Tag Archives: innovation

Whole Earth Flashbacks

Meet the creators of the Whole Earth Catalog and the community they inspired. We invite you to watch Whole Earth Flashbacks, our video history of the Whole Earth culture, which covers 50 years of collective innovation in just a half-hour.

Our video retrospective takes you on a dazzling journey through time, from the first Whole Earth Catalogs to the Co-Evolution Quarterly, the Whole Earth Review, the Hackers Conference, the Well, Wired, Burning Man and the 10,000 Year Clock. 

Whole Earth Flashbacks features insights from thought leaders like Stewart Brand, J. Baldwin, Lloyd Kahn, Ted Nelson, Doug Adams, Howard Rheingold, Wavy Gravy, Kevin Kelly, Larry Harvey and Danny Hillis, to name but a few. They empowered people to change the world, by giving them access to tools and ideas.

Watch the full half-hour video, right here:

This final release version is also available here on YouTube (35 minutes).

If you’re short on time, watch the quick preview for this video (17 minutes).

If you like Whole Earth Flashbacks, please share it widely in your community. It’s a great way to spread the word about this amazing culture and what we all accomplished in just a few decades.

Thousands of people have watched the video already, and their responses have been really positive, with hundreds of likes, shares, retweets and comments.

It’s also been covered here by some of our friends in the press:

• San Francisco Chronicle, by Leah Garchek

• KPFA, by Victor Bedoian

• Wired, by Bruce Sterling

• The New Yorker, by Anna Wiener

Here are a few other links you might enjoy:

• Whole Earth Lightning Talks (featuring alumni like Larry Brilliant, Carolyn Garcia, Wavy Gravy and more, recorded by my friend Gary Yost)

• Whole Earth Event Livestream (featuring public evening talks with Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and more, starting at 16:45, after our preview)

• Whole Earth Photos (with 450+ historical photos from our community)

• Whole Earth Event Photos (with 500+ mug shots of alumni at the event)

• Whole Earth Collection on the Internet Archive (hundreds of articles, sample issues, interviews and other gems, curated by Robert Horvitz)

You can learn more about our video retrospective on our planning page, which has all the production details you could ever want.

Whole Earth Flashbacks was created by Fabrice Florin, with a world-class production team: Ahmed Kabil, David Lawrence, James McKee, Robert Horvitz, Susan Ryan, Mark Petrakis, Matisse Enzer and Phyllis Florin, to name but a few.

Over 60 community members and friends graciously shared their images, videos, sounds and comments to make this retrospective possible. They are listed in the credits below. We’re very grateful to their generous contributions.

Our video premiered at the Whole Earth Catalog’s 50th Anniversary on October 13, 2018, at Fort Mason in San Francisco. Many thanks to Stewart Brand, Ryan Phelan, Danica Remy, the Point Foundation and all the amazing volunteers who organized this event and made this community creation possible! To support this worthy cause, consider making a donation to the nonprofit Point Foundation.

Whole Earth Flashbacks has the potential to become an open-source documentary, which we hope will keep evolving over time, so that it may inspire people to take action for the next 10,000 years! If you have important footage or information for this living document, or if you would like to help create another edition, please email us.

Thanks again to all the creative minds who made this production possible!

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THANKS TO OUR CONTRIBUTORS!

We are deeply grateful to all our 60+ gracious contributors for donating your content and your time to this community production. None of this could have happened without you!  

Here is our credit roll for this project. 

Producer/Director: Fabrice Florin

Executive Producers: Stewart Brand, Ryan Phelan

Video Editors: Fabrice Florin, Ahmed Kabil, David Lawrence

Sound / Music Consultant: Jim McKee, Earwax

Researchers: Robert Horvitz, Susan Ryan

Story Consultant: Mark Petrakis

Production Crew: Matisse Enzer, Phyllis Florin

VIDEOS

Ecological Design: Christopher Zelov / Brian Danitz

Lama Commune / Saline Valley: Stewart Brand

Inside the Catalog: Lloyd Kahn

Demise Party: Ant Farm, Raindance, Media Access Center, Media Burn Archive

Hackers: Fabrice Florin

WELL Party: David Kennard, InCA Productions

Cyberthon: Cyberthon Doc Squad, KO Beckman, David Lawrence, Michael Naimark

Wired: Kevin Kelly, Louis Rossetto, Wired

About Long Now: Long Now Foundation

10,000 Year Clock: Jimmy Goldblum, Public Record

Revive & Restore: Ryan Phelan, Revive & Restore

Earth Footage: NASA, International Space Station

MUSIC

Chocolate Coffe Pot: David Gans

Logical One: Rama Kolesnikow, Cruelty Free Sound

Bell Studies: Brian Eno

Eternal Structures: Asher Fulero

Vision: Christopher Willits, Ghostly International

PHOTOS

Stewart Brand, Matisse Enzer, Kevin Kelly, Ryan Phelan, Danica Remy, Howard Rheingold, David Wills contributed the most images.

Other photo contributors include: Jeanne Campbell, Hilarie Coate, John Coate, Vickisa Feinberg, James Fulton, Carolyn Garcia, Matt Herron, Art Kleiner, Isabella Kirkland, Tiffany Lee Brown, Kathleen O’Neill, Tom Parker, Alexander Rose, Don Ryan, Susan Ryan and many more!

