SecondSight Power 2011 by SECSI media

‘The net is the new archetype’ •• PAGE 14 O P E N YO U R E Y E S T O T H E F U T U R E ISSUE # 27 | OCTOBER | 2011 | PRICE: 25 EURO

“STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH” Steve Jobs

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POWER

THE YING & YANG OF POWER •• OUT OF CONTROL •• APPLE JUICE •• THE SUN’S INFINITE RADIATION •• BEYOND THE CLOUD COOL AS NEPAL ICE •• PERFECT WORLD PRINCIPLE •• THAT ANIMAL THAT COVERS US •• EXPONENTIAL DEVELOPMENT •• CON GOD

THE NET IS THE ARCHETYPE 22 APPLE JUICE

LUCK XURY

Cover Image: Apple CEO Steve Jobs speaks at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, 2007. Jobs presented two new products at Macworld Expo: Apple TV, a wireless media hub, and iPhone, a mobile phone that combines the functions of a touch-activated, widescreen video iPod, cell phone with a WiFi Internet communicator. Hollandse Hoogte, Pia Torelli/Reflex News/WpN

BOOKS 112 COLOPHON 116

CONTENTS •• SECONDSIGHT 27 INSIGHT••TRUUS DOKTER

THE YING & YANG OF POWER

NEW STRUCTURES •• DAVID SMITH

INTERVIEW •• KEVIN KELLY

OUT OF CONTROL

MOBILITY •• NALDEN

SICK

MOBILITY •• CHRIS COLLET (BMW)

URBAN MOBILITY

MOBILITY •• VINCENT EVERTS (LEAFPLAN)

ONLINE ON THE ROAD

PERFECT WORLD PRINCIPLE NEW STRUCTURES •• KENTROY YEARWOOD (INTOXICA)

A FULL SUSTAINABLE COLLECTION

ENERGY •• JOHN SALOMON FAYE (ABN AMRO)

FASHION •• CARLIEN HELMINK (STUDIO JUX)

SHINE ON THE SUNS INFINITE RADIATION

YOUR NEPALI TAILOR ROCKS! 30

ENERGY •• WARNER PHILIPS (LEMNIS LIGHTING)

BALANCE BETWEEN BUSINESS AND RESPONSIBILITY

NEW STRUCTURES •• FARID TABARKI (STUDIO ZEITGEIST)

APPLE JUICE

46 50

NEW STRUCTURES •• PETER VAN GORSEL

FUTURE IS DENSE

INTERVIEW •• WILBERT VAN DEN BOSCH (RABOBANK)

THE COOPERATIVE ORGANISATION AS MODEL FOR THE FUTURE

COMMUNICATION •• ILLUMINA VISUAL

IMPORTANT STORIES TO TELL

LUCKXURY THAT ANIMAL THAT COVERS US

# WHAT ARE WE EATING TODAY AIRPLANE FOOD AS IT SHOULD BE

90 92

100

PORTRAIT •• STRAWBERRY EARTH

THE POWER OF POSITIVE

102

RE-THINK •• CARLOS CUELLAR BROWN

CON GOD

NEW STRUCTURES •• PASCAL FINETTE (MOZILLA)

THE REWARDS OF GROWING YOUR MISSION VS YOUR HEADCOUNT

FASHION •• TSCHAGSALMAA BORCHUU (THOS)

FOOD •• LES OISEAUX DE MERDE

NEW STRUCTURES •• NICOLA MILLARD (BRITISH TELECOM)

BEYOND THE CLOUD

FOOD •• MARJOLEIN WINTJES (DE CULINAIRE WERKPLAATS)

COLUMN •• CARLOS CUELLAR BROWN

SUSHI & ICE CREAM

FASHION •• MARGARITA POSADA

ENERGY •• WIM DE RIDDER (FUTURE STUDIES)

EXPONENTIAL DEVELOPMENT

106

RE-THINK •• PATRICIA BRIEN

BUYING POWER

110

RE-THINK •• FRANCESCA DEMICHELIS

EMPOWERMENT OR THE RISE OF ONESELF

112

NEW, MORE, FREE 3

2012: UN Year of Cooperatives The United Nations has declared 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives, to showcase how the cooperative model contributes to the forming of a stable and successful organisation. Cooperatives donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have shareholders, but members who work together and have influence on the forming of policies. This enables sound steering of the company, which in this uncertain time is a really attractive business model for our economy. Being a cooperative since 1896, Rabobank sincerely supports the establishment of cooperatives in 2012 and beyond.

