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Siliqoon 2015 © Planetcare
Siliqoon 2015 ©
Planetcare
Publisher and EditorSiliqoon
Editorial DirectorZoe De [email protected]
Art DirectorAndrea [email protected]
ContributorsIain BallAndrea MagnaniZoe De Luca
SiliqoonArt label & Creative consulting agency
www.siliqoon.com [email protected]
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CONTEXT - Bio Society
While observing the sky, our ancestors began to link stars in constellations.
They just started to aggregate theinexplicable in meaning paths.
For humans, observing the reality that sur-rounds us, sooner or later turns into a cre-ative act, capable of organizing the rules, not only to explain it, but at least to govern it. To-day, those stars or, out of metaphor, the fool-ish points that make up our reality, have mul-tiplied infinitively, creating a cluster so dense and changeable that it resembles a biological organism. In this new scenario, the practice of ‘connecting the dots’ loses its effective-ness, as our gaze is no longer able to organize them due to a data overload. That's why the system itself has started to mature its own dynamics, like flow aggregation or evolution, exactly like an organism.
We can therefore think that our scenario is now following the same laws that today we
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adopt to explain the natural flow. Principles that explain how nature has a progressive (and cumulative) increase in the frequency of individuals with optimal characteristics (fit-ness) for the Environment. For a society, how-ever, it will not be the ‘individuals’, but every concept: laws, technologies, economies, prod-ucts, companies, governments, etc ... each meaning path that will be able to adapt itself, evolve and still remain somewhat cohesive, alive.
In this context of a hyper-accelerated-evolu-tionary landscape it becomes vital to iden-tify the trends or even 'the trend' in order to engage the ‘organism’ as effectively as pos-sible. It's therefore important to place a muta-tion path (by keeping the metaphor) inside the best trend. This is the only variable which, if inserted in the right trend, is able to lead to an evolution of the ‘species’.
It's the mad fish who for the first timetakes a step out of the water.
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TREND - Planetcare
The universe and our planet can kill us softly, in so many ways that we can't even realize it with our ‘human life-long’ temporal percep-tion, or even faster, like an invisible breath able to move the balance of our tiny Solar System. So we still don't know how life was born on Earth, but we surely know that soon-er or later the Sun will turn into a red dwarf, and the humans must have already left the planet by then. But, before that moment ar-rives, we need to focus on how we are spend-ing our time here:
how do we deal with the environment?
Mankind has a shared a pattern of think-ing as well as an inborn pattern of percep-tion; while the first one has been diversified throughout habits and culture, the sec-ond hasn’t been developed with the same strength and consciousness. As Albert Sch-weitzer stated: "The great fault of all ethics hith-erto has been that they believed themselves to have to deal only with the relations of man to man.
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In reality, however, the question is what is his atti-tude to the world and all life that comes within his reach."
We need Econsciousness.
Therefore, we basically need an Econscious-ness to frame us inside an environment. Con-cepts like Ecology or Sustainability were ap-plied from time to time in order to preserve the planet's resources to answer our needs, but always without applying a continuity to the approaches of all the interventions, and most of all without thinking about us as a part of this environment. Simultaneously, sci-entific research starts to place humanity on a scary universal scale, and the survival topic becomes more and more pressing as an inevi-table trend. Anyhow, a deep knowledge of the issue is required.
In the last decade, technological progress has impressively implemented the amount of earth related data which, thanks to on-line publishing and sharing, have been es-sential to update common knowledge. With
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Google Street View we can now browse more than 100.000 images of the Great Barrier Reef, which Catlin Seaview Survey originally used to track long term changes generated by global warming and ocean acidification. Public scien-tific studies can indirectly shape the average unconscious, enriching our world’s projection.
