what does collective democracy look like? it's up to us.

As the “advanced” nations of the world sink deeper into financial, ecological, and moral bankruptcy, a growing contingent of the global population refuses to stand idly by while our collective future is carelessly gambled away by a rapacious few. With the aid of the internet we are tangibly connected across borders and oceans, banding together and supporting one another in droves, pooling resources, knowledge, and skills to build a do-it-ourselves grassroots revolution of a kind the world has never known. This is not a war - the Indignados and the Occupiers are not after blood – we are fighting to have our voices heard, to have our concerns and ideas considered, and to have the freedom to participate in building the kind of society we envision. It is becoming clear that many around the world share a common outrage: we are no longer willing to tolerate systems of governance that represent the wealthiest few at the expense of the many.

In Chapter 14 of his book PERMACULTURE: A Designer’s Manual Bill Mollison offers a brilliant, concise outline of “Strategies for an Alternative Nation”.  Mollison, who together with David Holmgren coined the term “permaculture” to describe a holistic approach to cultivating healthy ecosystems and societies, begins the chapter by suggesting that a stable nation is formed when members share a basic set of ethical values, such as willingness to strive together towards “an harmonious world community”.

While this may at first seem like an ambitious objective, there are practical steps that can be taken in an earnest effort to arrive at a common ethos, beginning with reconsidering our rolls as individuals and citizens in an increasingly globalized society.

Practically from birth, we are taught to compartmentalize: we learn that we are separate from our parents, our siblings, our classmates. We learn that we are separate from those with other beliefs, nationalities, or skin pigmentation, and sometimes we acquire hostilities toward those we deem different from ourselves. Rather than learning to focus on our inherent similarities and accepting any apparent differences as superficial, so often we are led to believe just the opposite. As we become alienated from our environment and fellow creatures, we also become divorced from a sense of responsibility to participate in taking care of the world around us. When we stop caring, we relinquish the power to make decisions about our needs to whatever entity thinks it knows best.

Fortunately it is quite easy to discover that we are not, in fact, autonomous agents – our actions have very tangible effects ­– well into the future ­– on everything and everyone with whom we interact. By suspending the tendency to separate and polarize, we can begin to see connections not only between individuals, disciplines, and philosophies; we also begin to see the way our beliefs, thoughts, actions, and decisions shape our world.

Who is to say what beliefs, thoughts, actions, and decisions are the right ones for an entire society? This brings us to the precarious question of freedom, that crucial thing that so many on all sides of the political spectrum claim to understand best, and feel is being impinged. Some define freedom as the ability to act in any way one chooses, so long as that action does not do harm to another. But in order to settle on this definition we must first discuss “harm”, and decide how much harm is acceptable, not only to other people, but from the perspective of permaculture, we must also take into account harm to the planet.

In thinking about our definition of freedom, we may agree that, while we must be free to think in any way we choose, certain actions are more likely to lead to greater harm than others. We may also determine that some of our desires stem less from true inner longings and more from external persuasion, often from a commercial entity that has something to gain by capturing our attention.

By asking ourselves a few questions, we can begin to open a dialog on how to build a free society that also has a common ethical basis. The Iroquois Nation People, for example, have long engaged a rule of thumb: what effect will my present actions have on the “seventh generation” ­– approximately 100 years into the future? How would our behavior change if we were to routinely ask ourselves similar questions, such as who will be affected by my choices and how? Is there a more positive, constructive, efficient course of action? If I have plenty and my neighbor is starving, which will provide me with a greater sense of security and well-being: sharing or hoarding?

There are no singular, hard-and-fast “right” answers to any of these questions – rather, it is the process of honestly addressing them that has the potential to reveal the truly subtle, complex, and powerful ways in which we are connected to our communities and our culture. By allowing ourselves to think in less linear, literal, rigid ways and by instead cultivating forms of thought and dialog that are more encompassing, cyclical, and even accepting of contradiction and paradox, we may discover new ways to relate and cooperate with forces once seen as opposing.

