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--- groworld_vegetal_culture [2013-01-24 23:46] – [From human to vegetal scale: plant games] maja
+++ groworld_vegetal_culture [2013-01-25 01:45] – [From planetary to human scale: responsive environments] nik
@@ Line 63: / Line 63: @@
 ==== From planetary to human scale: responsive environments ====
-groWorld sprouted from conversations between artists, engineers and activists at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada in 1999. In the heat of the scorched desert, under the shade of the looming millennium, our futures seemed riddled with insurmountable dilemmas. What should we carry over into the next century? Would we still be the guardians of our own skin, or would we fall under a portfolio of patents, together with rice and ancient medicinal plants? Will humans be around for the next ten thousand years? If we are, will we walk through fertile jungles, majestic forests and buzzing meadows, or will we live underground - below sterile deserts and toxic swamps? Could we escape to outer space? Will we reach the stars? All of these questions were about events on a planetary scale that spanned glacial time, that made us wonder how could any of our individual contributions make a difference? Who isn’t tired of being chastised for not doing enough for the environment, or apathetic when one doesn’t perceive any desired effects in one’s own lifetime? We were thirsty for a sense that our presence in the world matters and that the effects of our actions can be shared with others, as proposed in the theory of consilience (Wilson 1998) and the practice of urban gardening (Wilson 1999).
+groWorld sprouted from conversations between artists, engineers and activists at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada in 1999. In the heat of the scorched desert, under the shade of the looming millennium, our futures seemed riddled with insurmountable dilemmas. What should we carry over into the next century? Would we still be the guardians of our own skin, or would we fall under a portfolio of patents, together with rice and ancient medicinal plants? Will humans still be around in next ten thousand years? Will we walk through fertile jungles, majestic forests and buzzing meadows, or will we live underground - below sterile deserts and toxic swamps? Could we escape to outer space? Will we reach the stars? All of these questions were about events on a planetary scale that spanned glacial time, that made us wonder how could any of our individual contributions make a difference? Who isn’t tired of being chastised for not doing enough for the environment, or apathetic when one doesn’t perceive any desired effects in one’s own lifetime? We were thirsty for a sense that our presence in the world matters and that the effects of our actions could be shared with others, as proposed in the theory of consilience (Wilson 1998) and the practice of urban gardening (Wilson 1999).
 It was time for us to bring conversations down to the human scale and offer participants a direct experience of the effects we can have on our immediate surroundings (in real time and in a circumscribed space). FoAM designed a forest of phantasmagoric robo-botanical trees that surrounded a responsive domed shelter – the “growth bunker.” In the warmth of the bunker, visitors were immersed in electro-luminescent light and generative sound, an environment designed to respond to people’s voices and movement. Within this space, the environmental effects of their conscious and unconscious actions became instantly apparent. As in Wim Wenders’ movie Until the End of the World, people became intoxicated by the experience of their actions rippling through the growth and decay of biomorphic light and soundscapes. The interplay between people’s actions and environmental responses encouraged deceleration and engagement. The expected instant gratification of digital entertainment was substituted with meditative explorations of ambient changes.