Rabobank supports the UN Year of Cooperatives the cooperative alternative

www.rabobank.com

SIGHT GEIST ••

ANDREA WIEGMAN

NEW POWER THE DAY WE HAD TO BRING THIS ISSUE TO THE PRINTER, WE HEARD THAT STEVE JOBS DIED. STEVE JOBS, A VISIONARY OF OUR TIME AND A TRUE METAPHOR OF NEW POWER: passion and mission driven, he had the guts to follow his intuition, becoming the engineer of number one brands like Apple and Pixar. That’s what power is today! THIS ISSUE IS ABOUT POWER, NEW POWER: At first sight it is about interesting developments in the interesting developments in the automotive industry, electric and hybrid cars and about renewable energy sources - solar, wind, hydraulic, LED. Wim de Ridder (Future Studies, University Twente) writes about the price development of electricity and why lower prices or maybe free energy is not only a dream. “A super low price for electricity does not mean the end of the electricity sector. Again, the parallel can be drawn with ICT development. Communication Technology is so far advanced that telecom companies are earning less on phone calls. Communication via Skype is free, for example. Nevertheless, ICT is a growth market, especially because of the services offered. IT has become the cheap oxygen of society.” Read more this on page 37. This issue reaches far beyond technical developments. We get smarter about energy. But it’s about old, sometimes forgotten, sources of power as well: human power, the power of health, the power of storytelling and the power of nature’s system in the world.

Growth Pascal Finette, director of Mozilla’s WebFWD Program, writes about a new paradigm in growth. Some organizations choose not to grow at any price anymore, they choose for quality. In Europe and the US there are different examples of how this will work. Those organizations put their principles, values, beliefs – and quite often a specific mission – first. This is a very tangible example of the new economical approach and economical use of human energy. We are looking for a new economic model and paradigm for human power and work, while information overload and our debts grow every minute. At the same time, open systems are in the clouds and often free. We can’t buy more hours to work or to sleep. “That’s the only thing we can’t change” as Kevin Kelly said to me in an interview this summer at his house in Pacifica, California. Is it then possible to organize more growth or is this view outdated? Kevin Kelly, one of the founders of Wired magazine, believes that growth is an organic thing. We are the web. The interview will win you over to his point of view. He talks about a big, organic network. Whether it is a self-learning quantum computer network, or the network in nature, networks perform like nature, where things organize themselves. The idea of self-learning and self-organizing things and computers is in our lives already. There’s a connection between everything in the world, in an internet-like structure. Technology can now link all objects in the world with minuscule identifying

MORE POWER devices, so daily life on Earth could undergo a transformation. Kevin Kelly wrote this theory already down in 1994, when he published his book Out of Control – The New

Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World. He describes that being out of control is the nature of the system itself. Out of Control seems mad in our control-oriented society, but being out of control or letting things go can mean being more in control than we think. Kevin Kelly’s views are full of paradoxes, and that’s the secret of the universal natural organic systems that are finding their own ways without too much human intervention. We can learn to trust nature and origins of things again like people did for ages. “Our system is like the beehive, our system is like nature.” Out of Control is a very forward looking book and still worth reading.

Energy-internet The internet-structure of things is an interesting approach, and I see it as well in the new ideas of economist Jeremy Rifkin, founder and president of the Foundation on Economic Trends. The author of The

Hydrogen Economy: the Creation of The Worldwide Energy Web and Distribution of Power on Earth (2002), will publish his second book about this topic this autumn: The Third Industrial Revolution: An Insider’s

Look at the New Energy Innovation on That’s Transforming the world (2011). Rifkin shows us that the energy-internet will change the power of politics. Years ago it was only an idea and now it’s a reality. The infrastructure is ready for a big transformation. Rifkin believes that this energy-internet revolution is even more radical than the digital revolution, because energy is the foundation of all economic activities. That’s a big thing. People, data and energy, it’s all connected.

