DOORS OF PERCEPTION 9 ON "JUICE”: FOOD, FUEL, DESIGN.
http://www.doorsofperception.com/juice/
NEW DELHI, INDIA, 2, 3 MARCH 2007
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Dateline New Delhi: 05 February 2007
A unique gathering of global design experts meets in New Delhi, India, on 2, 3 March to consider solutions to the growing crisis concerning food and energy. The ninth edition of the celebrated Doors of Perception conference is on the theme 'Juice'.
Doors of Perception's director John Thackara said today: "global food systems are an extreme example of wasteful economic activities that represent the downside of globalisation. The transport, processing, packaging and distribution of food consumes ten times more energy than enters our bodies as nutrition. We have to fix this".
Dr Aditya Dev Sood, CEO of Centre for Knowledge Societies (CKS), and co-producer of Doors 9, explained the significance of the event: "Doors 9 reframes this key challenge as an opportunity for design innovation. This meeting is about action, not talk".
In developed countries, the food consumption of a single family generates eight tonnes of CO2 emissions a year, John Thackara said. "Tackling climate change is in large part about re-shaping, and re-localising, these global flows". Networks and mobile technologies will play a key role, and India can be a teacher to the world, he said.
The Doors 9 conference is in four parts: the global big picture; food and urban design; food information systems; and 'juice - or rasa - as a symbol of food's cultural importance.
Among the globally renowned experts at Doors 9 will be Jimmy Wales (USA, founder of Wikipedia); agro-biotechnologist Villoo Morawala Patel; Hannu Nieminen from Nokia; Alex Steffen (USA, founder of the best-selling Worldchanging: A User's Guide to the 21st Century); Stefan Magdalinski (UK, founder of theyworkforyou.org); and designer Jogi Panghaal.
Harry Nair, Director of Global Consumer Design, is joined by designer and scenographer Rajiv Sethi, and noted architect Naresh Narasimhan.
"Juice is the essence of food, but the word rasa can also be used to mean credit, electricity, access, flavour and love" said Dr Sood. "Diverse approaches to food and energy will be explored in the conference as we imagine new social and technological systems".
Doors of Perception has been called "the nearest thing the design world has to a World Economic Forum”. The Economic Times of India praised the "brilliant insights into the internet and sustainability” at Doors 8 (New Delhi 2005).
The main sponsor of Doors 9 is the mobile phone company, Nokia. Hannu Nieminen, who shapes the company's user experience policy, explained: "Mobile telecommunications will play a critical role in re-shaping global flows of food and energy in the transition to sustainability”.
Among other global innovators participating in Doors 9 are Debra Solomon (the editor of culiblog.org). British tv producer David Barrie and service designer Nina Belk (UK) who are inserting urban farming into the UK's most radical urban development, Middlehaven. Chris Hardwicke (Toronto) and Ron Paul (Portland) are designing farmers markets as hubs within urban food systems in the USA.
Author Andre Viljoen shows how food sytems are becoming central to advanced urban and regional development schemes. Robert O'Dowd and Nick Devitt (UK, Designs of the time, Dott 07) explain how bottom-up social innovation can bring top-down policy requirements to life.
Walter Amerika (The Netherlands), an advisor to global food companies, explains steps being taken by some multinationals to be part of the solution. Ellis Neder (USA) and Ian Brown (Fair Tracing, UK) will discuss state-of-the-art identity management and food certification systems. They are joined by Dawn Danby, Jyoti Stephens, and Marcy Rick (Canada/USA) whose project Beeline also deal with food information systems, as will Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino (Canada) representing thinglink.org.
Among other design experts present at Doors 9 are Garrick Jones (UK, Ludic Corp); Francois Jegou (Solutioning, Belgium); Stefano Mirti and Giovanni Cannata (idLab, Italy); Georg-Christof Bertsch (Germany), Jennifer Leonard (Ideo, USA), Margie Morris and Susan Faulkner (USA, Intel), Kristi van Riet (Doors of Perception).
John Vijay Abraham and Sanjeev Shankar, and then Alok Nandi, are documenting food cultures of Indian cities. Maria Wedum (Denmark) Claire Hartten (USA) and Patricia Michelson (UK) will be present with their project Dirt Cafe, along with artists Maja Kuzmanovic (Netherlands) and Kultivator from Sweden.
