to travel this vast country making political and social commentary.

Below is the first draft of our manifesto. Check it out and let me know what you think. If there is someone or something we should check out drop me a line.

Manifesto: The Public Circus

Play

We play because we must. As artists living in a time of great fear, uncertainty, and despair we seek the space of Teminos, the space of hope. Teminos is a place where everything is believable. It is the space of “yes and...” where our dreams and creative impulses are accepted and built upon. It is steeped in the understanding that “no” is anti-creative. That is to say, there is a difference between creativity (yes) and editing (no.) In Teminos it is possible to image a world of equality, of peace, of sustainability, and of hope. We wish to be mirrors not only of how the world is, but of how the world might be. In order to build a better future we must be able to envision it.

We are three friends, comrades, and collaborators who believe there is something of deep value in the theater. There is a need in this society to see our world in all is divine multiplicities laid bare to us. This is the key stone on which the theater is built and the purpose for which we have trained. To show ridicule to those who claim to rule such a ridiculous world. For nothing undermines authority like a boisterous mocking laugh. In a society which has been turned upside down, we choose to stand on our heads to see what is possible. We honor the lessons of those that came before us. Since the beginning of time tricksters have embraced life's contradictions, creating coherence through confusion and irony. Fools have ever been both fearsome and innocent, wise and stupid, entertainers and dissenters, healers and destroyers, scapegoats and subversives. Buffoons always say yes, always hope and always feel things deeply. Dancers tie their communities together with there infectious beats. Singers use cords of steal and velvet to remember and assert their people’s freedom. Actors live the lives that could have been, that are, and that are still possible. Rock stars employ tools of our children to teach the wisdom of our parents. Clowns can survive everything and get away with anything. We are clowns and tricksters, dancers and singers, actors and rock stars, fools and buffoons.

Magic

We are rebellious magicians seeking to dismantle the machine of abstraction with means that are indistinguishable from ends. Working in the spaces people live, we use all the tools of magic, illusion, and juju in order to reveal what is. As the mythic activist Caroline Casey says, “We no longer have the luxury of realism.” With uproarious laughter, a wink, and a wave of our beings we transform everything - the way we live, create, love, eat, laugh, play, learn, trade, listen, think and most of all the way we rebel. Ours is an insurrection of the imagination propelled by brilliant improvisation, not perfect blueprints. We create our dreams with solidarity, discipline and commitment. We give so that we may receive. Hospitality is our way of life. We search for the divine incarnation so that we can make manifest the infinite incandescence that has cast our brilliant image. We work to show people when they are lonely or darkness the astonishing light of their own beings. “Each generation,” writes Franz Fanon, “must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.” To this aim we call upon all the spirits, lessons, dreams, and gods of our people, whoever they may be, so that we may usher our world into a time of joy, peace, and equality... or live and die trying.

You

Like the sheiks and dervishes before us, we whirl between the roles of teacher and student, seeking a place of understanding. We hold with the old African adage, “If you can walk you can dance, if you can talk you can sing.” We believe in populace theater, where you are welcome to the circle to tell of your lives, experiences, and values. We have been trained as artists so that we may help you artistically engage with our world, not so that we can hold ourselves above you. When you join us in singing, dancing, and playing we join you in joining, in creating together with our divergent experiences, beliefs, and visions for the future.

Clowning and the Search for the Transformative Laugh

I suggest that the basic form of our “Show” be based on Clown Theater. This will give us the greatest level of Flexibility and Coherency at the same time. I suggest that we spend some time developing a simple clown trio, based on status interactions which can stand on it’s own and that we have set “numbers” with that trio. In addition, the clowns should have the ability to play with different modes or groups of people, i.e. that we could all become a Military Outfit, a Trio of Salesmen, Migrant Workers, Refugees, Explorers, Gypsies, A Rock Band, A News Team, Whatever. This will give us a great deal of range. In addition, this structure allows for pieces of Many Different Styles based on our different passions, not dependent on, but framed by the Clown structure. The Clowns could simultaneously provide a “safety net” and a context. I would personally encourage us to seek ways into counterpoint and the Grotesque. What is counterpoint to the Clown Structure? What is counterpoint within the clown structure?

Clowning is by nature counterhegimonic, as is Festival. The two are very close friends, they have spawned each other. They both disrupt the pedestrian expectation, show the loopholes and inconsistencies in society, and suggest a richer, more vibrant way of life. If we work from, and draw from both of these traditions, shaping them to our environment, to our instruments, and to our friends for whom we perform, we are bound to at least have a really good time. What is the hegemony which we are subverting? Do we pick now, or decide in the moment?