2011 has been a year of eruptions. The world is trembling. Financial crises, tropical storm Irene or the Fukushima earthquake or even an outbreak of meningitis - all these unexpected and unpredictable things, with a great impact on personal lives, make it a priority to learn

more about simple, old or forgotten philosophies. Power cuts don’t seem to be outdated. Read Carlos Brown’s column about sushi and ice cream - about rattlers and drummers in roundabouts. All these facts and events will affect human behavior, human values and even our patterns of consumption. What’s really important? Do we prefer more balance, more quality of life or do we want more plastic? All economy and nature is connected. It’s in the air now to go for more balance, for more sustainable profits. We are learning from different parts and new players in the world. The Western world is not leading anymore in this crisis. China is financing the Dutch art sector now and the BRICS are getting stronger.

Learning As mentioned in the story of Thos on p. 79, we learn that for Easterners luxury has a completely different connotation than for Westerners. Easterners see substance where Westerners see objects. Thos is about the inner value of things and the intangible as the next level in the evolution of luxury. Kentroy Yearwood from the Intoxica brand tells us why he believes we have to focus on more durable fashion. He is a fashion designer and he advocates wearing his clothes for at least 6 years. It’s a new approach in the fashion industry and it will ask for a strategical shift in business models. On a different level, we are learning now how to communicate. Communication is not linear, while lots of developments and research in science or in the political world are. The California communication agency Illumina Visual , a company of professional storytellers and imagination specialists, teaches the scientific world how to tell their stories and how to make their ‘hidden’ innovations accessible to the public – an art learned in the movie and games industry, such as Disney and Pixar.

Positive Power Watching the balance in the natural ecosystem and in our food and health is important, because that’s energy,

FREE POWER too. Forward looking people already know this. Hip, young people from Strawberry Earth and Les Oiseaux de Merde report on their events and how they raise awareness about the sustainable future as they think it is. They’re full of positive power. The article ‘Eat fresh colours!’ by Marjolein Wintjes from The Culinary Workshop covers small scale actions against the monoculture of food and argues for the importance of a fresh, pure and healthy diet. In combination with less stress, this wellbeing produces energy and therefore power. While more people are aware of this, the health costs and other costs of living rise. Truus Dokter relates it to the balance between yin and yang. “The good thing about the crisis is that we are starting to look for more affordable and sustainable alternatives…” In this issue, two investors comment on the business aspects of new energy sources. Solar is an infinite source, says John Faye form ABN AMRO Principal Investors in solar energy, and Warner Philips from Lemnis Lighting and Tendris told us that ‘greenies’, design-aficionado’s, tech-geeks and concerned parents are already asking for such improvements in the industry, especially in the new emerging markets.

Mongolia We also learn from other cultures through internet. The young people are connected. They are traveling from East to West, from North to South. And Asia is bigger than China. If we are to believe the trendsetters, Mongolia and Nepal are emerging as well. Carlien Helmink, owner of Studio Jux talks about how the advanced technology of Skype, for instance, makes it possible to run a factory in Kathmandu and an office in Amsterdam at the same time. Distance is no longer an issue. Interconnected individuals organize growth and progress on their own, by starting their own small businesses. Positive energy seems to be the magic word. Mor people living close together will create energy and a

higher GPD as well. Read Peter van Gorsel’s article about our dense future. Wilbert van den Bosch of the Rabobank knows about the power of the cooperative as a future-proof model of organization. Like yin and yang, within the cooperative model individualism and cohesion go together. “That’s the interesting thing about this model. We’re going to learn more and more from rural societies, from ancient tribes and medieval society. There is a lot more space for quality of life, for connection. There is room for spirituality. And at the same time there’s space or a need for entrepreneurship, competition and capitalism.” 2012 is the Year of the Cooperative!