This proposed method of discussion stands in stark contrast to the more common form of debate in which participants attempt to “win” at all costs, often by employing emotional persuasion (rhetoric) rather than reasoned argument. Instead of aiming to overpower an opponent, those engaged in discussion based on dialectical methods agree at the outset that there may be more than one answer to a problem, and that all answers may lead to more questions, allowing for open-ended, continuously-evolving perspectives.

Willing members of a collective democracy agree to participate in creating an harmonious world community, each in his or her own unique way, beginning with the state of his or her own immediate situation. What this means, and where we go from here, is up to us.

Cross-posted with the Collective Democracy blog. 
Published in Truth-out.org on August 14, 2012

PARADOX

subtlety, nuance, and contradiction are inherent to reality, and are essential parts of a meaningful dialog. let's not only acknowledge paradox, let's celebrate it.

the covert power of creativity

Because conceptual art can exist in non-material forms, one could argue that it is not only one of the most sustainable forms of creative practice, but also one of the most radical in its potential to challenge conventional thinking. To a tremendous extent, commercial media—whose primary function is to persuade its audience to consume—influences current prevailing thought. Conceptual art, by contrast, is often non-commodifiable; the value of an idea can supersede conventional methods of quantification, lending it a subtle, subversive, status-quo-defying kind of power.

The notion that all ecosystems, cultures, disciplines and systems are interconnected, and that we can cultivate a more efficient, healthy and satisfying existence by appreciating more and consuming less, run counter to the mainstream. In spite of the relentless promotion of the consumer mindset, one can find ample evidence of the tremendous human impulse to freely share and exchange information and other commodities simply by perusing the internet (the most culture-altering, wisdom-liberating development since Gutenberg introduced moveable type to Europe in 1439). Practical knowledge—including instructions on permaculture design, DIY, open source and appropriate technologies, petitions and calls for political and social action—is disseminated free of charge by those who, knowingly or not, describe a new social paradigm based on reciprocity, fair exchange and mutual benefit.

German artist/activist Joseph Beuys (1921 – 1986) believed that when individuals contribute to the betterment of society by infusing everyday actions with creativity and reverence for nature then “everyone is an artist.” He considered the fruits of such labor “social sculpture.”

I didn’t know about Beuys when I first set out to combine art and science by seeking a degree in marine biology, then going on to study scientific illustration. As the detrimental effects of reckless human activity on the environment have become all the more obvious, my urge to express the intangible, profound mysteries contained in the natural world has intensified. My technical renderings have morphed into multimedia “philosoprops,” works that challenge conventional boundaries between disciplines and spark dialog around social, political and ecological topics. While most of these pieces have a physical component, their essence is really the ideas behind them—and these are free for the taking.

For example, the concept behind my sonic fabric—a textile woven from cassette tape overdubbed with intricate collages of sound—alludes to the ultimate interconnectedness of everything. While I wholeheartedly embrace opportunities to repurpose materials, sonic fabric was not intended as a statement about recycling, per se. Rather, the project was inspired by theories in quantum physics suggesting that everything, at the most basic level, is composed of little more than vibration. When all the vibrations are woven together, the result is one exquisite, unified cacophony.

Like Beuys, I believe that by cultivating a relationship with nature and by honing and engaging personal creative aptitudes, everyone can become a catalyst for social transformation. While the powers-that-be wage an insidious war on the freedom to share information, the subversive force of cooperation and exchange is vastly underestimated, even by those with the potential to wield it. Shifts in the course of our culture depend on the quality of our thoughts. Everyone is a catalyst.

Published at The Sustainability Review, April 19, 2012

the visible, the invisible, and the indivisible

Prevailing thought is like prevailing wind; it requires less effort to allow oneself to be carried along than to set a course that goes against it. Also like wind, thought is often presumed to be invisible. But one can quite easily learn to observe the effects of both on tangible objects, and thereby gain the ability to harness the power of either.

The first lesson in sailing usually occurs on the shoreline. Students are invited to determine from which direction the wind is blowing by looking for clues: flags, trees, boats at anchor, the feel of the breeze on one’s own skin, and through careful observation of subtle variations in the texture of wavelets on the surface of the water itself.

