Doors of Perception Report
Design roads to a one planet life
by John Thackara
June 2007
FREE LUNCH - AND THE DOORS REPORT READERSHIP SURVEY
Hungry? I'm conducting an online reader survey about this newsletter and will take the winning survey respondent to lunch at a time and location that suits both parties. The winner's name will be selected by lottery. Take the survey now, or at the bottom of the page.
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB226JH97XMNL
DESIGN ROADS TO A ONE PLANET LIFE
How do European, American and Asian approaches to green design differ? Will technology save us, or is a social revolution more important? I'm giving a lecture on this topic at Art Center, in Pasadena, on 5 June - and I'm told there will be a lively debate. The event is free and open to all, so do please come or send a friend. Tuesday 5 June, 7.30pm, Art Center, California. For details phone
+1.626.396.4254 or email: [email protected]
WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL WELCOME?
A new design project asks people to draw, photograph, film or write about the the places and experiences that make visitors feel welcome and/or unwelcome and why in region, North East England. Next step is to re-design the unwelcoming places and experiences.
http://www.dott07.com/ebulletin/may/dott07_ebulletin.html
FOOD SYSTEMS AND CITIES
Toronto calculates that 25% of its ecological footprint is attributable to its food systems. What design steps follow from this realisation? A professional workshop on food systems and citiesis being organised by Doors of Perception and
Dott on Monday 22 October. Chris Hardwicke will talk about Toronto's pioneering efforts to integrate food systems into its urban planning. David Barrie, senior producer of Dott's urban farming project, will review progress with Debra
Solomon (culiblog.org), Nina Belk (Zest Innovation) and citizens and officials from Middlesbrough.
http://www.dott07.com/go/food/urban-farming
DESIGN CAMP 12 JULY
Is sustainable tourism is feasible, and if so, what might it be like? Dott's
Design Camp will develop real-world ideas in locations across the region.
http://www.dott07.com/go/tourism/design-camp
SYSTEMS FOR SURVIVAL
Offload is the UK's first network media and systems arts event to do with nature, sustainability and ecology. Experimental works will visualise, reflect, comment on and/or extend the systems or networks we live and operate within.
13-16 September, Bristol, UK.
http://www.offloadfestival.org/offload07/
WHAT DOES SUSTAINABILITY SOUND LIKE?
Sustainable futures need to be imagined if we are to want them - and not just in pictures. A good place to scout for sound artists is Soundwaves and its roster of sonic artists and other leading practitioners in the fields of music and audiovisual design. Tony Nwachukwu will help participants co-create beats and soundscapes with audio sourced from open-source/libre sound archives. Jake Ewen will explain why it is that "all the matter in the universe is the result of an invisible matrix of wave functions, harmonic & resonant proportions". 18 May-29
June, Kinetica Museum, Old Spitalfields Market, London.
http://www.kinetica-museum.org http://www.cybersonica.org
IVO JANSSEN
If you ever attended a Doors of Perception in Amsterdam, you'll probably remember some amazing short performances by pianist Ivo Janssen. A series of concerts in June features Ivo and Bastriaan Brink playing the extraordinary
Duiveldansen (devil dancing) music of Simeon ten Holt played in seven different churches around the Netherlands. Not to be missed.
http://www.bastiaanbrink.com/index.html http://www.voidclassics.com/void/frameset_speel.htm
INTERDESIGN ON WATER
"Sustainable Housing and Water: Local and Global Challenges" brings together international designers, educators and students to tackle design challenges in the Toronto region. It's organized by the the Institute without Boundaries (IwB) and the International Council of Societies of
Industrial Design (Icsid). June 24 to June 30, Toronto.
http://www.worldhouse.ca/interdesign/
IT'S NOT ABOUT CARS
The design of greener cars does not address the problem of out-of-control transport intensity. An insightful text by Eric Britton observes: "What we call
"transport" is an enormously fussy, fuzzy, chaotic, continuing, iterative, non-stop part of daily life. (We need to) find ways of understanding and influencing many millions of minute and personal decisions made by individual citizens and groups on the topic of how they are to get around in their daily lives. This is a long way from, say, buying "clean fuel" garbage trucks or buses".