Build a windmill The cooperative or entrepreneurship can make things happen, like when a group of consumers want to build a windmill for their own energy supply. They no longer want to merely be supplied with power – they want to meet their own and society’s demand while protecting the ecosystem. And Farid Tabarki explains on that by 2015, nobody will be talking about natural gas bubbles or nuclear energy. So this issue goes beyond power as we now know it. Our contributing thinkers are writing about a harmonious co-existence between humans and nature, about new power, about more resources and even about free power, with all waste being recycled. We invite you to reflect on other lifestyles, new ways of production, communication and consumption – developments that will continue to expand in the coming years, decades and far beyond. It’s an infinite game. AND IT’S ABOUT ‘CONNECTING THE DOTS’, AS STEVE JOBS SAID IN 2005 IN HIS FAMOUS SPEECH ON STANFORD UNIVERSITY. THE FUTURE IS NOW, GO FOR IT! ANDREA WIEGMAN Editor In Chief andrea@secondsight.nl

CONNECT THE DOTS

Sky map depicting boreal and austral hemispheres with constellations and zodiac signs. Created by Frederick De Wit, Amsterdam 1680

INSIGHT •• TRUUS DOKTER

THE YIN & YANG OF POWER POWER is probably one of the most energetic words in our vocabulary. It means energy in the literal sense of the word, and ﬁguratively speaking you can almost feel the supernatural rays the word generates. IT HAS A NEGATIVE AND A POSITIVE CONNOTATION: we want it all or we are disgusted by it. In order to be in balance we need the attraction of counterparts. Power, in fact, combines yin and yang within one concept. Could power be the embodiment of a balancing act, trying to remain aware of the difference between good and evil, to strive for honest prosperity rather than submissive poverty, to value good food and a responsible lifestyle to keep you healthy instead of sick?

If this is true, why are we misusing power, almost to a point of no return? Or is it that we have forgotten about this interaction with the greater whole? To be less esoteric: have we lost the connection with the strengths and weaknesses of the universe that need both care and destruction in order to keep the equilibrium intact?

According to Wikipedia “yin and yang are supposed to be complementary opposites that interact within a greater whole, but either of these aspects may manifest more strongly in particular areas and may ebb or ﬂow over time.” In other words, if we apply this description in comprehending the deeper meaning of power, we could conclude that it energizes our ability to choose. Combined with the observation that yin and yang might meet in the aforementioned rays of power, you could say that power might be as essential as food, water and even love.

What’s wrong with us? Why did we give free rein to the financial sector by loosening the legislation that regulated the banking system? Careful households, for instance, would never think of lending their car to a friend of the brother of the neighbor’s sister in law. Similar to this simple example, the financial sector forgot to value the importance of balancing the two sides of the coin: taking good care of your client’s money, while making a decent profit.

AFTER ALL, LIFE COMES WITH DEATH, DAY WITH NIGHT AND SUMMER WITH WINTER.

beeld: Fiametta Ghedini/ www.lifeperception.org/FG_drawing.html

WHY ARE WE MISUSING POWER, ALMOST TO A POINT OF NO RETURN?

WHAT IS WRONG WITH US? Money affects us all and can undermine our direct capacity to obtain one’s basic necessities. Power and money are interconnected, but power is connected to so many other things in the second degree. Health care is a good example: we are told that the costs of health care will skyrocket because of the aging of the population, but is this true? Life expectancy in the Western world has been rising as a result of a better diet, better working conditions and hygiene. Nowadays the state of medical science and developments in the pharmaceutical industry can prolong our lives even more. So why would the cost of a sane health care system get out of hand? With a business sense that does not always adhere to the Hippocratic Oath, the actual reason for higher costs might be more complex. Small health problems, that could easily be solved by adjusting our diet or going to bed on time, are more and more frequently solved with a pill rather than a better lifestyle. Often, from that point on people enter a vicious circle that is not easy to leave