The Show should be only a part of our performative experience. Let us see what spaces are performable, let us be generous and perform in the spirit of Festival and the Positivly Metamorphic Nature of the Universe. And above all, let us allow ourselves to fail if we can learn from it. “I make a flop.” Let us create “bits” and try them in different contexts and see what we can learn.

Let us explore the relationship between spectator and performer. Let us take for our premise Augusto Boal’s statement that “The spectator is less than a man and it is necessary to humanize him, to restore to him his capacity of action in all its fullness. He too must be a subject, an actor on an equal plane with those generally accepted as actors, who must also be spectators.” (Boal: Theater of the Opressed. 155) Let us from this seek to re-humanize our spectators.

The Public Circus Revealed

The Public Circus is a small collective made up of two clowns and one academic. Our purpose is to bring laughter, social support, and physical help to those whose need is greatest.

We will to go to the profoundly underserved city of New Orleans for 10 days this Spring Break (2007) to help recovering communities there on three relating levels. We believe that artistic endeavors are more successful when they are supported by practical and tangible offerings. For this reason, our trip has three major components:

1. Performance

We are in the midst of creating a compact two-man performance, based on clowning, circus acrobatics, music, Theater of the Oppressed, and performance theory. We will give this performance to the groups whom we meet and work with. Our purpose is to bring hope to and lighten the hearts of what is still a community in great need. We intend to perform for both children and adults, in schools, hospitals, community centers, on the streets and in parks.

One of the greatest damages done by the Katrina disaster, in all of it’s natural and human manifestations, has been the psychological damage of a group of people who have been ignored by their government on many levels for a long time now. We are aware of a long history of using the arts, and specifically performance to create community, mirth, and simply a safe place to feel, in post disaster situations. We are in communication with Clowns Without Borders, an international group which has done similar work all around the world, in a dialog about this type of work. The benefits of laughter are powerful. We feel that this is one of the greatest things we can offer.

2. Workshops

As the proverb goes, “Give a kid a clown and you’ll make him laugh for a day, show a kid how to wear a red rubber nose, and you’ll make him laugh for the rest of his life.” We will be giving workshops in clowning and circus performance, both in after school programs for children and for a more general audience. We hope to empower individuals with a new tool for coping with the disaster and to aid in the formation of stable social groups which we hope will remain behind and offer support and safety after we are gone.

We have a secondary hope that the connections we are making right now with communities in New Orleans may remain and be strengthened by current and future Sarah Lawrence students. It is our hope that this trip will strengthen a continuing relationship between Sarah Lawrence and the City of New Orleans.

3. Physical Labor

We are currently in communication with some of the groups who are helping in the rebuilding effort which has been taking place in New Orleans for the past year and a half. There is still much work to be done; many houses are structurally sound but need to be completely stripped and renovated before they are livable once more. We will be working closely with one of these organizations while in New Orleans.

In these three distinct ways, we will engage with the great social need left in the wake of the Katrina Disaster.

This is a chance to make face to face contacts with other socially engaged artists who have chosen to engage with the same needs that we have. These contacts could form a mutually enriching web between artists/social organizers in our two communities.

About The Public Circus:

Eli Steffen and Omen Sade have been working together now for three and a half years. We both came to Sarah Lawrence to study politics and social action, and were both surprised when life led us more and more into theater. At some point, we each made the decision to pursue social change through the arts, and specifically through theater.

Both our theoretical ideas and our practical understandings of The Public Circus have been developed though collaboration. Many of our ideas are problems that we have been addressing for many years now, both together and independently. For example, how does one create politically affective performance? This final project in our shared senior year is really the culmination of three and a half years of research, experimentation, and a fair number of genuine discoveries amongst the general fumbling around. We play from our strengths, and the project has at every point been strengthened by our different approaches based in our different areas of expertise.

This project has come together formally under our academic work with Dean Hubbard. This project is making up our conference work for the classes we are taking with Dean. In that way the project is based in an academic and theoretical foundation as we experiment with the effective use of practical application under the advisement of SLC faculty. We also are tackling this project with the support of our Dons: Joseph Forte, and Joshua Muldavin.

Our theoretical work is supported by the work of theater practitioners Augusto Boal, Dario Fo, Keith Johnstone, Clowns Without Boarders, CIRCA, Moshe Cohan, and Bertolt Brecht, as well as academics such as Mikhail Bahktin, Peggy Orenstein, and Franz Fanon.

