Oh Shit

Hey campers. You all know me. Well, I am about to be fully myself. I have double booked Tuesday. I have the final critique for my University of Chicago class on Tuesday from 6-10pm (potluck of course.) This timing is so out of the ordinary, I did not notice the boo-boo until this very moment.

So....let's do Wednesday night. Let me know if that is a conflict for anyone. If so, we will re-group and pick another time. So very many apologies for this lameness on our first date of the year.

All lameness on my part aside, what do you all think of Bucky. I think this book is a wild ride of assumptions, particularly about how the computer is going to save us and break down all cultural, political and natural barriers (remember de Certeau anyone?) and a curiously intriguing guide book fostering resource equality to all. Parts of the book read like Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror and reminds me of the ever repeating tropes in history, while other bits are pure fantasy. When is the last time anyone wrote dolphin and whales are descendants from humans holding their breath?

Unlike more dispassionate books, this wild ride is oddly inspiring.

Amber

And so it begins

Dear Campers,

It is the first week of Camp and time for Buckminster Fuller's, Critical Path. The chapters to do not fall into tidy divisions for us, so let's read chapter 1, 2 and part of three up to about page 100, just over 1/4th, but a generous start.

Happy reading.

Amber

Initial Response to Critical Path

Great googly mooglies, is Bucky Fuller wild, or what?  And by wild, I'm not sure whether I mean brilliant and prescient, or just plumb insane.

Fundamental complimentarity... unity is plural and at a minimum 6-fold.
I love that what, "[He] is trying to discover is why God included humans in Universe." Nothing like setting lofty goals, eh?

To be nobody but yourself, to attempt as an individual what the traditional power structures could never accomplish....to become a "local universe information harvester and problem solver in support of eternally regenerative Universe."  (I need to order new business cards!!)

On the one hand, he seems to think we're in big trouble if we've not realized his vision by 2000 (which clearly we have not). On the other, he encourages us that we, "will find the world responding to [our] earnest initiative."  I am SOOO looking forward to spending the summer with a brilliant, crazy, cynical optimist!
What's jumping out at y'all?

Books for the summer

Dear all,

These are the books for the summer of 2010!

Book One- June:
Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path

Book Two-July:
Bruno Latour, The Making of Law.
http://www.bruno-latour.fr/livres/MAKINGOFLAW-Foreword.pdf

Book Three-August:
Slavo Zizek, In Defense of Lost Causes

Possible summer titles

I sent out an email with the following possibilities for summer reading. Additionally, suggestions from various campers are listed. In the next month we will vote on summer reading.

Bruno Latour, The Making of Law.
http://www.bruno-latour.fr/livres/MAKINGOFLAW-Foreword.pdf

Slavo Zizek, In Defense of Lost Causes OR
Zizek, Violence

http://books.google.com/books?id=KBIkPV0R14sC&printsec=frontcover&dq=violence+by+zizek&source=bl&ots=6OwuiVGnv3&sig=HfvFJcuFAZ0SPl7gsAeFmCwBpKA&hl=en&ei=wj2LS6PKLoKMNqH3rfcO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=violence%20by%20zizek&f=false

Martha Nussbaum, Woman and Human Development (Capabilities theory)

http://books.google.com/books?id=9R69I--rpzUC&dq=Martha+Nussbaum+capabilites&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=cz6LS92EE5P4NduL2aUB&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CB4Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking
I am a partial Solnit fan, but think a walking focused book could be good. Suggestions?

Glenn Adamson, The Craft Reader

Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path

something by Walter Benjamin? (that you've not done already?)

Lewis Hyde: Trickster makes this world mischief myth and art

Nature of design
by David W. Orr
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780195173680.do

Earth in mind: on education, environment, and the human prospect
by David W. Orr
http://books.google.com/books?id=Oy9IGO5ZdaUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=david+orr&source=bl&ots=QeS5wKAO23&sig=UtgcGww-6MfqYRmxF9hlKqSKXqg&hl=en&ei=2yaVS6z_I4esNvW0ncAH&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=13&ved=0CDIQ6AEwDA#v=onepage&q=&f=false

The Gift of Good Land
by Wendell Berry
http://books.google.com/books?id=rjRPPwAACAAJ&dq=the+gift+of+good+land&hl=en&ei=1iiVS53DBInKNdXj_JgN&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-thumbnail&resnum=1&ved=0CDcQ6wEwAA

Kinship to Mastery: Biophilia in Human Evolution and Developments
by Stephan R. Kellert
http://books.google.com/books?id=PkufpPphlz8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=building+for+life&source=gbs_similarbooks_s&cad=1#v=onepage&q=building%20for%20life&f=false

One Straw Revolution
by Masanobu Fukoka
http://books.google.com/books?id=9dVgPwAACAAJ&dq=one+straw+revolution&source=gbs_book_other_versions_r&cad=3

Why we Garden: Cultivating a sense of place
By Jim Nollman

http://books.google.com/books?id=_VbGL69Gnj0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Why+We+Garden:+Cultivating+a+Sense+of+Place&ei=mSuVS93ELJaWNYnEtNEM&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

The Language of Landscape
By Anne Whiston Spirn

http://books.google.com/books?id=pRyh6iVkWj8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Meaning+of+Gardens&source=gbs_similarbooks_s&cad=1#v=onepage&q=The%20Meaning%20of%20Gardens&f=false

Time to pick for summer

Dear Campers and potential Campers.

Art Theory Summer Camp is just around the corner, which means it is time to select four books. Below is an initial list, but I am seeking suggestions. This summer will follow past summers- a book a month for June, July, August and September.

Bruno Latour, The Making of Law.
http://www.bruno-latour.fr/livres/MAKINGOFLAW-Foreword.pdf

Slavo Zizek, In Defense of Lost Causes OR
Zizek, Violence

http://books.google.com/books?id=KBIkPV0R14sC&printsec=frontcover&dq=violence+by+zizek&source=bl&ots=6OwuiVGnv3&sig=HfvFJcuFAZ0SPl7gsAeFmCwBpKA&hl=en&ei=wj2LS6PKLoKMNqH3rfcO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=violence%20by%20zizek&f=false

Martha Nussbaum, Woman and Human Development (Capabilities theory)

http://books.google.com/books?id=9R69I--rpzUC&dq=Martha+Nussbaum+capabilites&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=cz6LS92EE5P4NduL2aUB&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CB4Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking
I am a partial Solnit fan, but think a walking focused book could be good. Suggestions?

Glenn Adamson, The Craft Reader

Art Theory Summer Camp, briefly described-

When: Weekly meetings (subject to change based on the schedules of participants)
Where: On skype
What: A book a month June-September
Who: Anyone interested and perhaps a friend

Shaping the future

"We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it. I still believe we can act even when it's hard. I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress. I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history's test."

Barack Obama, speech to Congress, 9/9/09

Somehow this speaks to me as an artist striving to develop a meaningful practice in a way I don't think it could have before I became more familiar with Bruno Latour and Lewis Hyde, in particular.

Watch the entire speech online at Huffington Post