behind. When you start using one drug, in the long run you end up taking several to counterbalance the side effects caused by the chemicals in your body. Overprescribing is a problem in many Western countries, and the drugs are not sufficiently tested for efﬁcacy or safety when used in combination with other medication. It would be naïve not to smell the odeur of money behind this. Sure, the pharmaceutical industry will use all the marketing tricks in the book to seduce you, and will never cease to stop developing expensive medicine. The power of money is, in this case, covered with the veil of curing people. The good thing about the crisis is that we are starting to look for more affordable and sustainable alternatives, like a better lifestyle with more exercise and food, providing calories that are not empty, delivering minerals and vitamins instead of fat and disease. We are already experiencing a major trend in growing our own vegetables and fruits. We have started eating more organic food, although it’s still too expensive for low income households. We see a growing interest in

IN ORDER TO FIND THE YIN AND YANG WITHIN POWER,

WE NEED TO LOOK AT MANKIND FROM A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW

nutrition as opposed to medicine. A different attitude to health in general might not only energize our bodies, but can also trigger entrepreneurship, with new initiatives like a garden center providing part of our grocery shopping, a gym organizing cooking classes or a home decoration shop advising us how to grow oranges in our dining room annex urban farm.

world are ﬁghting for respect, claiming a decent life and a fair share of prosperity. On a growing scale corrupt and dictatorial leaders are being held responsible for abusing the power conﬁded to their care. Bankers, managers and everyone else acting dishonestly focused solely on self-interest are being held accountable.

As far as I’m concerned, it may take awhile, but some people claim that conventional medicine will soon be a thing of the past, not only because we will (or have to) adapt to a different lifestyle, but also because of a growing interest in involving ancient Eastern healing like acupuncture and massage based on the energy streams ﬂowing through our bodies. Together with the general popular rebellion against the establishment, the global power of the pharmaceutical industry might not be sufﬁcient to sustain the growth of their multibilliondollar operations in the future. We can see similar situations in the insurance sector, power companies, or telecommunications.

Power is a two-sided coin ... for the coming period let’s try to focus more on the positive side: having the strength to resolve a crisis, to overcome a disease or to generate enough renewable power to be self-sustainable ...

So what awaits us? Further downfall of the ﬁnancial world unless power structures are revised, a health care system with a higher proﬁt growth target instead of curing people and energy shortage because power companies waited too long to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy?

In order to ﬁnd the yin and yang within power, we need to look at mankind from a different point of view. If economics determines our perspective, that man always wants more without making a difference between quantitative or qualitative growth, there is little hope we’ll survive on this globe. Opting for consolidation and sustainable growth focused on a balanced global household will result in a brighter future.

TRUUS DOKTER itfits@xs4all.nl http://fullinsight.com

We shouldn’t underestimate the self healing ability of mankind! Oppressed people in different parts of the

Cappadocia, Turkey

THE NET IS THE ARCHETYPE AS WE SHAPE TECHNOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY SHAPES US THE SYMBOL OF SCIENCE FOR THE NEXT CENTURY IS THE DYNAMICAL NET 14

INTERVIEW •• KEVIN KELLY

KEVIN KELLY

OUT OF CONTROL The Biology of Machines, Social Systems and Economic World

THE NATURE OF CHANGE IS CHANGING AT THE SAME TIME

THIS SUMMER I MET KEVIN KELLY AT HIS HOUSE in Pacifica, California. I have always seen Wired as the most forward-looking or futuristic magazine in the world, always on time - or even ahead of time - with the right topics. To meet one of the founding fathers of this stunning magazine, Kevin Kelly himself, was always one of my dreams. Kevin Kelly, or KK, does a lot of different things, with the main goal of showing people a possible future where they will want to live. KK is now Senior Maverick of

Wired and contributor to numerous blogs, including The Technium , Cool Tools and True Films about the best general interest films. He also serves on the Board of the Long Now Foundation , a non-profit group dedicated to fostering long-term responsibility as an antidote to the extremely short-term horizon of most contemporary organizations. KK has written many articles and blogposts about the effects of technology and contemporary science on society, and he has published three books