We are supported by the academic and organizational efforts of Andrea Marpillero-Colomina, another senior, who has studied urban development, and specifically the social and political nuances of the Katrina Disaster. Andrea is helping us research the complexities of the situation in New Orleans so that our work can be as specific, and efficient as possible. Her background in social science and her experience working with community organizations both in New York and internationally have given her the skills needed to help us form effective relationships with organizations and people in New Orleans. She is working establish and solidify relationships with non-profits in New Orleans, not only for the performances/ workshops the Public Circus wants to facilitate in March, but in the interest of sustaining a working relationship between organizations/ academic institutions in New Orleans and Sarah Lawrence.

E. Steffen

O. Sade

A. Marpillero-Colomina

Circa 2007

2006-10-30T08:15:00.000-08:00

The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA) is a positively metamorphic carnival operation out of the UK. They are well worth the look. Especially look at their manifesto and their videos, they are hilarious and inspiring, what a combination.

Microcredit Wins the Nobel Prize

2006-10-13T08:39:00.000-07:00

I saw today in the New York Times Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi economist and founder of the microcredit movement won the Nobel Prize. Grameen Bank, with Yunus founded in 1983 claims to have distributed $5.72 billion in microcredit to more than 6 million Bangladeshis.

Redesigning Social Services and Green Tiling

2006-10-13T08:25:00.000-07:00

A couple of interesting posts. First off one from Worldchanging.org, Red, Active Mobs and Redesigning Public Services. It is a great article about RED, which is a part of the Design Council, the UK’s official design agency. RED has been giving the job to use new design principles revamp social services. Instead of simply making social services more efficient, RED is trying to considered how the can be redesigned to be more effective.
The second is Elegant Embellishments new urban tile that can reduce car pollution. Both Worldchanging.org (Urban Grids / Respiratory Oases) and We-make-money-not-art.com have articles on it (Elegant Embellishments).

...Of Interest.

2006-09-17T19:38:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of things to look at for today.

Breathing Earth is a really cool visual simulation of carbon emissions around the world, which is compared to births and deaths. The simulation is done by country.

Worldchanging has a really interesting article on the power of regional cities to deal with urbanization (and its problems) which “...have overrun tradition notions of urban space.” It is call “Can Los Angeles Become the US’ First Regional City?”

Lastly, for those of you who live in the New York area Coco Fusco is performing this weekend at PS. 122. Her piece is entitled “A Room of One’s Own: Women and Power in the New America.” It explores the new role of women as interrogators in the global war on terror due to their exclusion from combat zones (prisons are not consider combat zones.)

Some Interesting Stuff

2006-09-12T17:39:00.000-07:00

The Orwellian Projects is an interesting post at we-make-money-not-art about several art pieces dealing with surveillance and the loss of privacy. Worth a look!

Neighborhood Survivability over at Worldchanging raises a very relevant question these days: how do/can our neighborhoods help keep us alive and (relatively) comfortable during disasters?

Wir Hier: Ideas Before Objects

2006-09-12T17:25:00.000-07:00

Branding is one of those simple, “evil” ideas that is being redefined in a really positive, sustainable way. Wir Hier (German only) is a German based community service design task-force doing interesting work re-defining society by redesigning how people interact.

Wir Hier began as a project at The Köln International School of Design for a competition hosted by London’s Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, which asked students to "design a service that helps us engage, re-configure, manage and live with" a contradictory situation of modern living.

To get the basics of the project check out Wir Hier’s magazine, Contradistinctions (PDF) or you can go to Worldchanging.com’s Wir Hier: The Intelligent Service System (This article is a little confusing).

There is a compel of interesting things about this project.

(T)hey felt that it was worthwhile not only to attempt to help people stop taking things for granted, but more importantly, prove to them what was possible when you use what already exists in a better manner.

Their work was focused on human resources being taken for granted, more than the objects not being used. They realized that objects were under used because of the way people think about their world.

(F)irst working on the idea of ‘Changing States of Mind’. They decided that it was important to learn how people can change the way they interact with their surroundings, and what phases they might go through when doing this.

But change, according to Wir Hier, is not sustainable within the individual:

Create Community: Once a change has begun to take place it is important that it no longer applies only to the individual. It has to take hold in a group of people for it to last.

Within a world that faces huge environmental and social problems, Wir Hier would suggest that community is necessary in order to sustainable enact the necessary changes to create a better world.

