In Good We Trust, Denver Biennial 2010

In Good We Trust is an idea that deliberately points to the friction between the image of the US and its efforts in the world over the last 10 years and the actual acts of good occurring all over the country. The focus is away from the negative to the positive intentions of those actions and getting the words out. Bruce Mau, Massive Change a well known designer/artist came to Denver a couple of weeks ago to present his ideas for a biennial event planned here in 2010. Initiated by Mayor Hickenlooper, local Denver artists including Seth Goldenberg instructor at UCD, are working towards developing a vision and the tools needed for this event. Mau's vision includes very interactive exhibits, "We want people to change the way they think." Sustainability and reproduction over production are some of the topics under discussion. They hope to expose people, open their minds to the creative possibility to change the world. Sounds like talk about infrastructure to me:) What do designers and artists have to do with infrastructure? (see my previous post).
Main idea: What would happen when you bring science and art and business together to create intuitive, inventive ways of changing existing processes and dynamics. They intend to build an experience in the Denver Biennial where you can walk into that vision and come away with motivation and ideas for changing the possibilities they see needing it in their world.

Infrastructure

In his book "The World is Flat" Thomas Friedman talks about how culture and infrastructure affect how countries grow their economies in today's global environment. This is the crux of the job issue in the US today.

I visited India somewhat alarmed about the imminent takeover of the US by India and China after reading Friedman's book. What I found there surprised me. Their infrastructure was horrible. The poverty endemic. I couldn't imagine how a country with such overwhelming issues could possibly overtake anyone. What I did notice was, despite this, India is pushing ahead with high quality education and technological development. The business sector is tasked with creating patches of reliable infrastructure where it is most needed. These modern city island sectors are spread out all over the country like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi

Barak Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope" talks in depth about the importance of infrastructure redevelopment in the US. Like in the past when the Steel Belt turned into the Rust belt key sectors of our economy need a realignment. What does this have to do with design? Design is an important element to any reworking of processes in regards to conceptualization, communication and incorporation.

Recycle Conundrum

Remember the saying most of grew up with that was tossed at us at the dinner table by our parents? A warning like a dull knife of awareness raising: "Eat your food, there are children starving in Africa, China, Uzbekistan...", or some version of. To the mind of the 7 year old concepts that broad were incomprehensible.
This incomprehensibility can be used to describe the recycling conundrum of today.

On a recent trip to Moab, Utah, I chanced to visit the recycling center attracted by the large hill of crushed glass, which no one wanted, has no commercial value, took 2 years to accumulate.

The story of this recycle center is just one of many seeping like toxic waste from small communities around the West.

Moabians have taken a little time getting used to recycling. The idea has a difficult time gelling with the myth of the indomitable West of unending resources, unregulated freedom, and independent spirit. So the efforts of all citizens are to be celebrated. Drop into this mix the difficult reality of recycling, its inability to etch a place in the capitalist market which values production over reproduction and sustainability and what you get is a small hill of crushed glass thats growing faster than our economy at this point in time.

This is really a dicussion about value, intrinsic, verses capitalist.
Enough.
Moab's recycling center is looking for great ideas for reusing glass.

Thanks to the folks at Moab recycling center for taking the time to fill me in.

From 500 to 499 to...

500 one day, 499 the next and then "poof" suddenly trillions have disappeared in a day.
Add this to the approximate 39,000 per breathing American that has been seeping out like a leaky faucet everyday since the war began.
I'd say this has been a decade of numbers.
Perfect fodder for an art project.
Reductionism.
What matters is the NUMBERS, the Wall Street mantra as seen in this CNN top story:
"The New York Federal Reserve Bank Thursday also pumped $55 billion into the nation's financial system. That comes on top of $70 billion that it pumped into the system Tuesday."

"The Bank of Japan, Bank of England and Bank of Canada set up new swap programs with the Fed, with Japan getting $60 billion, England getting $50 billion and Canada getting $10 billion."

And so on...

But even the power of numbers is collapsing as we speak.
We are on the event horizon of...
Some were afraid of Cern's Large Hadron Collider creating a black hole that would end the world.
Seems like there has been an invisible black hole operating within our midst for years.
Its all in the matrix of numbers flashing in the news every day.

Have you seen the latest poll numbers? The percentages are...
And so on...