Knowledge also creates awareness: even though the term ‘environmentalism’ was first coined in 1922, we are now actualizing topics such as natural environment protection, im-provement and restoration. Only in 2010, Boliv-ia's Plurinational Legislative Assembly passed a 10 articles law called ‘Law of the Rights of Mother Earth’, which declares that human communities and all life systems have the same right to life, restoration and equilibrium. Almost 100 years before the creation of the term representing its fundamental value, and is still the only country to have such a law to-gether with the Netherlands' Party of Plants.All environments evolve in biological depen-dence, where the amount of earthlings de-terminate their hosting system’s complexity. Whereas a biological depending system has
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an unpredictable future by its own nature, and the individuals’ life duration derives from both the system and their capacity to correspond to it, to exist means to make performance. All earthlings have rights and duties.
As a first approach, we are remodelling our ap-proach through an ecological footprint reduc-tion. While climate change is impacting on populations, we focus on regenerating ener-gies and social behaviour to improve threat-ened ecosystems. All thanks to technology, probably the most dynamic factor of change in the modern world.
For instance, in recent years scientists fo-cused their studies on the largest and most ancient domain, bacteria: the living form that for almost 4 billion years was basically ig-nored, now discloses unexpected skills. In the last few years we found out that the gut bac-terium can document and store environment data, produce renewable energy or generate light through heatless bioluminescence and through high-energy fats secretion. As Buck-minster Fuller once said "don't fight forces, use
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them". Starting from the concept of hygiene, society always thought about bacteria and other microorganisms like dirt to be cleaned away. The truth is that ecosystems work with a holistic perspective, managing each element as an integrated and self-sustaining, essential whole, instead of an amalgam of separated units organized according to a hierarchy. The sum of the leftovers is the quintessential ter-ritory of planetary mixture, diversity and thus richness.
We are reawakening our awareness for the en-vironment, as a ‘state of being environed’ for survivalist purposes, encouraged by the fact that technological progress is gradually un-folding the Earth’s out-of-the-way features: we found that a stone called Olivine has the prop-erty to pull CO2 from the air: perhaps the ulti-mate enhanced weathering apparatus. Maybe population control is not the solution to de-crease the human demand on the Earth's eco-systems, and we just need to focus on how to deal with primary resources: how easy. Will the Earth save the Earth?
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On the other hand, even if the reduction of hu-man impact on nature is commonly consid-ered as the main response to environmental issues, there is an alternative point of view. Not only environmental sceptics, but also a group of ecologists think that since everything is nature, including human evolution and its outcomes, everything can or has to be pat-terned according to our needs.
Eco or Ego system?
We are already modelling our food: since the molecular cuisine experiments made back in the 80’s. While in 2014 the first shipments of Soylent started, we should ask ourselves how far design can go. For sure, it’s a matter of bal-ance and paradigm shift. Middle east scien-tists are focusing their research on sea water desalination and solar energy converting de-vices, while even people from the contemporary art scene are designing solar-powered artificial leafs that produce ice, or a self-powering cube made up of solar panels that creates a cascad-ing waterfall, even in the middle of the desert. But which is the direction to take?
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A good point was raised by Designing For the Sixth Extinction, an ongoing project of design-er and artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, who in 2014 took part in the publication Synthetic Aesthetics. Ginsberg imagined synthetic or-ganisms to rewild the planet, to protect the environment’s balance and biodiversity. Way beyond cloning, the Bioaerosol Microtrapping Biofilm, that traps airborne pollutants and vi-ruses, or the Autonomous Seed Dispenser, that dispenses seeds from local plants and promotes biodiversity, are just a couple of the creatures that may become part of our nature and save it.