Art and Activism: Check it Out

2006-08-31T17:58:00.000-07:00

For all those who are in Stockholm between now and October 8 the Art and Activism exhibition at Mejan Labs looks pretty interesting. We-Make-Money-Not-Art lays out the exhibition pretty well in Art & Activism Exhibition in Sweden so I won’t.

However, I did want to point out one of the particularly cool pieces. Kate Rich has struck on a really interesting idea:

Feral Trade is developing protocols for trading goods over social networks... The passage of goods can open up wormholes between diverse social setting, routes along which other information, techniques or individuals can potentially travel... Feral Trade makes a direct intervention into the business of grocery running, using the surplus freight capacity of commuter, vacation, migration, cultural and other social movements for the underground distribution of goods.

Using social networks to challenge corporate distribution models is an interesting idea. I am curious how this might look on a local level. For example, could it be possible that when people take local vacations to the country they would bring back a car full of locally grown produce and using their social network to distribute the food.

Reflections on Hello

2006-08-31T13:01:00.000-07:00

Well I’m finally settled in here at school, so I will be posting more regularly.

One of the very interesting things about coming back to school (especially here were ¾ of the junior class go abroad) is everyone is asking about what people did last year. This forces one to reflect and define their year into a quick sound bight capable of being communicated in a five minute conversation. Although this is a flawed form of social reflection on individual experiences, it does show that communities play an important role personal reflection. How I wonder can culture direct this natural tendency of community for inspiring individual contemplation towards a more significant reflection?

Eureka

2006-08-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

I came to an epiphany the other day. I have been planning on applying for the Watson Fellowship (a really amazing travel grant) and have been struggling to coherently describe what it is I am interested, and now I have it (or at least a beginning):

I am interested in how people create, maintain, and strength understandings of common interest within a group of people (i.e. a community) and how this awareness of communal relevance is/can be used solve problems.

Jon Lebkowsky has written a really interesting article for Worldchaning.com called Complexity, Megacommunity, and Adaptation about different models for community organizing. The ideas he talks about have been around for awhile (multi-institution problem solving and non-hierarchical complex organizing) but what is interesting is explanation about why these are better models for solving the problems we are facing today.

Vision Vessel: Portland’s Mirror to the Future

2006-08-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

One of the keys to building better communities is the ability to image them. Portland, Oregon is tackling this problem in an inventive way.

The Vision Vessel is a multi-media recording booth where you can voice your ideas about the City of Portland as it grows and changes in the 21st century. The Vessel creates a living archive of Portlander’s insights, while offering a fresh, practical and innovative approach to urban civic engagement.

This is interesting because the project not only records peoples ideas about the direction Portland should take, but also presents a visual timeline of Portland’s past. The designers seem to recognize that the future and past are inexplicably linked, and that we must remember out history as we imagine our future.

Green Building 101... .2

2006-08-06T20:55:00.000-07:00

“GREEN BUILDING 101: Indoor Environmental Quality” is the latest addition to the “Green Building 101” series from Inhabitat. Although the article points out an important aspect to environmentally sustainable construction, namely that if done right it makes people healthier and more productive, it does not have nearly the breath of useful resources for implementing its own suggestions. It also does not site any specific scientific studies proving the impact of inside spaces, which would be really helpful to people having to justify to a penny pinching boss why s/he should make indoor environmental quality a priority.

MTV... Meet the Green Generation

2006-08-05T11:56:00.000-07:00

Here is another sustainability for dummies site brought to us from the makers of Next and Yo Momma. MTV initiated a 12-step anti-global warming campaign:

Are you ready to commit to changing? Join Break the Addiction's 12-step, 12-month action plan for fighting global warming and the effects of overconsumption in your environment and your world. Each month, learn new ways to make a big impact.

The information is all pretty basic, but does provide simple tools for reducing one’s environmental impact. There’s everything from a full house diagram with suggestions for reducing energy consumption to a NRDC overview of renewable resources.

Again this is all pretty basic, but it is encouraging to see sustainability entering the main stream more and more. As an artist this is exiting because it paves the way for the more complex environmentally conscious art to be understood and appreciated by mainstream audiences. The more people who understand the basics of sustainability, the less time artists and other cultural creators have to spend educating people on basics. Thus leaving them more energy to illustrate and comment on the complex nature of the environment and our relationship to it.

(Thanks Worldchanging!)

Rural Community Development with a Scandinavian Twist

2006-08-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

Check out “Social Design for Scandinavian Towns” at We-make-money-not-bombs.com. It is about:

how art and architecture can play an important role in social development of small towns.

and is worth a look.