2 Articles by Andreia Rocha published in Secondsight # 34

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OPEN YOUR EYES TO THE FUTURE ISSUE # 34 | SUMMER 2013

FROM THE HEART

TOWARDS 9 BILLION

AIRBNB

LIVE A RICHER LIFE

BREWING WITH A MISSION

SLOW MONEY

DESIGN SYMPHONY NOT VOGUE

“We have never been freer to love” PAGE 9

ABOUT INTERDEPENDENCY


ABOUT

INTERDEPENDENCY


CONTENTS

ANDREA WIEGMAN

SIGHTGEIST

FROM THE HEART

INSIGHT

CC BROWN

LOVING INTERDEPENDENCY

INSIGHT

PATRICIA BRIEN

CONSIDERING THE IRRATIONAL

INSIGHT

JOSS TANTRAM TRUUS DOKTER

THUMB PRINT OF GOD

INSIGHT

FARID TABARKI

WE’RE INDEPENDENT BY THE GRACE OF GLOBAL INTERCONNECTEDNESS

INTERVIEW

RESEARCH

PAGE 14

SLOW MONEY

40

SIMON LELIEVELDT TECHNOLOGY

PAGE 20

INTERVIEW

BILDER & DE CLERQ

PAGE 23

SUSTAINABILITY

PAGE 43

WOULD LIKE TO MEET

ANDREIA ROCHA PAGE 46

LESS IS MORE

INTERVIEW

AIRBNB

PAGE 26

A RICHER LIVE

INTERVIEW

PAGE 8

PAGE 18

TOWARDS 9 BILLION

INSIGHT

PAGE 5

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WEGO

PAGE 31

PIETER VAN DE GLIND PAGE 33

HATT OF FOR COLLABORATIVE CONSUMPTION

FLAVIA AMADEU

DESIGN SYMPHONY

DESIGN

DARREN FOLEY

HOW CAN WE CREATE (COLLECTIVE) INDEPENDENCE?

ART

CARIDAD BOTELLA

PAGE 50 PAGE 54

PAGE 57

ON GLACIERS AND MYCELLA

ART

BAS KUIPER

PAGE 59

WHAT’S THE PAINTER WITHOUT PAINT?

INTERVIEW GULPENER BIER BREWING WITH A MISSION

INTERVIEW

35

RABOBANK INT.

A FARMER STORY

INTERVIEW

PAGE 38

LAURIE FRICK

PAGE 61

EXPERIMENTS IN SELF TRACKING

TECHNOLOGY

YORI KAMPHUIS

LET ME PRINT GLOBAL RESILIENCE

INTERVIEW

JØRGEN JEDBRATT

PAGE 64 PAGE 67

LIVING IN THE MEDIA

INTERVIEW

STEVE OKLYN

PAGE 71

BRUCE NUSSBAUM

PAGE 73

NOT VOGUE

BOOKS

CREATIVE INTELLECTUALS

‘THE IMPORTANT ROLE THAT NATURE PLAYS’ 3


SUSTAINABILITY

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LESS IS MORE BY ANDREIA ROCHA, AMSTERDAM 2013

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This transformation is developing from inside the minds of people. Many trends anticipate the value of simple forms of living in the future, which presages a time in which capitalism and consumerism will no longer be valid. Some futurists believe humanity is growing up. Duane Elgin, an American author and media activist LEW FIIR EWOMRK MR [LMGL WXEKI LYQERMX] MW SR are we toddlers, teenagers, adults or elders. Most agree that humanity is going through adolescence. I remember adolescence being a period where I felt very confused, it is a complicated stage, one is not a child anymore but is still not an adult. Furthermore adolescents are adventurers who experiments with

different ideas balancing between their aspirations, fantasies, and reality. ‘Though the problems of the world are increasingly more complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.’ says Bill Mollison, co-founder of the world-wide permaculture movement. Around the world like-minded people are getting together in intentional communities performing a change in social interactions. DOWNSHIFTING Downshifting or ‘voluntary simplicity’ is a cultural, environmental and social behavior in which people voluntarily choose to live better with less.