Should we keep the conservative way and try to adjust our own existences to the ecosys-tem, or is our planet actually supposed to be such a malleable matter? Can we program liv-ing forms, evaluating them firstly as perform-ing materials? We already created self watering plants and smart soil. If so, we can either shape it all to meet collective needs, or stumble upon individual whims. Or even, since ‘everything is nature’, we may even redesign ourselves, too.Artificial prosthesis support extends the natu-
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ral biological scope of human beings, allowing to cover the planet under every life possible condition. Wearable technology has reached significant attention over the last year. We have devices able to perform different func-tions and to help people with their personal health and fitness issues, but surely it’s just the beginning. We can either shape it all to meet collective needs, or stumble upon indi-vidual whims. Crystalline materials that can bind and store oxygen in high concentrations have already been developed, allowing us to breath underwater. We can also start acting exactly like nature and continually redesign ourselves and our perceived reality. Is this self-upgrading design going to be the output of industrial processes or interdisci-plinary and collective everyday life practices? Since the oil society is not going to last more than a few hundred years, general Planetcare could be an advanced ' quaternary ', the next big thing in terms of business.
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PROPOSAL – Warm Technology
When technology (evolved according to our matured E-Consciousness) will be part of our environment, it will also follow the same rules: decision processes that were originally born from our own will may start to behave like an independent society, as swarm robotics teach-es us.
If interconnected, a group of devices can dia-logue creating a buzz able to analyse contexts and make decisions independently. Up to this moment, what has always been applied is a democratic decisional method: here, the major-ity determines the future. We noticed that evo-lution works through sprains in every system.It's the action of what Robert M. Pirsig defines Dynamic Quality that leads to a substantial evolution of species, perhaps the only way to fight the obsolescence of the meaning path. As Pirsig stated: "The purpose of the descrip-tion of 'Dynamic Quality' as 'the continually chang-ing flux of immediate reality' is to block the notion that Dynamic Quality is some kind of object. To try to take that definition as some kind of philosophic
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object itself is to pervert the purpose for which the statement was intended."
Will we ever develop an algorithm that allows technique to have creative thinking, sensibil-ity or spirituality? Probably all these feelings derive from the belonging to a social system, of which swam robotics is just a first glimmer. Here we are. Can you image a social network programmed to redesign itself by an inter-nal meaning and mutation paths analysis? A dy-namic technology, a warm technology. Bio.
We have always been afraid of chaos just be-cause it is perhaps the only thing that can take us elsewhere, out of our mind frames. It's a leap into the unknown, as frightening as nec-essary. This hypothetical 'sensitive/flexible al-gorithm' may work as a progressive seed, act-ing like all the practices that, having not been understood, were always marked as foolish.
This is the function of the absurd.
In our society lunatics are now segregated, but we can observe how in many animist illiterate
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tribes they are elevated to the status of sha-man. Here, thanks to their ability to act as an antenna for sensations or trance, they play a major role in revitalizing and driving.This process of 'wild card integration' should be taken up by future technologies, incorpo-rating the mutation path (shaman) in a new meaning path (i.e. a new product). So, the chal-lenge now is to design new concepts capable of accommodating madness intended as a revolutionary thrust.
The Goa Gill's dj altars combined with the hi-tech psy-trance Goa music become a sort of tech-mantra able to transform the rave expe-rience into a ritual. It's not a coincidence if we find in music one of the most abstract forms of meaning path, the prototype of a warm tech-nology. But we must take a step forward.Can we consider each pseudoscience as a possible mutation path? How we can graft this in a scientific method society? It will probably be the level of uncertainty and abstraction we find in quantum mechanics that will provide us with the tools to answer these questions.
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We will reveal the secrets contained in the rocks and our ability to surf nature's laws hid-den under the eyes of everyone will maybe save us from the mess we made and then from the gargantuan universe threats.As William James writes in Some Problems of Philosophy, "there must always be a discrepancy between concepts and reality, because the former are static and discontinuous while the latter isdynamic and flowing."
Fingers crossed.
