Happenings, Fluxus, Flash Mobs to Voina

Design and Culture, 2009

Resonance, 2015

Richard Buckminster Fuller was an American designer who created fantastic designs. His non-conformist creative design ability was augmented with an urge to realize the prototypes not only for practical demonstration but also for widespread use. His creations called for new vocabulary such as synergy, tensegrity, Dymaxion, and the eponymous Fullerene. He had a design science philosophy of his own. He thought beyond the design of artifacts. He strived for sustainable living in the global world long before these concepts became important for the world to deal with. He is described as a comprehensive anticipatory design scientist. In this article, only his physical design artifacts that include two of his lasting design contributions, namely, the tensegrity structures and the geodesic domes are discussed. Good designs bring a positive change in the world and the way we live. And great designs remain unchanged for decades, or even centuries, because nothing greater came along after them. Although everyone enjoys the benefits of good designs, the process of design itself is not understood by many because designing is an intensely creative and intellectual activity. Most often, great designs appear to be realized as a flash of an idea, a radical new thought, and a figment of the imagination of a gifted thinker. In reality, good designs, like great discoveries, come about as a result of sustained thought by creative designers who want to improve the environment around them and help change the world they live in. Buckminster Fuller was one such designer. His designs were fabulous. He thought what others did not dare think. He sought design solutions that were superior to everything else. No problem was insignificant to him, nor any problem unsolvable. He thought deeply about household cleaning chores, plumbing, driving a car, perception of size and distance in a world map, and other mundane problems. He also contemplated buildings

2016

Over forty years ago I found myself drafted in the US Army, stationed at Grafenwoehr Germany Tank Grounds. While there was not a lot to do, the base had a coffeehouse where one could have great conversations and enjoy a good cup of coffee. The coffee house was decorated with various posters. One of those posters caught my eye, it was of a dandelion with the following quote from R. Buckminster Fuller (1971), "God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun, proper or improper" (p. 23). A more exhaustive definition of this quote can be found in No More Secondhand God: Here is God's purpose-For God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun, proper or improper; is the articulation not the art, objective or subjective; is loving, not the abstraction "love" commanded or entreated; is knowledge dynamic, not legislative code, not proclamation law, not academic dogma, nor ecclesiastic cannon. Yes, God is a verb, the most active, connoting the vast harmonic reordering of the universe from unleashed chaos of energy. And there is born unheralded a great natural peace, not out of exclusive pseudo-static security but out of including, redefining, dynamic balancing. Naught is lost. Only the false and nonexistent are dispelled (Fuller, 1971, p. 23). With the spring of 1976 came my first opportunity to hear R. Buckminster Fuller (better known as "Bucky") speak at Shylock Auditorium. His reputation for giving long lectures was apparent. The lecture was exhaustive, lasting some six hours! After my stint in the military, traveling around Europe, I finished a Bachelor's degree in architecture; later moving on to a Master's degree of Environmental Design, studying in the same design department where Bucky once taught (from 1960 to 1971). The first course in the graduate program was general systems theory. This was "systems thinking." In "Learning Tomorrow: Education for a Changing World," in Buckminster Fuller on Education, Bucky (1979) quotes the natural philosopher Professor Percival Bridgman, who asked, "How do you suppose it happened that Einstein surprised all the scientists? Why were all the scientists caught off __________ 1 The following was presented as a Power Point presentation at an art symposium, honoring the work of Dr. Peter London and the opening of his collected papers and Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Design, Gestaltung, Formatività

2016

Over forty years ago I found myself drafted in the US Army, stationed at Grafenwoehr Germany Tank Grounds. While there was not a lot to do, the base had a coffeehouse where one could have great conversations and enjoy a good cup of coffee. The coffee house was decorated with various posters. One of those posters caught my eye, it was of a dandelion with the following quote from R. Buckminster Fuller (1971), "God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun, proper or improper" (p. 23). A more exhaustive definition of this quote can be found in No More Secondhand God: Here is God's purpose-For God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun, proper or improper; is the articulation not the art, objective or subjective; is loving, not the abstraction "love" commanded or entreated; is knowledge dynamic, not legislative code, not proclamation law, not academic dogma, nor ecclesiastic cannon. Yes, God is a verb, the most active, connoting the vast harmonic reordering of the universe from unleashed chaos of energy. And there is born unheralded a great natural peace, not out of exclusive pseudo-static security but out of including, redefining, dynamic balancing. Naught is lost. Only the false and nonexistent are dispelled (Fuller, 1971, p. 23). With the spring of 1976 came my first opportunity to hear R. Buckminster Fuller (better known as "Bucky") speak at Shylock Auditorium. His reputation for giving long lectures was apparent. The lecture was exhaustive, lasting some six hours! After my stint in the military, traveling around Europe, I finished a Bachelor's degree in architecture; later moving on to a Master's degree of Environmental Design, studying in the same design department where Bucky once taught (from 1960 to 1971). The first course in the graduate program was general systems theory. This was "systems thinking." In "Learning Tomorrow: Education for a Changing World," in Buckminster Fuller on Education, Bucky (1979) quotes the natural philosopher Professor Percival Bridgman, who asked, "How do you suppose it happened that Einstein surprised all the scientists? Why were all the scientists caught off __________ 1 The following was presented as a Power Point presentation at an art symposium, honoring the work of Dr. Peter London and the opening of his collected papers and Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

A Keener Perception; Ecocritical Studies in American Art History, 2009

Sustainable design-the art of designing buildings, cities, and other artifacts so that they meet current needs without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet their needs-is one of the fastest-growing areas of design practice and education. By increasing the effi ciency of human resource use, more and more designers are working to reshape contemporary society along economically, socially, and ecologically sustainable lines.

Journal of the Society for American Music, 2017

As John Cage wrote in his book A Year from Monday, the " current use for art [is] giving instances of society suitable for social imitation—suitable because they show ways. .. people can do things without being told or telling others what to do. " Cage's ideal anarchic music emphasizes not only renouncing compositional control, but also the process of self-discovery happening to everyone, a process that leads participants to discover their creative abilities. This paper argues that Cage's penchant for self-discovery came from his understanding of George Herbert Mead's theories of the process of individuation (the " me " and the " I "). Cage discovered Mead through reading Zen and American Thought (1962) by his friend Van Meter Ames, a professor of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati, who saw the compatibility between Zen and Mead's concept of self in the capacity of the " I, " a phase of self whose unpredictable steps contribute to human innovation. Cage found the possibility of overthrowing the thought of the world through triggering a self-discovery of the " I " in everyone. He realized this idea in his happenings, such as 0'00 ", by requiring performers to respond to the simple descriptions without specifying sound or duration.

Knowing Humanity in the Social World: The Path of Steve Fuller's Social Epistemology, 2018

Steve Fuller's take on Science Studies (SS) differs from that of most SS people. He disagrees with Bruno Latour on most issues. He defends the logical positivists and Karl Popper against much of postmodernism. He claims Thomas Kuhn had seriously misled the SS community. He criticizes the notions of tacit knowledge and of trust that many SS people use.

In 1969, I was in Washington, D.C., a 27 year-old editor of Seapower, a journal of maritime and naval affairs. Late one afternoon in the Spring I was approached by the director of the Navy League, a non-profit foundation that sponsored the magazine who said to me, "This is something that might interest you, Stephan. How would you like to spend the day with Buckminster Fuller?"