cycling in London
Knightsbridge construction
cycling behind a big construction truck
cycling behind a big construction truck
Camden Bus
Camden road construction
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Cesar Harada
Jared_Diamond_on_why_societies_collapse
http://www.ted.com/talks/jared_diamond_on_why_societies_collapse.html
Why do societies fail? With lessons from the Norse of Iron Age Greenland, deforested Easter Island and present-day Montana, Jared Diamond talks about the signs that collapse is near, and how — if we see it in time — we can prevent it.
I will add to it : if societies are collapsing we must use this fact. Collapse is an immense release of energy, we can foster this energy to generate the “next society”.
But I really think societies do not collapse, they transform. “Collapse” is a scholar adjective, transformation is what people do to survive, they adapt and this is continuously happening.
design for 2012
Do you remember the big 2001 bug, everything was supposed to fail, the technological world should have collapsed… And you’re reading this blog.
Fear must have been the most powerful influence on politics, economy, family, personal emancipation since… forever. Some might say we are driven by our desires, I think we can attribute an equal responsability to fear, may it be of the father, the police, the state, satan, eternal damnation… So this is an opportunity for incredible power, for the ones that would propose a swindler type placebo solution… Do we want to be one of those, exploiting peoples fears? Or shall we bring -almost realistic- design proposal, like bunkers (aren’t they -fallout shelters- perfect objects of mind control?). And what if it really happens?
I don’t know if you heard about it, but the world -as we know it- is said to go through an extraordinary change pretty soon. They are supposingly many scientific correlationsand prophecies : The mayan calendarending, the real peak oil (graph above with different theories) or its aftermath, the end of Kyoto protocol, 7 billion humans on earth, eventually World Wide 3 (George Bush proposing World Wide 3 video), globalpandemic, the opening of freedom tower (ground zero), pole shift, (geomagnetic reversal), galactic alignment, we have our doomsday clock telling us how many minutes we are to “midnight“.
We have many ways to look at a plausible apocalypse (2012 doomsday video) more or less sound. So much mysteries, what do people expect from such an event? Freedom? Sudden death? A new Age? What can we sell them to celebrate (HAHAHAHAHAH!)? Make the end -new beginning- more comfortable? What is the relation of causality between our fear-desire (hypothesis of collective-conciousness) for the event and it’s actual happening?
Today, what we call doomsday device is this :
Not very nice, it is called a planet killer (could be an asteroid)… We might not die of it directly but of itsfallout, very gradually. Shouldn’t there be many different protective doomsday devices? Friendly ones! Shall we get out of this dominator culture?
It doesn’t matter if it is true or false, but anxiety is there… What to do of this anxiety? If we (humans) survive, shall we design longer term? Something completely out of cultural references, and according tocosmic patterns? Can we offer this “out of time” mind control - kingdom? How to embody such idea? Here is a nice forum of this crazyness. Enjoy life… NOW !
Healthmap.org
Amazing talk and project healthmap.org presented by John Brownstein PhD, Clark Freifeld, Mikaela Keller PhD, on Googletechtalks on youtube.
back in London
Here I am, back in London! Feels so good! I arrived by bus with the sun rising, now I have this classy table in front of a big window in an empty quiet Lab, aaaaahhh, what a great moment!
Except I have this Mount Cesar of Rubbish just by me to classify, clean, and dispatch or recycle for future generations… waahhh, how come I have so much stuff??!
Sad Hat | Happy Hat
“sad hat l happy hat” is one of design interventions in the “benchspace walk workshop”, part of London architecture festival.
We like London, this city-world full of differences, ethnic variety, colors, textures, sounds; within a block distance the environment can change totally. We are perpetually commuting and when we think about architecture, we think of vertical constructions, enclosing horizontal space.
Sad Hat | Happy Hat from cesar harada on Vimeo.
Naturally we have a tendency to look up when we are happy and down when we are sad. We want to bring emphasis on the ground and the sky, amplifying one’s mood. The “sad hat | happy hat” can be worn in two different ways, happy (looking up) or sad (looking down). The reflective surface inside multiplies the perception of either the sky or the ground.
But what happens when you either look only up or down? You bump into stuff! Maybe you need someone to complement your perception: if you are sad you may need someone happy, if you are happy someone sad, to walk together safely.
The object can be experienced in 2 main ways, outside-in and inside-out. The outside-in aspects: the appearance of the hats indicates obviously what mood you are in. This experience critiques our excess of self-awareness in public, how much we care about how others are looking at us. The inside-out aspect provides a thrilling sensorial experience, something different and playful, we might not care how people will look at us, in our own visual and acoustic distorted world.
The “sad hat | happy hat” is a simple playful perception limb that directs and amplifies ones perception and mood, allowing to re-consider how one feels about the city while creating an extreme social relation between the mask user and the others, encouraging the necessary complementary pair relation
With Dot Nitipak Samsen. Voice Nasser moustakim.
http://www.dotmancando.net/projects/between/
http://cesarharada.com/2008/sad-hat_happy-hat/
Urban Space Station Video !
URBAN SPACE STATION Sofia, Madrid 2008 from cesar harada on Vimeo. All documentation on http://urbanspacestation.org.
Sinta Tantra, “A good time and a half”
I went to see this exhibition of Sinta Tantra, beautiful blend of installation and poetry.
You can also see the high quality video here.
heavy technology
So many times I felt technology isn’t empowering but something heavy we are supposed to drag everywhere, a painful extension. It has to be magic so we want to have it always… Does it fullfill us in any way? Why do I miss it?
Maybe I feel like this today because, the people at the airport have forgotten my bicycle somewhere between Paris and Madrid, my painful phantom limb… I am so sad… empty…