Cradle to Cradle Overview

Please comment this week on your overall comments, impressions, positive and negative, regarding the Cradle to Cradle readings.

250-500 words

Also, please publish them under this posting and not as individual posts.

Thanks.

freecycle

I'm guessing that at least some people in this class have heard of Freecycle, but I wanted to post this link because it is way cooler than Craigslist when you want stuff or have stuff to give away. Plus, what a great concept!

http://www.freecycle.org/group/US/Illinois/Chicago

Fewer Americans See Solid Evidence of Global Warming

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1386/cap-and-trade-global-warming-opinion

77% down to 57%

blog 5

I thought the ideas that the three artists behind People Powered take and create art with were really cool. I feel like there is this cultural shift happening where art no longer has to be defined by a specific medium, but can now cross disciplines and become much more rounded and aware of different aspects of society. I really like environmental and ecological ideas and movements becoming more available to artists and other groups of people because I think that they can then reach "the masses", so to speak.

Last year I attended a salon at the cultural center that focused on artists and environmentalism, and the different ways they can intersect from being very grounded in ecology to being much more abstract, like dance and performance pieces inspired by issues like recycling. Francis Whitehead, a Chicago artist and professor at the Art Institute, was there and she is really involved in some awesome projects. She often partners with scientists and city governments to help people see what is going on in the world around them through instillation art at different sites around the world. Really awesome, really inspiring stuff. Here are just a few examples:
http://www.datacloudmetamap.com/
http://www.phenologicforest.com/
http://www.embeddedartistproject.com/whatdoartistsknow.html

While I am certainly no artist or designer, I love being surrounded by people who are. I think that scientists and artists can really learn so much from each other and inspire each other to grow beyond their comfort levels, which is so important when it comes to creating something that can really make a difference. I really hope that once my career gets moving, it is moving in this type of collaborative direction.

Urban Lab Green Designs

Here is an interesting site called Urban Lab, it has a lot of green designs and concepts throughout Chicago and other cities. http://www.urbanlab.com/list.php?id=1


I really like their "Growing Water: Chicago in 2106" concept http://www.urbanlab.com/h2o/

website for the bird men interview

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/09/60minutes/main5374843.shtml

consumers and cyborgs

The interview with Alphagraphics made me consider the research that we, as consumers, need to take part in to gain the truth behind commercial practices and products. On the surface, Alphagraphics would seem to be a very environmentally responsible company and if you were an environmentalist looking for a printer, they would fit the mold nicely. However, after the interview I realized how much the internet website had exaggerated their environmental stance and involvement. We should not have to partake in a 30-minute questionnaire to attempt to get at the truth behind their marketing. As consumers, we have the power to control the demand and the overall success of businesses because of the lay out of the free market economy. For the most part I feel like I am constantly being deceived by marketing ploys, false advertising and mislabeling. I don’t think we should have to constantly question and challenge corporations on their procedures. There needs to be more transparency within the system. The consumer can only become an informed consumer if they have accessibility to accurate information. This also relates to the company’s management practices, if they were using sustainable products there would be no reason to display deceiving information; they would want to publicly announce their dedication to reducing their impact on the environment.

On another note, I thought Randy’s presentation on cyborgs was very intriguing. I couldn’t quite grasp how he would utilize the framework or the terminology until the discussion got going full force. I recognize now that it is more of a working philosophy to analyze the surrounding world and our place within it. The day following his presentation, I actually encountered a review of a video online where someone had used cyborg to describe the men in the video. It was a very accurate use of the framework. The video covered a group of people that are referred to as the bird men. They have constructed wingsuits made of nylon to propel them forward when jumping off of cliffs. The wings allow them to stay afloat three times longer than skydivers and they have more control in turns because of the wind pressure in the wings. The use of bird physiology in the construction of the wingsuit takes the cyborg idea through several levels. The study of how bird wings function is examining organic mechanisms. Then those are adapted to an inorganic structure, the wingsuit, which is attached to an essentially organic being, a human. I think “cyborgic thought” (if that works) can greatly vary in the degree of detail and this is what provides it flexibility in dialogue.