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‘DOWNSHIFTING OR ‘VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY’ IS A CULTURAL, ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOR IN WHICH PEOPLE VOLUNTARILY CHOOSE TO LIVE BETTER WITH LESS’

Downshifting literally means to ‘reduce the speed, rate, or intensity of something’. People, who choose to live in ‘voluntary simplicity’ and with broader perspectives of life, are also called ‘post materialists’. They want to consume responsibly and to evaluate their lives to determine what is really important. Consume less, slow down the pace of life, decrease stress levels by working less hours, are actions towards harmony and life quality, embracing lifestyles with a lower impact. Richard Bartlett Gregg an American social philosopher and once Gandhi’s student coined the term ‘voluntary simplicity’ in 1936, describing it as ‘a partial restraint in some direction in order to secure greater abundance of life in other directions’. After travelling in India for one month with a not-even-full backpack and coming home to all my belongings was quite a severe change. I realized that I could live the life I desired with much less. Discovering what you aspire with the time you have on earth gives the power to choose and design, HI½RI ]SYV KSEPW ]SYV PSZIW ERH FIPMIJW ERH QEOI decisions accordingly. Less, harmony and balance have always been hand in hand with design and arts. Pablo Picasso once said, ‘Art is the elimination of the unnecessary’. Leonardo da Vinci wrote that, ‘Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’, ‘Less is more’ as Ludwig Mies van Der Rohe once said. A common misconception is that people choosing to live in a simpler way have to retreat from society. Henry Thoreau the American author, poet and philosopher is an example. Best known for his book ‘Walden’ or ‘Life in the woods’ which is about his own experience of immersing himself in nature to live a simple life, he lived in a cabin 1,5km away from the town of Concord in Massachusetts. Thoreau

experience is the perfect example that living a simple life doesn’t automatically implicates living like a hermit. The two years Thoreau spent in the woods, he received more visitors than in any other period of his life. ‘I went the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what they had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.’ Another misconception is that people who choose to live in a simple way are often perceived as being technology illiterate. In Tamera, an eco-village in the south of Portugal people chose to live a simple life, nevertheless this community in order to be completely sustainable have to be very advanced in technology. One of the challenges of the Tamera MRZIWXMKEXMSR GIRXVI MW XS ½RH RI[ [E]W SJ TVSHYGMRK energy. The community of about 160 inhabitants is formed by researchers, students and volunteers seeking to develop solutions for the society of the future. Tamera plans to build a village where solar radiation is the only source of energy. The Solar :MPPEKI MW XLI TMPSX TVSNIGX XS GVIEXI WIPJ WYJ½GMIRX villages in energy and food production. These technological modules may be the future of clean and inexpensive energy production and could be critical to enhancing the quality of life of individuals, especially in developing countries. “A model for the future needs not only new technology and a healthy ecology, but also people who are able to use these tools in a meaningful way. (...) Community knowledge is the foundation of social sustainability.” In ‘Tamera: A Model for the Future’ ECOVILLAGES Around the world, groups of people are coming