SPECIAL THANKS

Diana Connolly, Colleen Fiaschetti, Isabella Kirkland, Art Kleiner, John Markoff, Danica Remy, Alexander Rose, Peter Schwartz, Jason Sussberg, Andrew Warner

Copyright © 2018 Point Foundation and its licensors.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.


#wholeearth50 #wholeearth50th #wholeearth #wholeearthcatalog #coevolution #well #wired #burningman #longnow #stewartbrand #pointfoundation

Maker Faire 2015: bringing together art, tech and education

Maker Faire 2015 gathered many hobbyists, artists and innovators from the growing “maker movement”.

The Maker Media tent showed visitors how to create their own projects. Photos by Fabrice Florin, CC-BY-SA-3.0.]

Maker Faire 2015 gathered many hobbyists, artists and innovators on May 16-17 at the San Mateo Fairgrounds in California. Empowered by new technologies such as 3D printing, Arduino and Raspberry Pi micro-computers, these creative enthusiasts have triggered a cultural revolution that is transforming the way we work, play, learn — and express ourselves. This growing “maker movement” just celebrated its 10th anniversary and keeps getting more interesting every year.

Maker Faire 2015 Photo by Fabrice Florin, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

I visited the Faire with Jean Bolte, a.k.a. Dr. Figurine, one of our art collaborators at Pataphysical Studios. Along with a dozen of other doctors, we are building the Pataphysical Slot Machine — a community-created poetic oracle, that’s powered by Arduino. We were there to check out the scene, on behalf of our other art friends who couldn’t come this year.

Maker Faire 2015 Photo by Fabrice Florin, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

As soon as we walked in, we were greeted with fire art from Burning Man, which always gets me inspired. Makers and burners have a lot in common, and it’s nice to see these two cultures overlap in this annual gathering. In our own work, we also try to blend art and technology, to grow an ‘art maker movement’ that draws on these diverse cultures.

Maker Faire 2015 Photo by Fabrice Florin, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

The most appealing art experiences for us were in the dark Fiesta Hall, where a wide range of light sculptures and interactive exhibits caught our eye, wherever we turned (see photos). We loved the illuminated tree of changes …

Maker Faire 2015 Photo by Fabrice Florin, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

… the flying dragon and the synchronized pods …

Maker Faire 2015 Photo by Fabrice Florin, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

… the giant giraffe …

Maker Faire 2015 Photo by Fabrice Florin, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

… the glowing cubes …

Maker Faire 2015 Photo by Fabrice Florin, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

… and the touch-sensitive mandalas.

Maker Faire 2015 Photo by Fabrice Florin, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

I loved seeing so many children getting their hands dirty and making things together in workshops throughout the show. I think this maker movement has a huge educational potential, because it encourages young people to learn with their hands, through trial and error, to solve problems in ways that can’t be taught with books and lectures. The maker mindset invites this kind of “experimental play”, and as Maker Media founder Dale Dougherty points out: “out of that process emerge new ideas, which may lead to real-world applications or new business ventures. Making is a source of innovation.”

Maker Faire 2015 Photo by Fabrice Florin, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

Robots were everywhere, in all shapes and sizes. They seemed both easier to build and more sophisticated than previous years. It’s worth noting that many of the hundreds of robots I saw were made from 3D printed parts.

Maker Faire 2015 Photo by Fabrice Florin, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

Which brings us to 3D printers. That technology has matured well — and is becoming mainstream. This year, there were more 3D printers at the Faire than ever before — and some of them were a lot more affordable for regular folks like us. Dremel now sells a reliable ‘idea printer’ for under $1,000, which is getting within our reach (see photos). With a 3D printer, I think I could make the parts we need for our Pataphysical Slot Machine a lot faster, with a better fit and higher quality.

Maker Faire 2015 Photo by Fabrice Florin, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

We had a great chat with Maker Media Lab director Marty Marfin and his crew (see group photo): we are discussing a possible installation of the Slot Machine in their new location at the Palace of Fine Arts. They greeted us warmly and gave us great tips for what software and hardware to use for 3D printing. Rhinoceros is their recommended software for creating the 3D models, and we got a nice demo of how it works.

Marty is a former sculptor and model builder and is interested in working together to create robots that look and behave more like sophisticated puppets — taking this tech-centric medium up a notch on the artistic scale. This is very much in line with what we are proposing to do with Théâtre Méchanique, so stay tuned …

Maker Faire 2015 Photo by Fabrice Florin, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

We also joined a talk with Arduino founder Massimo Banzi, who gave us a good update on how this open micro-processor platform keeps growing, enabling millions around the world to create new and interesting things. I bought my first Arduino at the 2010 Maker Faire, then had a chance to chat with Massimo in 2013 — and I can honestly say that Arduino has changed my life, giving me the ability to express myself through interactive art in ways I never thought possible.

Maker Faire 2015 Photo by Fabrice Florin, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

It’s a real pleasure to see so many hobbyists, artists and innovators join this ‘maker culture’, which is changing the way we learn and express ourselves . Over time, I’d like to help grow an ‘art maker movement’ to merge the sensibilities of artists and technologists, making our collective creations more meaningful to more people — and maybe even touching their souls.

Maker Faire 2015 Photo by Fabrice Florin, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0.

For more photos of this and previous events, check out my Maker Faire album.

And if you have any stories or links to share about Maker Faire or your own experience as a maker, feel free to share them here. That’s how we learn from each other. 🙂

Onward …