The World's Fair

Trees and the Depths of Nature (Landscape and Modernity: Series 4)

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:00:00 -0500

The Morning News has another stunning series of landscape photographs on display and another chance to reflect on the intersection of landscapes, nature, and technology. It's possible that each of those words should be in quotes--one point brought up by previous commenters in this Landscape and Modernity Series (the West; the pasture; the A-bomb) --to suggest better the implications of defining them. Perhaps so.

Myoung Ho Lee: Tree # 3, Archival Ink-jet print on paper, 100x80cm, 2006

These images are by Myoung Ho Lee, whose work you can find and purchase at Lens Culture. Mike Smith, who interviewed the artist at TMN, introduced it like this:

In this series, "TREE," the "photography-act" is more than a click. The canvas that frames each tree is there by human design, turning the object into a subject, pulling it out of the landscape.

Except to say that I'm most taken by the way the set-up for the pictures skews depth, flattening the canvas of the tree by use of an actual canvas behind it, and that doing so convolutes all manner of assumptions about the ways we use technologies to mediate our perceptions of non-human nature, I'll leave the reposted pics below without undue annotation.

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Hadi Dowlatabadi on the value of Integration (link to a great talk)

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:04:10 -0500

Recently, we had an opportunity to host a variety of great talks for science teachers. One of the talks was by Dr. Hadi Dowlatabadi, with an entertaining take on the value of integrating disciplines, or rather simply getting away from being so discipline focused. Anyway, here is the link that will lead you to a 25 minute talk he gave (apologies for the buzzy sound feed).

It's a great talk, with some choice quotes, in particular a reference to a certain Nobel Laureate as a grandstanding asshole.

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Tell Obama What To Do About Food and Ag Policy

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:45:00 -0500

That's what Local Foodie big shots did over at Grist. Sustainable food and ag folks (I'm not sure why this was a separate category) pitched in here.

They did so because food policy and agricultural policy (perhaps the same thing, as Michael Pollan has argued) are at once issues of health, energy, and climate change. To wit, Pollan would tell Obama to appoint "a Food Policy Czar in the White House. Why? Because, as I've written recently, progress on the all-important issues of energy independence, climate change, and health care costs depends on reform of the food system--and, crucially, an ability to connect all those dots when making policy."

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Where Science and Social Power Intersect

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:00:00 -0500

Pt. I | Pt. 2 ---

Part 2 with Keith Warner, discussing his book Agroecology in Action, follows below. All entries in the author-meets-blogger series can be found here.

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Saving the world by making a mixed tape. Give us your awesome song suggestion.

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:30:09 -0500

If you take a gander at our "Terrytalks" speaker promo video, you'll note that one of the sillier requests we had for our student speakers was to pick a song that would work if Terry talks were to have a soundtrack. If you remember, Terry talks has a fairly straight up mandate to connect students to each other over things related to social reponsibility, interdisciplinary collaborations, and/or environmental stewardship.

Anyway, what was great was that the suggested songs were so very diverse in genres. In fact, you can have a listen by clicking the tape below.

There was actually one song we can't seem to find anywhere (Skeffa Chimoto's Nabola Moyo - a Malawi hit song), but here is the mixed tape contents for your reading pleasure.

1. Ben Lee - Were All in This Together
2. Lalo Schifrin - Soundtrack Sel - Mission: Impossible
3. Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)
4. Saul Williams - List of Demands(Reparations)
5. Phoenix - Lost and Found Itunes Amazon
6. The New Pornographers - My Rights Versus Yours
7. Dolly Parton - I Will Always Love You
8. Europe - The Final Countdown

Anyway, we're also looking for other suggestions - thought this might make a nice tradition down the road. Suggest away!

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Doing a TED talks clone at my school. What do you think of our student speakers?

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:43:03 -0500

Not sure if you remember a previous mention on this, but I'm one of the folks involved in a new student conference initiative at UBC. Christianed "Terrytalks", this is basically a clone of the TED talks, where we'll offer the chance for students to share their globally relevant passions and desires to a large audience (about 400 this time around) of their peers, students, faculty and staff.

Anyway, I just made this quick promo video to highlight our student speakers. Would be great to get some feedback on the video in general (I'm generally new to video editing stuff). Would be even better if anyone can help figure out what song Idette is referring to (this will make more sense if you watch the video).

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This is it. Puzzle Fantastica #3 - the end?

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:11:24 -0500

(Previously: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4)

O.K. o.k. so I've been ultra delinquent with keeping on top of the PF3 puzzle, and for that I heartily apologize.

But here we go - the proverbial home stretch. As it stands what did happen was that somewhere in the conversation, in the comments, in the hypothesizing, the answer was indeed found.

However, in a manner that some might say happens also in the scientific process, the answer when proclaimed was done so in a way that didn't really reflect a full on "aha!" moment. Truth is, it seemed like maybe it was a lucky guess - I don't know - maybe it wasn't, but I'm of the opinion that based on the clues provided, if you know it, you would know you know it.

So... to keep things progressing, I'm going to go one step further than just saying "the answer" happened to have been uttered previously. I'm actually going to narrow it down to three of these guesses.