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SUSTAINABILITY

together and forming communities based in concepts of ‘voluntary simplicity’, sustainability, ecology and lower impact lifestyles. According to the Global Ecovillage Network, an ecovillage ‘is an intentional or traditional community using local participatory processes to holistically integrate ecological, economic, social, and cultural dimensions of sustainability in order to regenerate social and natural environments’. People have been living in communities since the beginning of times and nowadays countless intentional ecovillages exist. The photographer Inês Querido, has been documenting communities in Europe in her project ‘Building on a dream’, her pictures illustrate these pages and the variety and richness of this global movement. THE RAINBOW FAMILY OF LIVING LIGHT Then there are tribes, nomads, groups of people living in intentional temporary communities, free from rigid and strict standards, who aim to be ¾I\MFPI ERH RSX ½\IH MR XMQI ERH WTEGI The Rainbow Family of Living Light is a big and extended family, its members address each-other as ‘brothers and sisters’ and get together in nature to pray for peace and harmony among all people in what they call the Rainbow Gathering of the Tribes. Some say they are ‘the largest non-organization of non-members in the world.’ 8LI ½VWX 6EMRFS[ +EXLIVMRK SJ XLI 8VMFIW [EW MR 1972 and lasted for four days. It was supposed to be a onetime event, but was so successful that consecutive gatherings carried on each year in a different state. For many years, there was only one ERRYEP KEXLIVMRK FYX MR XLI W KVSYTW SJ TISTPI started getting together in smaller, local regional gatherings. Many different people with different beliefs attend the gatherings, but they all belonged to a big and extended family, a tribe I would say. Nowadays there are Rainbow Gatherings in almost

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every part of the world. The largest and most widely celebrated is the Annual Rainbow Family Gathering on the 4th of July in the United States, having as many as 30,000 people to as few as 7,000. ‘Picture twenty thousand people in a sunlit meadow, standing silent in prayer, holding hands in one huge, unbroken circle. Picture a parade of children approaching, singing songs. Their countenances bright with enthusiasm and face paint, balloons and banners waving in the breeze. Picture the breaking of the silence with a cheer from the circle, then the silence returning once again, to grow slowly into a thrum of voices united in a single OM reverberating through the valley and on to the hills beyond. Hold the OM in your mind. Let it spread through and around and in you. Feel it pass from hand to hand and heart to heart.’ says Carla. The Canadian photographer Benoit Paillé has been taking beautiful and rare pictures of people in the gatherings. The use of money to buy or sell is strongly disapproved. There is little or no exchange of currency at the gatherings, besides when ‘The Magic Hat’ goes around for donations to buy essential goods for the community. The primary principle of the gatherings is that necessities should be freely shared, while luxuries can be traded, counteracting consumerism, capitalism and mass media. Social and political movements, arts, communities and tribes are just few examples of the change or growth of humanity, either being the change or documenting it.

FOR SOURCES AND MORE ABOUT THE RAINBOW FAMILY ORDER OUR EXTENSIVE REPORT ABOUT INTERDEPENDENCY

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IMAGE BY: INÊS QUERIDO TAMERA

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INTERVIEW

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ING ‘DESIGN BECOMES METADESIGN, A SHAR AND DIALOGICAL MODE, WHICH MAY

IMAGE BY: FLAVIA AMADEU

GENERATE TRANSFORMATIONS AND RECONFIGURATIONS OF CONTEXTS’

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SECONDSIGHT 34

DESIGN

SYMPHONY INTERVIEW BY ANDREIA ROCHA, AMSTERDAM 2013

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Flavia Amadeu is a Brazilian social designer and researcher with the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, at the London College of Fashion. Her research runs in collaboration with the TECBOR Project developed by the chemistry laboratory LATEQ from the University of Brasília in Brazil. She also works as a design consultant for craft based communities, and develops authorial design work, mostly in jewellery and fashion. Her work and research is a precise example of interdepence in the design landscape. Flavia researches the interaction between designers and artisans, design and crafts, focusing on how design activities have enduring positive results for craft based communities. She is also working together with Sky Rainforest Rescue, WWF UK and WWF Brazil in a beautiful project which involves the Amazon rainforest and its communities to save 1 billion trees until 2016. ‘What I intend with my work as a designer and as a designer consultant with artisans and communities is to catalyze positive change. Whereas as a researcher I aim at bringing more awareness to the complexity SJ [SVOMRK [MXLMR XLI KVS[MRK ½IPH SJ WSGMEP innovation, in which designers have been increasingly