In order to see thought, one only needs to look around oneself. The urge to connect turns into telephones, televisions, and the internet. The inclination to travel manifests as cars, ships, planes, and trains. The need for social organization is revealed in our political systems. And so forth and so on…

But what is a thought, exactly? An electrochemical impulse? Does it require an embodied agent, or is it possible that ambient electrochemical forces cause matter to coalesce into particular patterns and configurations, resulting in the infinite variety of artifacts we find ourselves among? Needs, longings, and desires arrive with the distinct sensation that they are ours alone – but couldn’t the existence of a tree be the outward expression of a fundamental “need” in the universe for an efficient, multifunctional carbon dioxide processing unit?

Sophisticated new investigative apparatus developed around the 17^th century in the form of telescopes and microscopes suggested to their human operators that the world around us could be broken down into parts, and that we ourselves are unique entities that are distinctly separated from the environment in which we find ourselves. Galileo declared “Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.”  That which could not be made measureable was granted an air of dubiousness, if not eliminated outright.

The scientific method (i.e.: formulate a hypothesis, design and implement an experiment, analyze the result, repeat), however useful it may be for technical applications, was never really intended as an all-purpose standard to which social and philosophical principles should also be applied. Just because we cannot measure intuition, love, compassion, grief, or inspiration certainly does not mean that these things do not exist, or that they are somehow inferior to that which is tangible. Over the course of the past 400 years as human culture has become increasingly industrialized, we have also become more compartmentalized. As we’ve come to put less value on the immeasurable, we’ve rationalized ourselves into a state of intolerance of the nuanced, the complex, the seemingly paradoxical. Things that could be taken as two sides of the same coin are instead viewed as diametrically opposed: art vs. science, religion vs. reason, classical vs. quantum physics; determinism vs. free will; left (hemisphere of the brain or political party) vs. right.

Ironically, at the same time that scientific rationalism has come to dominate prevailing thought, science itself has taken a turn towards subtlety. With advances in quantum theory, we are moving into a strange new domain where things do not function according to the orderly and predictable rules that we have come to rely upon. Tests with subatomic particles are not only practically unrepeatable; they reveal that the very nature of our experiments makes objective observation impossible.

Fortunately there are many other ways to collect and interpret information about our reality. The ability to hold several seemingly contradictory views simultaneously, the willingness to cultivate, explore, and trust subtle sensory signals, the boldness and endurance required to set a course that defies the dominant paradigm – this is the domain of certain artists, poets, musicians, shamans, ecologists, permaculturists, philosophers, and others adept at seeing and feeling connections to the obscured dimensions and forces of nature that others neglect to notice.

Throughout history visionary practitioners from every field of human knowledge have felt compelled to share their particular mode of data processing. A few notable examples might include musician John Coltrane, conceptual artist/social-environmental activist Joseph Beuys, quantum physicist/philosopher David Bohm, writer/scientist Wolfgang Von Goethe, physician/natural scientist Hans Jenny, spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, inventor/futurist Buckminster Fuller, and poet Allen Ginsberg. Through their work, each of these individuals has given form to the otherwise invisible/inaudible. The products of their inspiration resonate in those who experience them – our senses know them to be true without analytical proof.

Goethe called investigation that involves a kind of connectedness to and empathic understanding of a subject delicate empiricism. Beuys believed that by becoming more attuned to the subtle forces of the ecosystems we inhabit we can rediscover innate aptitudes that will help us to mend ourselves, our communities, and the planet. He believed that it is the job of both shamans and artists to shake people out of ordinary, habitual states of mind and to reawaken latent faculties.

Even slight shifts in individual and collective values and intentions could quickly bring new sets of priorities into the mainstream, radically altering prevailing thought. Like a flock of starlings that moves in an elegant cloud of instinctive, constantly modulating cooperation, changes of mind can have an instantaneous ripple effect across an entire culture. When Beuys said everyone is an artist he implied that each of us is not only capable of accessing the same mysterious, improbable, constantly unfolding, infinitely creative phenomena – we are the phenomena. Each of us is an outcropping, an empathic agent of transformation, wired to receive, process, and transmit.