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Planetcare issue
Farm Fountain - Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs > www.farmfountain.com
Nelson Antoine > www.corbisimages.com/photographer/nelson-antoine
Bio-LNG - CLiMA from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology > http://goo.gl/J9Vf6O
Biomechanical Aerial Technology System - NASA > http://morpheus.umd.edu/research/systems/BATS.html
Urban Algae Canopy - Carlo Ratti Associati team > www.carloratti.com/project/algaetecture
Drone 1-001-1 - Elie Ahovi > www.elieahovi.com/index#/marine-drone
Massages - Snakes and Snails > http://goo.gl/eTDYyU - Fire > http://goo.gl/MuhE8P
Flag of the Earth - John McConnell > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Earth
Makha Bucha Day at Buddhist Park in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand - photo Athit Perawongmetha
Zen Garden 3D Lite - Google play > http://goo.gl/S69mvh
SunGlacier > www.sunglacier.com/project
Soylent > www.soylent.me
Olivine > www.grist.org/news/could-this-rock-save-the-planet
Chinese Face Reading > www.brainchanger.com/chinesefacereading
Mind-controlled transgene expression by a wireless-powered optogenetic designer cell implant > http://goo.gl/GfFeR8
Bloomin’ Belly Soaps - Marcie Macari > http://goo.gl/7IeWvV
Green Wave Smoothie Pops > www.greenwavesmoothies.com/smoothiepops
Biobots > http://news.ncsu.edu/2014/11/bozkurt-roach-biobot-2014 > http://youtu.be/oJXEPcv-FMw
Burning Man 2014 > www.burningman.org
Bloom - Sitbon Architectes > www.sitbonarchitectes.com/#/en/urbanism/bloom/0
HAARP project > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program
Coral3, Ocean De-acidification - Nell Bannett > www.nell-bennett.com/testimonials/
Designing for the Sixth Extinction - Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg > www.daisyginsberg.com
I wanna deliver a dolphin... - Ai Hasegawa > www.aihasegawa.info/?works=i-wanna-deliver-a-dolphin
Into Your Hands Are They Delivered - Tobias Revell > www.into-your-hands.com + www.tobiasrevell.com
Silk Leaf - Julian Melchiorri > www.julianmelchiorri.com/Silk-Leaf
The Eden Project > www.edenproject.com
Green Man > www.greenman.net
Bioprinting Process - Organovo > www.organovo.com
immunoSEQ - Adaptive Biotechnologies > www.adaptivebiotech.com/immunoseq
DJ altar - Goa Gil > www.disinfo.com/2013/04/kalifornian-exile-dark-yogi-and-dreaded-anomaly
EYE (Enhance Your Eye) - MHOX > www.mhoxdesign.com/eye-en.html
Artificial Photosynthesis Yields Valuable Chemicals - Berkeley Lab > http://goo.gl/HjBWQL
Thync System (Feel calm or energy on demand) - Thync > www.thync.com
Sugar battery - Virginia Tech > http://goo.gl/W1aiDj
The Extraplation Factory - Pawn Tomorrow > www.extrapolationfactory.com/PAWN-TOMORROW
Science for life extension foundation projects - Maria Konovalenko > https://mariakonovalenko.wordpress.com/
Corals are already adapting to global warming - University of Texas > http://goo.gl/W1aiDj
Studio Kukkugia > www.kokkugia.com
Trance Glass - Trenton Nuzum > https://instagram.com/tranceglassart
Build a Mars base with a box of engineered bugs > http://goo.gl/IX3lyw
Solar City Tower - RAFAA > www.rafaa.ch/rafaa/rio_de_janeiro.html
Intelligent Energy > www.intelligent-energy.com
Energy Flow - Field > www.field.io/project/energy-flow
G.A.R.R.y - Byron Rich & Heather Brand > www.byronrich.com/G-A-R-R-y-Work-in-Progress-Byron-Rich-Heather-Brand-2015
Exploiting Bacteria to Produce "Living Materials" - MIT > www.newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/engineers-design-living-materials
Identification of a Gravitational Arrow of Time - Julian Barbour, Tim Koslowski, and Flavio Mercati > http://goo.gl/YajUIV
Yoichi Ochiai > http://96ochiai.ws/Yoichi_Ochiai/in dex.html
Planetcare issue
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