involved.’ In 2004 she joined Lateq laboratory to work with ready-to-use colored rubber sheets, the SAS (Semi Artifact Sheet) rubber. This material was developed by the laboratory to provide rubber tappers in the Amazonian rainforest a method to create valuable products using simple and costless technique and resources resulting in the settlement of local communities and in environmental protection. At that time, the innovative material was only being applied in mouse pads, Flavia learnt the process of transforming the latex into vulcanize rubber, she explored and tested its characteristics - resistance, elasticity, softness and ‘tactile feeling’. The Organic Jewellery is her authorial work outcoming from this research, it is a playful collection of rubber jewellery designed ensuring a minimum material waste and emphasizing the rubber by avoiding the integration of other materials. Flavia’s Organic Jewellery project is showcased in Phaidon’s sustainable design book Vitamin Green. SOCIAL DESIGN In Flavia’s opinion, the role of a social designer ‘becomes diluted in numerous other roles’. It makes you think where is the design? Design becomes metadesign, a sharing and dialogical mode, which

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INTERVIEW

SECONDSIGHT 34

H ‘A ‘MORE COMPLETE ACTIVITY’ IN WHIC KING INTERDEPENDENCE IS PART OF THE THIN AND DOING’

QE] KIRIVEXI XVERWJSVQEXMSRW ERH VIGSR½KYVEXMSRW of contexts. Thereby, for a social designer you can consider at least some of these roles: a catalyst, a facilitator, an adviser, a creative collaborator, a communicator, a manager, a peer, and even a friend.’ Flavia believes social design is much more about the focused communities than about the designer. ‘The product or artifact is not the end result, but what goes beyond the material is what matters, what provokes debates in the social and political arena, what transforms lives and grows into emotional wellbeing.’ As a social designer, Flavia is interested in ‘what’s beyond the artifact, while artifact is the meeting point for dialog, collaboration and transformation’. By working as a design consultant in craft based communities, designers can encounter issues in the interaction between design and crafts. Flavia’s concern rests in the interaction between designer and the artisans. She believes that ‘mutual VIWTIGX MW JYRHEQIRXEP ERH GSQTVMWIW E ¾EX LMIVEVGL] from which it is possible to build a relationship of collaboration’. AUTONOMY AND RESILIENCE Besides that for Flavia the work with artisans and communities implies 2 important concepts, ‘Autonomy’ and ‘Resilience’. ‘I want them to transform their life for better, by improving their

work respecting their way of living, I want them to grow with a sustainable and meaningful activity and become able to manage their own production.’ By ‘Resilience’, which is also one of the rubber characteristics, Flavia wants to ‘perceive how the participatory activities, which are driven by a design and crafts interaction, have resonance along the time, how people community members absorb information and experiences, adapt them and transform them along the time, thereby transforming themselves.’ DOUTOR DA BORRACHA ‘The case of Doutor da Borracha is an amazing example of resilience and autonomy’ Flavia says. ‘Originally a rubber tapper, he became a recognized artisan in his community, state and in Brazil.’ Doutor da Borracha is a brilliant artisan that lives and works in the Amazonian rainforest, he created beautiful rubber shoes with the innovative SAS rubber. His work has been developing along the years as well as his technique, his shoes and his life. ‘Today he lives of the rubber shoes’ and teaches other community members to make the shoes he invented. ‘He also reforested part of the rainforest where he lives which was ‘cleared’ for other economic EGXMZMXMIW ´ 0EWX ]IEV LI [EW E[EVHIH [MXL XLI ½VWX prize in a Brazilian competition. Flavia adds that

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INTERVIEW

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IMAGE BY: FLAVIA AMADEU

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the case of Doutor Da Borracha is ’an incredible case of interdependence and love for his context, a meaningful life that he is proud to say it was XVERWJSVQIH ERH XLI KIRIVSWMX] XS XIEGL SXLIVW ERH to allow his knowledge and technique to grow in a resilient way’.