To hone one’s connection with this font of supreme imagination, Allen Ginsberg prescribed this simple but profound experiment to aspiring creative practitioners: “Notice what you notice.” Like a single pebble out of thousands that catches your glance on the beach, the things you find yourself aware of – and the state of awareness itself – these are the clues. Each of us is a receptor for a different part of the same sublime puzzle. Evidence is everywhere. The investigation never ends.


Published in the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts Quarterly, Dec. 2012

after existential crisis comes occupying everywhere: a revolution of meaning, reunification, and collaboration.

As common as the idea that reality is connected to consciousness may be in theory, few of us go through life with a viable understanding of what this might mean in practice. Perhaps this is because so many facets of western culture reinforce the sensation of separateness and undermine feelings of connection in ways both subtle and overt. Competition, individualism, and selfishness in their most extreme forms are advocated as survival skills. The world comes complete with distinct borders, countries, religions, teams, traditions, and national identities that make it seem as if we humans have more differences than commonalities.

But on some level, many of us have a hunch that this isn’t quite right. Our complex biological sensory systems tell us that being included and cared for feels better than being alone and left out. We experience empathy and compassion for complete strangers who are suffering. If we’re very fortunate, we may even have been in love, in which case we have unquantifiable yet very powerful evidence that profound emotional connectedness is a very real phenomenon – we feel another person’s pain, we experience their joy in sometimes all-too-tangible ways.

As humans we arrive preinstalled with sophisticated organs of perception – and yet somehow we’ve come to trust external sources of knowledge more than our own instincts. It’s my hypothesis that our collective guts can only handle so much conflicting data before they begin to pipe up, creating a subtle but piercing kind of dissonance that is hard to ignore.

How much conflicting data does it take to produce extrasensory feedback loud enough to produce a global cacophony? A rough estimate: about 300 years’ worth. Prior to that, art, science, and spirituality were practiced as interconnected parts of an overarching, holistic philosophy of nature. By the 17^th century, Bacon, Newton, Galileo, Descartes, and others had introduced the idea of a universe made of separate parts connected by generic, impersonal forces. Rather than simply accept the “scientific method” as an important new way of collecting information about the workings of the world while continuing to embrace the notion that intuition and imagination serve different but equally valid functions, a battle of the paradigms ensued that still rages to this day.

Since the 1700’s, in the “western” world at least, our formerly holistic vision of the cosmos has been undermined by learned separateness. But the internal data we’re receiving tells us that the old notions of mind vs. matter, science vs. art vs. religion, observer vs. observed just aren’t holding up. Meanwhile, current breakthroughs in science are also suggesting that things may not be as they’ve seemed ­– multiple, even seemingly opposed scenarios can exist simultaneously, things that appear incompatible may be different facets of the same jewel – separateness is truly an illusion.

I believe that the OCCUPY movement, in concert with other uprisings in progress around the world, marks a new kind of "Enlightenment", one of collective recognition of the importance of interconnectedness – between disciplines, cultures, and communities – and of consciousness, in the sense that individuals are realizing the power of personal and collective participatory action, intention, and collaboration.

The monumental challenges that humanity faces today on a global scale are the result of 300 years’ worth of compartmentalizing and un-holistic thinking – when the earth’s “resources” such as ancient forests, oceans, rivers, oil and coal deposits, creatures, and even human beings are seized and exploited for the convenience and profit of the few without regard for environmental or moral costs, when pharmaceuticals are developed for outrageous profit without regard for the true causes of disease, when people are told that peace is not possible without war, that our planet’s biosphere is too large to be disrupted by the follies of man, that health care and education are too costly while “defense” and tax breaks for the rich are imperative, that we should fear rather than love our neighbors, that our voices and actions are too small to make a difference…

Not long ago a select few in control of the largest media outlets had the power to manipulate prevailing thought. But 2011 has been the year of radical, world-shifting information-sharing and citizen journalism. Armed only with small electronic devices connected to a common network, we developed ways to pool our resources in the form of information and ideas. Radical rejection of helplessness has been the catalyst for individual and collective action. We learned that “occupying” has both physical and mental components – we can occupy any location at any moment simply by refusing to participate in a broken system to the greatest extent possible. By taking personal responsibility for social and environmental justice in every facet of our lives, from how we acquire food to where we shop and bank to the quantity and quality of the resources we consume, each of us can help create the sustainable, healthy, and just society we envision.

