mezomian community?

video talk on eventality and sustension

a matter of algorithms

Good thing the internet is so full of stuff always, so I don'¨t have to feel bad about not posting regularly, would love to, but, well... enough of that. Here are some thoughts in the making of an article for a collection on sustainability as a cultural concept, which will be published in january 2008 with Sacha Kagan as editor and a lot of beautiful contributions, more about that later.

---

I am working on building in a concept of the algorithm into the theory of eventality that I am using to describe the kinds of changes that seem to me to be called for if "sustainable culture" is to make its way into our worlds of social interaction.

Now, the problem of course is that where the event is also a logical and mathematical term, it also has a range of other uses, so I can allow myself to work through it without too much worrying about the mix of humanities and mathematics in that work. Whereas the algorithm is obviously a mathematical term, and I know already that if I start using it seriously, and people start reading this, I will be accused of transferring uncritically ideas from mathematics (and bad maths, as I am no mathematician) to matters of culture - which will probably be seen as a sin to both one field and the other.

So why speak of algorithms at all? And what is the relevance of algorithms when sepaking of events?

Text by Hans Dieleman about our joint project

The Flowers of Sustainability at the Venice Biennale 2007

“Flowers of Sustainability” is a sympoïetic event that takes place on September 6, 2007. It is part of the "Joseph Beuys: Difesa della natura, the Living Sculpture, 100 days in Spazio Thetis, Venezia. The aim of the event is to move the discussion of sustainability from a very general and abstract opinion, to more direct prisms of interaction between people. In that, the experiment is in watching the move from problem calling to solutions, creations, or expressions. The main element is the “flower of sustainability”, a visual and textual aid to bring out reflexion and ideas on how to live with sustainability.(check out!!: www.cultura21.net/venezia.htm)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10 flowers with a diameter of 1.2 m are placed on tables or on the floor, to allow for easy access to express the ideas of participating citizens. The petals are filled out by the citizens around the flowers, free to move between flowers, enter or step out as they feel. During the session, the petals of the flower (5-12 petals for each flower) will be filled, with words, pictures, symbols, or things.

The event is devided in two sessions and is guided by a simple written statement describing the intentions and thoughts of the team behind the event. At the centre of the first five flowers, a concept sets the initial evocation. For the second session, another set of flowers is laid out, this time with no concept at the centre – only the call for expression regarding cultures of sustainability. All 10 flowers will be filled out in 2 hours and posted on the walls of the Spazio Thetis.

The event is accompanied by two open calls for citizen participation, a postcard call and an internet call. A month before the event, 1000 postcards will be sent out, figuring an empty flower on one side and a call to fill it out on the other. These can be returned to the team, and will define the ‘citizen concept’ – or they may be brought to the event, where a poster will be constructed with all the postcards that come in. Simultaniously an internet call is launched. The internet call has the same purpose as the postcard call. For the internet call the postcard with its two sides can be downloaded from the internet and be returned to the website.

These calls mark the Venice event as being a singular experience, yet also part of a bigger movement, in which we invite citizens of other localities to take part and join the sympoïetic movement of the flowers of sustainability.

The final product is created by the open system of citizens, flowers, space, time, and everything that is brought onto the flower. The aim is to see how the flowers offer themselves as experimental roadmaps, for initiating projects, other exhibitions, new networks, and the sustensions of co-creation / sympoïesis. All 10 flowers will be photographed to include in future events and on the website www.sustainability.eu

This sympoïesis is conceived by:

Insa Winkler, artist, Oldenburg, creator of the Flowers of Sustainability (www.artecology.de)

Oleg Koefoed, philosopher, Gravitations Centre for Action Philosophy, Copenhagen (www.gravitations.org)

Hans Dieleman, sociologist of art and sustainability, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Mexico-City (info Hans on this site)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flowers of Sustainability takes place within the context of a series of activities coordinated by CULTURA21, during a one day presence at the Venice Biennale, with the name: The Cultural Dimension of Sustainability; Towards an Ecology of Culture. See for more on the Cultura21 participation in Venice, the international page of Cultura21:(www.cultura21.net/venezia.htm) VIA THIS PAGE YOU CAN GET ACCES TO THE CULTURA21 WIKI PAGE SO PLEASE FEEL FREE TO PARTICIPATE!

Germans and German readers may want to read the German site of cultura21: (www.cultura21.org)