Inspiration
09.19.08
Spaceship Earth 1
Hello from the Great White North. The land of the gentle red maple leaf. The "We-Walk-Quietly-While-You-Carry-A-Big-Stick" country. Dusting off my layman's French and giving Quebecois a go, on this brisk 32 degree night I'm actually writing about something still in NYC: Starting With The Universe at the Whitney, a retrospective of the "comprehensive anticipatory design scientist" Buckminster Fuller. Go if you can, the show closes Sunday.
Though kind of campy in its mid-century magazine and film documentation, the show is well-placed right now, when green and alternative energies are at the top of our concerns, (if not completely trendy). Fuller believed, (like Charles and Ray Eames), in bringing the best design to the most amount of people; but he may have gone further by imagining, drafting and producing homes, transport, communities, etc. all in the hope of a responsible and conserving utopia...not an inaccessible, exclusive dream, but a probable, actual, doable reality.
Though kind of campy in its mid-century magazine and film documentation, the show is well-placed right now, when green and alternative energies are at the top of our concerns, (if not completely trendy). Fuller believed, (like Charles and Ray Eames), in bringing the best design to the most amount of people; but he may have gone further by imagining, drafting and producing homes, transport, communities, etc. all in the hope of a responsible and conserving utopia...not an inaccessible, exclusive dream, but a probable, actual, doable reality.
The dymaxion car on the first level is a bizarre teardrop albatross, but got up to 50mpg and actually pivots a 300 degree angle, (for perfect parallel parking!) The 4th floor covers Fuller's collaborations with Isamu Noguchi and Shoji Sadao on architectural works around the world, and comments on his effects on the scientific community. (Um, forget about the Andy Warhol factory shindigs of the 60's, my time machine would take me to those science / design parties instead. How cool would it be to chat about the shape of your posthumous namesake molecule, in his case the "c60- buckminsterfullerene" and later, BuckyBalls...)
Though I have to brush up on the terms he coined on tetrahedrons, tensegrities and jitterbug transformations, it was refreshing to see finished pieces "screenprinted in white ink on clear film overlaid on lenox paper." If you believe in markmaking, plotting, or mapping at all, I think you'd enjoy this work. I found it one of the most complete exhibitions in the city; along with the Whitney retrospective, it also included a Cooper Union lecture series, a twitter page, and the Architectural League's streaming podcasts from the BF Institute.
To round out my total or ahem, Full(er) experience tomorrow I'm headed to his Montreal Bioshere (not to be confused with the Biohome, Biodome, or the sadly failed Arizona experiment Bioshere 2). On a 
small green island perched above Quebec's St. Lawrence River, the Biosphere heralded the opening of the 1967 World Expo. The outside material caught fire in the 70's, but the sketetal structure still remains an solid piece of the Montreal skyline.
small green island perched above Quebec's St. Lawrence River, the Biosphere heralded the opening of the 1967 World Expo. The outside material caught fire in the 70's, but the sketetal structure still remains an solid piece of the Montreal skyline. On my next post I'll tag more links to all of the above, just wanted to give a heads up about the Whitney show closing. I think as art directors and designers we have to oscillate between worlds; illustration, edit, photography, music, architecture, science, whatever ...this guy was doing the cross-platform blending before most of us were born. I'd love to hear what anyone else thinks...bon soir /// h
(ps. in regards to this post title, BF said: "The thing about Spaceship Earth, it didn't come with an instruction booklet."