It is at the precise moment when existence seems the most futile and absurd – when we have nothing left to lose – that extreme anger and frustration can suddenly morph into a radical sense of freedom that fuels empowerment and a commitment to act.

In the past year we have not only borne witness to the release of Wikileaks, the start of the MENA revolutions, the rise of the Indignados in Spain, Anonymous, and so much more – as a result of social networks many of us have been active participants in these historic events. We have offered support and held space as our friends and colleagues have been beaten, arrested, and oppressed, and as they have succeeded in toppling tyrants and putting their oppressors to shame. The chills we feel when physically participating in – or experiencing virtually – a radical act is evidence of the veracity of our connection. It is also a healthy symptom of the re-infusion of our existences with meaning.

the rubin's tube

art of interconnectedness - goethe's game

goethe's game (the mesa), a conceptual artwork based on 1970's "booby trap" toy from alyce santoro on Vimeo.

weekend hosted by ballroom marfa

the SOS opening weekend was a smashing success. lots of pictures from the event are now available on the ballroom marfa website.

invitation to sos launch hosted by ballroom marfa in marfa, texas

the social & scientific implications of the perfectly round tortilla with enrique madrid

Texas/Mexico border historian/scholar Enrique Madrid and his wife Ruby offer a lesson on how to prepare traditional Mexican recipes, including Enrique's theory that perfectly round tortillas that obey the very same laws of physics as the universe milliseconds after the Big Bang. Enrique and Ruby feel strongly that teaching people how to cook simple, wholesome food helps to preserve traditions and keeps "endangered flavors" alive. Sustenance - both physical and philosophical - provides individuals and families with the means to thrive, and creates bonds within communities and between cultures.

It so happened that I posted this video on the same day that an article on the very same subject titled Holy Frijole by Jake Silverstein was published in Texas Monthly.

everyone as activist

Everyone as activist: the Synergetic Omni-Solution
by Alyce Santoro | March 15, 2011, 2:42 pm Waging Non-Violence.org

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality,” Buckminster Fuller said. “To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” In 2007, the Buckminster Fuller Institute began offering an annual $100,000 prize to the individual or team who could present the most practical, efficient, viable way to make a poorly functioning aspect of the existing reality obsolete. Bucky called this kind of solution a “trimtab,” named for the tiny rudder on an enormous ship that is ultimately responsible for steering. I wasn’t ready to enter the competition that year, but from then on, my mind began working around the clock on the riddle of the trimtab. What universally accessible and implementable strategy could bring as many people on board as possible, inspiring contributors to take immediate action using whatever materials may be at hand?

I began to study and implement appropriate technologies and permaculture. I started a Facebook group called USE HALF NOW to explore the notion that more mindful consumption may be an efficient place for many to begin (at least for those of us living in “overdeveloped” countries). I studied the wildly successful conservation and Victory Garden campaigns introduced in the U.S. and Britain during World War II. Leaders called on citizens to “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without,” and people ably complied. I wondered, what if a similar campaign could be put forth today? What if people were simply invited to have a stake in creating a healthier, more peaceful world? What if the sense of helplessness, disempowerment, and defeat that seems to pervade our culture could be overcome, simply by suggesting that each of us contribute to the solution in whatever ways make the most sense to us? Perhaps the fastest-acting, most accessible trimtab would not appear as some new magic-bullet “green” technology—instead it might come in the form of a radical mental shift.

The German artist Joseph Beuys practiced social sculpture, a kind of art-activism that called upon audiences to participate. He believed that everyone, by infusing even the most mundane action with a sense of purpose and creativity, could contribute to ones’ own health and the health of society and the environment at large. By so doing, he proposed that “everyone is an artist” of their chosen vocation. Beuys taught that in order for social transformation to be truly constructive and enduring, methods used to achieve it must be as holistic and inclusive as possible.