creation of the protected areas of production, from which they explore resources in a sustainable way. It is important to support these communities, as inhabiting the rainforest also means to preserve it. Moreover, they have extended knowledge about the PSGEP ¾SVE ERH JEYRE ´

BIG SYMPHONY In the Amazon Rainforest individuals interdepend on themselves and on nature, for Flavia, this is where the beauty lies. The spontaneity and survival force makes interdependence a primordial state. ‘For example, in the case of the wild rubber from the Amazon, the natural environment, the social, the economic, the politic, the tradition, the technological innovation, the individual and the collective well being are all a big symphony, in which all the elements are connected. Once the forest is HIWXVS]IH XLI [LSPI W]QTLSR] WXSTW [SVOMRK [LIR XLI VYFFIV GERRSX FI E TVS½XEFPI EGXMZMX] JSV XLI rubber tappers, they change their activity perhaps for cattle ranch, or they move to cities, probably where they will have a poorer quality of life.You see, it is all a big symphony as you suggested.’ These extractivist communities take their basic needs and economic subsistence within the rainforest. ‘Historically, these populations are politically EGXMZI ERH LEZI FIIR ½KLXMRK JSV XLI VEMRJSVIWX preservation since the 70s, having as result the

FUTURE Flavia sees the future of design as a ‘more complete activity’ in which interdependence is part of the thinking and doing. ‘Crafting for me is a complete activity already integrated to the local, the collective and the individual. I see crafting as a synthesis of tradition and innovation, the material and the spiritual. It is indeed a meaningful work and it is transformative at the same time that extends the life of generations through continuation.’ ‘I think today, EW HIWMKRIVW [I GERRSX XLMRO NYWX MR E ½REP XEVKIX or product, anymore. We must be aware about the interdependence of the whole productive process and the implications of our works. We must think JVSQ GVEHPI XS GVEHPI [I QYWX [SVO [MXL IXLMGEPP] WSYVGIH QEXIVMEPW [I QYWX FI E[EVI EFSYX XLI people involved and the environmental impact. With understanding the interconnectedness, maybe we can work for a more sustainable world. Design cannot be detached from this concept.’

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PUBLISHER/EDITOR IN CHIEF ANDREA WIEGMAN andrea@secondsight.nl CO-EDITOR TRUUS DOKTER truus@secondsight.nl WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY ANDREIA ROCHA CARLOS CUELLAR BROWN CARIDAD BOTELLA LORENZO PAUL VAN DEN BOSCH BAS KUIPER PATRICIA BRIEN FARID TABARKI JOSS TANTRAM DARREN FOLEY YVONNE RUSSILL KUBINKA VAN DE LUSTGRAAF CHRISTOPHER LUKEZIC TOY HERTOGH PIETER VAN DE GLIND PAUL RUTTEN MAARTJE RUTTEN JAN-­PAUL RUTTEN CAMILLE VAN DE SANDE RICARDO RIOS SIMON LELIEVELDT DIEDERIK VAN GELDER FLAVIA AMADEU JORGE RESTREPO EVA RÄDER LAURIE FRICK YORI KAMPHUIS JÖRGEN JEDBRATT STEVE OKLYN SANNY ZUIDERVELD BRUCE NUSSBAUM SUSANNE PIËT

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TRANSLATION VICTORIA VAN DER DOEL ALBA LEON EXTRA EDITOR ALI AKSÖZ

3R XLI [IFWMXI SJ WIGSRHWMKLX RP ]SY [MPP ½RH E GSQTVILIRWMZI TVS½PI SJ XLI GSRXVMFYXSVW ERH ]SY [MPP EPWS ½RH QSVI GSRXVMFYXMSRW JVSQ XLIQ

SECSI MEDIA publications are subject to the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Netherlands License. This means that you may partly copy, re-use or distribute the work, provided that you mention both the articles source and its author. We would also greatly appreciate it if you could communicate any usage to the editors by emailing them at REDACTIE@SECONDSIGHT.NL SECSI MEDIA 2013

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