One of these is the real mccoy. Can you figure it out?

If it helps, click here to see a full on montage of every clue presented so far. Regardless of what happens, I'll give out the answer on Christmas day. Good luck!

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Agroecology in Action: A Scientific Response to Agro-environmental Crises, with author Keith Warner

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:00:00 -0500

Pt. I | Pt. 2 ---

The World's Fair is pleased to offer the following discussion about Agroecology in Action: Extending Alternative Agriculture through Social Networks (MIT Press, 2007), with its author Keith Warner. Warner is a Franciscan Friar and currently at Santa Clara University, where he lectures in the Religious Studies Department, and serves as assistant director for education at the Center for Science, Technology & Society.

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The Author-Meets-Blogger Homepage

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:00:00 -0500

Click on the book cover to go to Part I of the respective discussion. Or, see here for a complete list of entries.

I: M. Egan on Barry Commoner II: C. Mody on nanotechnology Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

David Foster Wallace article

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:50:00 -0500

The cruise-ship piece ["A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again"] ran in [Harper's in] January 1996, a month before [Infinite Jest] was published. People photocopied it, faxed it to each other, read it over the phone. When people tell you they're fans of David Foster Wallace, what they're often telling you is that they've read the cruise-ship piece...

It's heartbreaking, this lengthy article in Rolling Stone about David Foster Wallace. Reading the tributes and memories of DFW over at McSweeney's, you can't get away from the impression that he was just a regular guy who, oh, happened to be a genius and literary phenom of the sort that won't come along for some time again, if ever. Let's say ever. Reading the Rolling Stone article by David Lipsky leaves you with the same understanding. All people are normal, or, here, this is better, all people are the same distance from normal as anyone else since there is no such thing. I was just a reader, so how was I to know he actually seriously suffered from depression, legitimately, fatally. His distance from normal was in the wrong direction, I think the point is.

Though, to convolute my claim, I didn't realize how normal I was. Just last year I photocopied the cruise-ship piece and sent it to a friend who wanted to know why I liked Wallace. That essay was my own entry into the world of purposeful reading, if you really want to know.

Thanks to Beej, of the Purdue Beej's, for sending me the link.

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Bill Rees - Towards Sustainability: Does Science Matter?

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:41:46 -0500

Recently, we had an opportunity to host a variety of great talks for science teachers. One of the talks was by Dr. William Rees. It was a nice little introduction into the conundrum of our reliance on "progress" to fix things. In any event, here is the link that will lead you to a 25 minute talk he gave.

If you do watch it, I'd be interested to see what you think. In many ways it suggests that human behaviour is currently not well suited to dealing with an issue of this magnitude.

Interestingly, one of the questions that came up after the talk, (that I thought really nailed the going feeling in the room) was "Do you think it's important to teach students to hope?"

Thoughts?

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The Candy Hierarchy Anew (Halloween Experiment Debriefing '08)

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 08:00:00 -0500

The data presented below were first published after Halloween in 2006, here at The World's Fair. After further (non-anonymous) peer review, we pushed into the second phase of the research in 2007, as published here. We are proud to acknowledge that these earlier efforts--pilot studies, both--led to further funding. We've now been able to pursue the third phase of the work. Difficult work, yes. Labor-intensive, to be sure. Gut-wrenching, perhaps. But huge breakthroughs were in the offing. The hierarchy below includes the results of our continuing work.

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Killing Pigs Old Style, Killing 'Em New Style

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:00:00 -0500

I lectured today on technology and progress in my big-lecture class (the main thrust being: in what way is technology progress, and who says so, and why). Just before I'd watched a documentary, Our Daily Bread (and here), about the modern industrial agriculture process. It pairs very well with another documentary, Manufactured Landscapes, and in that way ties into the recent thread of "landcsape" images at the site (the West, fences, and bombs). In discussing technology and progress, the lecture was built with commentary on mechanization and the values of technical rationality. That got me to thinking of the "disassembly" line as the antecedent to the assembly line. Which leads me here to offer two images, one from 1869 that I got from Mechanization Takes Command by Siegfried Giedion, the other from Our Daily Bread.

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Our High School Science Teacher Conference - It Rocked!

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:33:05 -0500

So, this is one of the things that has been keeping me busy the last couple of weeks.

Essentially, the lab hosted a largish conference for high school science teachers (about 95 registrants) - as well, we took the tact of blogging the conference so that almost all of the content is already up (by my calculation, all content will be up by week's end).

Here are some highlights:

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Engineers and poetry

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:20:00 -0500

Friend of the Fair Oronte Churm has a note on engineers over at The Education of Oronte Churm, "The Engineers Think On It." Eating at a diner with a book of poetry in hand, he posits the engineer's quest for utility--and for order and rationality, it seems--over poetry and spirit (or so my own poetic license has it, from reading his post). I'd say his interpretation is not of any engineers I know, though they do exist in lore and in lonely corners at Virginia Tech.

They had a job to do, but they weren't going to rush it. There was pleasure in the food, companionship, and the pause, but they intended to get back to it. The work they described took neither nature nor the human into account. You were either with them or against them, and they'd be astonished if you were against them.

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