21st-century advances in internet technology and network accessibility offer extraordinary new tools for the contemporary social sculptor. Interactive initiatives based on the dissemination and sharing of information have far greater potential than during any other age in history. Inspired by the developing power of virtual networks, the spirit of the 1940’s conservation campaigns, and the Buckminster Fuller Challenge itself, after four years of deep consideration, it finally seemed that an opportune moment to present a formal application to the Challenge had arrived.

My proposal, “The Instant & Efficient Comprehensive & Synergetic Omni-Solution,” is a customizable, interdisciplinary, collaborative, philosophical approach to social change. It’s a conceptual framework within which to investigate our inherent interconnectedness and shared responsibility for the health of one another and our environment. SOS is at once a call to action, a compendium of possible strategies, and a means of describing, documenting, and contributing to do-it-ourselves revolutions currently underway around the world. It draws parallels between simple, emotionally-rewarding, system-defying action—such as line-drying laundry, freecycling, and home-growing food—and more complex, radical measures undertaken by those demanding basic human rights and an end to oppressive regimes. By cultivating a willingness to commit to small actions, one may become psychologically prepared to participate in and initiate larger ones.

Through the Synergetic Omni-Solution website, the SOS Facebook page, interviews with visionaries and activists, interdisciplinary art installations, and happenings such as the weekend of SOS launch events to be hosted by Ballroom Marfa in late April 2011 in Marfa, Texas, I plan to compile examples of innovative works in progress by others, connect dots, and gather collaborators. As the project proceeds, data will be collected from those in a wide range of fields—alternative agriculture, music, art, politics, history, philosophy, economics, and social, political, and environmental activism—and condensed into concise, comprehensive, strategic booklets, posters, videos, and multimedia guides to be disseminated digitally and via alternative media outlets.

To carry Beuys’ proposition a bit further, perhaps infusing actions with purpose and personal creativity not only makes us into artists, it makes us into activists as well. Realizing the power we have as individuals to shape the world may be the most efficient, accessible, renewable resource available to us—and also the most often overlooked. By approaching issues that affect us all from the standpoint of how to create the greatest health for the greatest number, through shared information and compassionate action, together we have an opportunity to craft a trimtab that's more beautiful and efficient than anything any one of us alone could have imagined.

makers: DIY agents of social change

by: Alyce Santoro, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

EVERYONE IS AN ARTIST

As our society collectively awakens to the realization that it must devise ways to stem the hemorrhaging caused by years of denial and excess, and as the DIY (do-it-yourself) movement grows in popularity, Joseph Beuys’ words “Everyone Is An Artist” ring all the more true. Beuys, who referred to himself as a “social sculptor”, believed strongly not that everyone should make (so-called) fine art, but that everyone can live a richer and more meaningful life by infusing any vocation or action with his or her own personal creativity.

From the 1950’s through the mid-1980’s, Beuys expressed the notion that personal creativity could be cultivated and honed by connecting with nature and by developing a more intimate relationship with it. He believed that individuals, as well as our entire society could be healed by returning to a simpler way of life, and by becoming more attuned to the subtle, ineffable forces of the ecosystems we inhabit.

EVERYONE IS A SHAMAN

Some call one who consciously connects to, communicates with, and elaborates on the intangible a shaman. Some called Joseph Beuys that. Most just called him an artist. Shamans, artists, cooks, gardeners, scientists, inventors and all others who bring imaginary things out of the realm of the intangible to help give them form routinely benefit from enhanced access to the mysterious force of inspiration. In this sense, everyone is a shaman as well.

And as people begin to seek opportunities to “do it themselves” they are exercising a form of personal creativity that has been largely neglected in our culture for far too long. A basic fact of existence that has been all but forgotten is that human happiness and the sense of freedom depends largely on the ability to express personal creativity. Beuys also famously said, “To make people free is the aim of art. Therefore art for me is the science of freedom”.

