Nov 22, 09
Worldchanging Timeline: 2003-2009
We here at Worldchanging just celebrated our sixth anniversary! In addition to publishing a series of "101" posts, highlighting some of the iconic pieces we've published over the years, and a primer on blogs and other resources we lean heavily upon, we though that it might also be useful to share a timeline of the project so far, noting some representative events, to give the interested reader a sense of where we came from and how we got here; perhaps knowing something of the evolution of...
The Ruins of the Unsustainable: Searching For Answers to the Suburbs
"The ruins of the unsustainable are the 21st century's frontier." We've been pondering that statement by Worldchanging ally Bruce Sterling for nearly two years now. In North America, several decades of bad development (and the government policies that enabled and encouraged it) have resulted in unchecked sprawl and played no small part in our global financial meltdown. Far-flung exurban areas have swallowed up miles of greenfield, replacing farmland and woods with pavement and lawns, and...
Bruce Sterling's The Caryatids: A Review
Pity those science fiction writers who adapt too slowly: many labor with tools invented for a 1950s version of the genre that no longer makes sense; they're still dreaming heroic rocketcar dreams when the future is scrambling towards carbon-free distributed car-sharing for Indian slums. Nothing decays faster than an old future, and most writers are lucky to find one unique vision of how things might be, much less find a new one when their first wears out. Bruce Sterling, though, is not most...
KIOSK. Artifacts of a Post-Digital Age
(image malicy) One year after the Brussels' exhibition Holy Fire. Art of the Digital Age, Yves Bernard from iMAL and Domenico Quaranta curate a show that, once again, puts a magnifying lens on new media art pieces that have found a place on the contemporary art market. Titled KIOSK. Artifacts of a Post-Digital Age, their exhibition was one of the highlights of STRP, an art & tech festival which closed last Monday in Eindhoven (NL). Golan Levin with Greg Baltus, Opto-Isolator, 2007...
Don't Miss: Plutopia at SXSW
If you're headed to Austin, Texas, this weekend for the infamous rock festival SXSW, be sure to stop by Monday evening's event "Plutopia." The event, co-founded by Worldchanging team member Jon Lebkowsky and Derek Woodgate of The Futures Lab, uses music, art and performance to encourage attendees to imagine an infinite number of possible future utopias. Plutopia 2009's theme is 'Living Systems,' and will feature entertainment from local, national and international performers and speakers...
Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky Discuss the State of the World in 2009
Over at The WELL, Worldchanging Ally #1 Bruce Sterling is delivering his annual assessment of the world, and by all counts, 2009 is rife with material. Our own Jon Lebkowsky is moderating the ongoing interview/conversation, with input from readers scattered throughout. A taste of what Bruce has in store for us: I always knew the "War on Terror" bubble would go. It's gone. Nobody misses it. It got no burial. I (knew it) was gonna be replaced by another development that seemed much more...
In the Bubble
I'm a huge fan of John Thackara and his writing. As I wrote of his book, In the Bubble, That book changed my brain. From the very first few pages, I was hooked: here was design thinking about sustainability and social innovation that understood and loved technology and ingenuity, without being blinded to its downsides, that embraced prosperity and modernity without missing the big picture that our current ordering of the world is both making us less happy than we might be and destroying the...
Stuff I Find Interesting
It's a holiday weekend, so this is a lazy post: I was recently asked what kinds of technological developments I found interesting. Here's the list I sent back. URBAN TECH We're getting close to good models of the land use-transportation-energy-climate emissions interactions, and these are pretty much all saying that land use is at least as important a transportation task as clean energy/new vehicles, if not more important http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//007800.html...
The Last Viridian Note
By Bruce Sterling Recent events have clearly established that the character of the times has changed. The Viridian Design Movement was founded in distant 1999. After the years transpiring – various disasters, wars, financial collapses and a major change in political tone – the world has become a different place. It remains only to close the Viridian episode gracefully, and to conclude with a few meditative suggestions. As I explained in the first Viridian speech, any design...
The Outquisition & The Future of The Ecovillage
Awhile back, Alex Steffen posted an interesting riff speculating on the potential for a new kind of sustainability movement, “a crusade of open sharing” that would spread the brightest green practices to decaying cities and flailing suburbs around the globe with “missionary fervor.” It would be a sort of inverse of the medieval crusades – he dubbed it “The Outquisition,” borrowing the name from Cory Doctorow and the mission statement (“the ruins of the unsustainable are the...
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