In addition to the conference and an evening social technologies bazaar, at India Habitat Centre, a street-level new media happening – Mediawala - is also planned during the days preceding Doors 9. Juha Huuskonen, the artistic director of Pixelache festival, and curator of the first Mediawala, says "Mediawala is a re-interpretation of the Juice theme by a motley group of multi-disciplinary media practitioners”.
Mediawala, a collaboration between CKS, Doors and Pixelache, features work from La Molleindustria (McVideogame), LeCielEstBleu (interactive environments inspired by nature), Keity Anjoure (dance performance with trees).
Other creative interpretations of Juice connect food with music and new media. Featured artists include Leandro Pisano and Alessandro Esposito (interferenze.org/), Ville Hyvönen (Pixelache), Sophea Lerner (hybrid radio cuisine), Mo-Ling Chui (themcdc.com/) and Zeenath Hasan.
Doors 9 is sponsored by Nokia (Finland); Designs of the time (UK, Dott 07); Royal Society of Arts (UK) in association with The Britsh Council.
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BACKGROUND NOTES
Doors of Perception
Doors of Perception is a worldwide design and innovation network whose aim is to learn how to design services, some of them enabled by information technology, that meet basic needs in new ways. The objective of Doors is to turn the transition to sustainablity into a series of design opportunities. Every two years, the Doors network meets to share the results of its work with citizens, education, industry and professionals.
http://doors8delhi.doorsofperception.com/
http://www.doorsofperception.com/embed.php?_about_us.html
Centre for Knowledge Societies (CKS)
CKS develops concepts and pilots for innovative products and services that harness the new possibilities of media, communications and technology. CJKS research and design teams work with leading Indian and multinational clients. With offices in Bangalore and New Delhi, CKS has also built partnerships with research organizations in Brazil, China, and other emerging economies. These relationships allow CKS to compare and synthesize findings from diverse cultural contexts.
http://www.cks.in/html/company_htmls/cks_overview01.html
Pixelache
Pixelache is a festival of electronic art and subcultures. The festival takes place in Helsinki, Paris, Colombia and other locations. It features projects that experiment with media and technology from a broad range of disciplines: artists, engineers, designers, researchers and architects. Pixelache focuses especially on the activities of international grassroot networks and communities such as VJ community, media activists, open source community and demoscene. The goal of Pixelache is to act as a bridge between the traditional creative disciplines and rapidly developing electronic subcultures.
http://www.pixelache.ac/
Food as a design issue
When an iceberg lettuce is shipped from its US greenhouse to Harvey Nichols Food Hall in London, 127 calories of energy are used in its shipping and merchandising for every one calorie of nutrition that enters your mouth. There are 52 transport and process stages in one bottle of ketchup. The CO2 emissions attributable to producing, processing, packaging and distributing the food consumed by a family of four is about 8 tonnes a year.
Number of food miles has increased by 15% in the ten years to 2002. 19 million tons of CO2 emitted from foods transport in 2002. Household and individual trips to grocery stores and other food outlets contribute a significant portion to urban transportation volume. San Franciscans made approximately 4 million trips to shop for food and non-food items in 1990 (23% of all trips) about 86%-in private automobiles. Food waste including food packaging makes up close to a third of the total waste that ends up in many city landfills thereby and deprives households and farmers of a valuable organic fertilizer. City water pollution problems are exacerbated when chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used on farms in the city's region.
City households spend from 10 to 40% of their income after taxes on food purchases for the home and meals outside the home. Food sector establishments such as restaurants, fast food outlets, supermarkets, specialty food stores, taverns, and food wholesalers are an important part of any city's economy. And yet one fourth to one half of elderly patients in the US suffer from malnutrition rates ranging from 25 to 85%
In reaction to these unsustainable trends, demand is growing for living arrangements involving food co-ops, collective kitchens and dining rooms, community gardens, and other enhancements of community food systems. Trend to household food procurement, preparation, and service as daily life enhancements. Also demand among urban poor is growing for food pantries, soup kitchens, and food banks.
More at: http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2006/09/why_juice_food.php