THE JOY OF FLUXUS

It is possible that the reshuffling of our collective deck, while discomfiting at times, will ultimately result in an overall increase in happiness as people come to realize that we were misguided in relating the ravenous, mindless accumulation of stuff to personal joy, and as we begin to experience instead the sense of simple, profound satisfaction that comes from planting a seed, sewing on a button, or cooking a meal from scratch.

AUTONOMY AS RADICAL ACT

Consciously creative types (“makers” as they have come to be known) are returning to the sort of DIY approach to the creating and sharing of their work that the fluxus artists of the 1960’s and 70’s pioneered – only now we have the internet. Websites, blogs, and social networks have made the notion of the white box/velvet rope style gallery virtually obsolete - now everyone has the same access to the same art and artists, from the comfort and privacy of their own homes. Sculptors can create installations in a basement, musicians can give concerts in their living rooms, writers can publish in an instant – and everything can be shared with millions of people across the globe.

DIGITAL PIONEERING

The internet is a fascinating artifact of the fundamental human longing to connect. The telegraph, telephone, and television are all apparatus devised to facilitate communication. The internet takes it all a step further – now we are able to pool resources, share information, and generate tangible links. In 1998 Howard Rheingold, an early internet researcher and pioneer, published a brilliant article called Thinking About Thinking About Technology in the Institute of Noetic Sciences newsletter. In the piece, Mr. Rheingold posits that for new technology to develop into tools for enhancement of creativity and “mind amplification” as opposed to becoming merely a source of “disinfotainment” we must develop a philosophical framework within which it can evolve. That was 12 years ago. Now we can say for certain that technology, devoid of philosophical framework, will become everything that we are - enriching and distracting, elegant and dangerous, brilliant and ridiculous.

Technology has arrived at a point in its evolution when it is exceptionally easy for the maker to direct all aspects of his or her own creation, from inception to publication, marketing, and dissemination. From Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger to Ebay, Etsy, and YouTube, it is an exciting time for the DIY innovator.

INTERNET AS CAVE WALL

Technologies for the amplification and enhancement of imagination and conscious intent have existed in every aspect of human culture at least since the first cave painting was created. Modern western civilization’s fanatic rejection of the unquantifiable has, in many ways, done us a great disservice. To trust only that which can be measured negates inspiration, intuition, and imagination – some of humanity’s most precious attributes.

Perhaps Joseph Beuys was right - reenchantment with the intangible, reverence for nature, and an open-minded acceptance of alternative modes of perception may make it possible for humanity to emerge from this period of economic, environmental, and social upheaval and reevaluation into a more peaceful and contented era. By perceiving ourselves as artists of our own particular medium (be it plumbing, politics, cooking, medicine, teaching, healing, engineering, or painting), we have an opportunity to sculpt our very culture into a masterpiece that’s beyond our wildest collective imagination. We just need to keep in mind that technology is only an electronic, externalized version of some far more sophisticated software that exists inside all of us, preinstalled. There’s no Google search that can tell us how to use it, however. For that we’ll need to move away from the machines, and step outside.

the revolution is US: a hypothesis/work-in-progress

Buckminster Fuller said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” The Synergetic Omni-Solution is a way of describing how new models are emerging. Synergetic Omni-Solutions can be seen in decentralized, leaderless transformations happening around the world, right now, in every facet of society from freedom fighters in north Africa and the Middle East, to organic farmers, to creators and advocates of appropriate technologies and local economies. Many of us cannot wait any longer for change to happen – we can only take so much more-of-the-same before we arrive at the stark realization that if we want a different model, we’re going to have to build it ourselves using whatever materials are at hand.

Historically, certain individuals have served as catalysts – visionaries who by accident or design capture the sentiment of a population and, by acting on an impulse that resonates across a culture, awaken others to their cause. But Rosa Parkses, César Chávezes, Gandhis, and Mohamed Bouazizis are not born in a vacuum. They are extraordinary conduits, tips of icebergs. It may require thousands or millions of people all feeling a certain way at the same time to produce a single individual who seizes the urge to act, unlocking a gate through which others may follow. The Synergetic Omni-Solution is an effort to minimize this ratio by testing the theory that everyone possesses a unique key – it’s just a matter of recognizing it, and deciding to use it to open the lock.