http://www.ecoplan.org/wtpp/cci_index.htm
CARBON RATIONING
Should wartime rationing policies be revived in order to stave off catastrophic climate change? Historian Dr Mark Roodhouse calls for individual carbon rationing modelled on the experience of the two World Wars, and warns that
'green taxes' will not achieve the dramatic reduction in consumption that is needed. It would probably work: I was amazed to find in Milan last month that
Italians have stopped smoking in restaurants without a whimper after a law was passed.
http://www.york.ac.uk/admin/presspr/pressreleases/carbonration.htm
SMART COAST
In 2020, 18 million tourists will visit Spain's Mediterranean coast. The area is developing as fast as Shangai, Rio de Janeiro, or Tokyo. How, or will, Europe's first Megalopolis survive? Globalization, global warming, resource optimization, urban-planning, aerial and terrestrial mobility, and other new phenomena, will be discussed by Manuel Delanda, Michael Houellebecq, Rem Koolhaas, Scott Lash,
Faustino G. Marquez, Jeremy Rifkin, Edward W. Soja and other distinguised speakers. Tourism XXL, the European Megalopolis, 19-21 July, Barcelona.
http://www.cccb.org
GETTING HUNGRY? THINKING OF THAT FREE LUNCH? ONLY FIVE STORIES TO GO BEFORE THE
DOORS READERSHIP SURVEY
MUSEUM OF SCIENCE FICTION
Maison d'Ailleurs is Europe's only museum of science fiction, utopia and extraordinary journeys. Based in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, the museum has a collection of over 70,000 books, magazines, film and original art related to science fiction and its imagery. There are shows by contemporary artists such as
H.R. Giger, John Howe and James Gurney. A new wing will house an important research collections on Jules Verne - and they need money for the new building.
http://www.ailleurs.ch
WHAT IS MUSIC FOR?
Jarvis Cocker of Pulp asked What is music for? and proposed: Mood, Instruction,
Dancing, Communication, Atmosphere, Revolution, Comfort, Soundtrack,
Advertising. The list sparked some lively amendments. I especially liked the list of Adam Gee: Community and Connection; Getting in Touch with Nature;
Energising Ouselves; Communicating a Vision of the World; Linking to the Past;
and so on.
http://aarkangel.wordpress.com/page/3/
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,1892763,00.html
SUSPICIOUS PEOPLE WHO "DON'T BELONG"
The seven signs of terrorist activity, according to a Michigan State Police training video, are "Surveillance, Elicitation, Tests of Security, Acquiring
Supplies, Suspicious People who "don't belong", Dry runs/trial runs, Deploying assets or getting into position". Bruce Schneier, who found this gem for us, says "I especially like the scenes of concerned citizens calling the police.
Anyone care to guess what the false alarm rate would be if everyone started making phone calls like this?".
http://www.hanford.gov/oci/video/7signsofterrorism.wmv http://www.schneier.com
INTERACTIVE BEAUTY CARE
Case studies on 'interactive beauty care', 'embodied experiences in a sound and jewellery installation', and an 'EasyJet Desktop Gadget' feature at this two-day fiddle-while-Rome-burns workshop in the UK organised by the Ergonomics Society.
http://www.ergonomics.org.uk/page.php?s=6&p=127
COOL WOMEN
WILL FOOD RUN OUT?
Just-in-time logistics concepts have filtered into and now shape the retail food system: Grocery stores are believed to have no more than a three-day supply of food. That means those who don't grow their own food - ie most of us - will find themselves going hungry within a week of an emergency that shuts down the just-in-time delivery system to stores.
http://www.metamute.org/en/Logistics-Factory-Without-Walls
NOW ARE YOU READY TO TRY FOR THAT FREE LUNCH?
TAKE THE THE DOORS REPORT READERSHIP SURVEY NOW!
Why such generosity? Because I'm looking for practical suggestions on ways to improve this newsletter. Please do the survey now. Thank you thank you thank you.
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB226JH97XMNL
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