Buckminster Fuller used the word “synergetic” to describe an ideal system or philosophy that results when unique parts are elegantly integrated to create a greater whole. He often attached the prefix “omni” to words to emphasize their universality – omni-cooperative, omni-inclusive. Synergetic Omni-Solutions, while they may be small in and of themselves, contribute in a positive way to society as a whole. I think of the grandmothers who never dreamed of participating in a political demonstration who made tea to share with protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

So often media and political leadership - in western culture, at least – discourages the tea makers by glorifying competitive spirit and rugged individualism while downplaying or even demonizing approaches intended to benefit the greatest number. Fear mongering news outlets are inherently disempowering, constantly reminding audiences that individuals are helpless, that the world’s problems are too complex and overwhelming for the actions of one person to make a difference. This theme assuages the conscience of the uninvolved – if actions don’t matter, then we are not responsible for the manufacture of our predicament.

Leaders took a very different approach during WWII. In the 1940’s U.S. and British “War Advertising Councils” launched extraordinary media campaigns based on slogans such as “Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do, or Do Without.” These wildly successful initiatives not only promoted self-sufficiency and conservation of resources during tumultuous times; perhaps most importantly, they united citizens behind a common cause. The public was invited to participate in solutions, and entire nations rose to meet the challenge. Today we face all manner of global crises - economic, environmental, political, social - and yet those in positions of leadership overlook an important opportunity to invite us to play a roll in helping to resolve them.

The Synergetic Omni-Solution is this invitation. Buckminster Fuller understood the challenges that lay ahead for humanity, but remained optimistic that our extraordinary abilities to innovate and cooperate would enable us to avert them. The SOS proposes that a new participatory model for planet-preservation and regeneration is already underway at the grassroots level, and seeks to hasten and strengthen its growth by identifying, highlighting, and encouraging engagement in this phenomenon. Every action - from seed planting to tea making to twittering - that reinforces the notion that the things that unite us are more powerful than the things that divide us contributes to the SOS.

On the final page of “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth”, Buckminster Fuller offers his insight into how he believes humanity will ultimately avert disaster: our problems, he says, will be resolved by the computer. Certainly Bucky understood the computer’s potential as a tool for computation and design – but it’s hard not to wonder if he had some inkling of its potential as an interactive information sharing and culture-connecting device. YouTube, twitter, facebook, Instructables, flickr, SoundCloud, Wikipedia…the list of resources driven by users’ willingness to freely share and exchange knowledge is endless. Wikileaks, Avaaz, and We are all Khaled Said are just a few among thousands of examples of internet-based initiatives designed to bring injustices to light and direct and inspire social action. Those who follow the Egyptian revolution via social networks can attest to the powerful sense of community that has arisen as a result of the protesters’ ability to broadcast their message using ubiquitous technology, connecting and communicating with sympathizers around the world in real time. The momentum and immediate, widespread engagement made possible by the Internet can be applied to people-powered, grassroots revolutions of all kinds. By facilitating the pooling and dissemination of resources such as information, resolve, and passion, and by allowing us to join forces around common goals that transcend nationality, religion, and geography, the Internet is helping humanity to understand that we are all connected to one another in ways that are unaffected by signal strength and persist long after we shut our laptops.

The Instant & Efficient Comprehensive & Synergetic Omni-Solution exists wherever and whenever any individual chooses to infuse an action, however minute, with creativity and purpose for the sake of a greater good. The SOS website and real-world activities are efforts to acknowledge and further these revolutionary phenomena by documenting, sharing, and contributing to them. For more information, please visit alycesantoro.com, our entry into the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, and our launch event at Ballroom Marfa in Marfa, Texas during the last weekend in April. All are welcome!

synergetic omni-solution launch in marfa, texas

ballroom marfa has generously offered to host the official launch of the synergetic omni-solution during the weekend of april 29 thru may 2 in marfa, texas. please click here for details.

"The entire universe is in tension." - R. Buckminster Fuller