I WAS YOUNG DURING THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines (1994), New Rules for the New Economy (1998) and his latest What Technology Wants (2010). On the anniversary of the journal Science a few years ago, KK wrote the editorial Third Culture about emerging culture surrounding technology and science. That’s exactly what all his work is about. Kelly started this interview with the same words. ‘It all started with science. As a kid I was interested in science and making things and building things. I had my own chemistry lab and I loved math and science in high school. And I was young during the golden age of science fiction. It was about hard science fiction like space travel, and I think from then on I was interested in futurism as well, although I was not aware of it. And my dad worked for magazines. I read every magazine every week so trend-spotting was a normal habit for me as well. Then I started to become a photographer. I was really interested in art. In the seventies I worked as an independent photographer and started working for travel guides. Then they asked me to work for the Whole Earth Catalogues* and that was a great opportunity. I wanted to work for the WEC and met the visionary founder Stuart Brand. At that time (red. 1970s), I didn’t want to work for the establishment.’ FROM THEN ON KK WAS IN THE FUTURE THINKERS CLUB AND THEY ORGANIZED EVENTS AND GATHERINGS ABOUT THE FUTURE. IN 1981 KK WROTE THE COVER STORY “NETWORK NATION” FOR NEW AGE JOURNAL. ‘THAT WAS ABOUT A WEIRD NEW TERRITORY THEN’, NOW KNOWN AS THE DIGITAL ERA WHERE WE ARE ALL CONNECTED TO EACH OTHER IN THE ONLINE SOCIETY. KK was co-initiator of the Hackers’ Conference in 1985, a

gathering which for the first time brought together three generations of programming hackers and one of the founders of the WELL, a San Francisco-based teleconferencing system. The WELL is a pioneering online service started in 1985. The WELL is considered by the growing internet population to be a model of online culture, and a pioneer in developing online communities. In 1994, even before launching Wired magazine, KK wrote his very forward-looking book Out of Control , praised by Fortune magazine as "A book that should be required reading for all executives.... as entertaining as it is insightful." I HAD A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS ABOUT WRITING THIS BOOK IN 1994. OUT OF CONTROL IS A TRENDING TOPIC RIGHT NOW AND FITS COMPLETELY WITH THIS ERA. HOW DID HE COME UP WITH THIS TOPIC BACK IN 1994? ‘Yes’, he said, ‘that was very early and even now not everyone really understands what Out of Control is about.’ And then? ‘There was a conference about Science, the first Artificial Life Conference in Los Alamos, New Mexico. It was an interdisciplinary conference where biologists, physicians, and chemists were all speaking about artificial life. Not in the same language, because they were not in the same discipline, so they had to speak more generally to each other. I think there were more than 35 talks and I posted some on the WELL. It was a very good experience in artificial life and on the WELL we had a great response. We got questions about ants, living systems, computer science, merging crowd algorithms; everyone was talking about the same things. So I thought, this is all about the same thing, but I don’t know what the thing is. So the book was an investigation of that. What’s that thing connecting

* The Whole Earth Catalog was an American counterculture catalog published by the environmentalist Stewart Brand between 1968 and 1972 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Catalog

WHAT’S THAT THING CONNECTING ORGANISATION AND ORGANISM AND WHAT’S THE USEFUL IDEA OF CONTROL OR BETTER SAID OUT-OF-CONTROL TO GET THE BEST OUT OF OURSELVES organisation and organism and what’s the useful idea of control or better said out-of-control to get the best out of ourselves. That was my big question when I wrote the book.’ ‘The field of Artificial Life, often called ALife, or Theoretical Biology is about many things, like how the mind works, how computers work, and how computers might be made to act more like the mind. ALife embraces studies of the origin of natural life, of chaos and self-catalysing systems. There’s no central control. We can see it on the web right now.’ One of Kelly’s central themes is that he strongly believes there will be one internet in the future. ‘It’s not about which one, it’s about the main system.

And we –people, human beings– can use this internet and sometimes we do control the internet, sometimes the internet controls us. It’s full of paradoxes. So we are master and slave at the same time. We are living in an information era right now. And we can use it.’ Kelly believes in evolution in which the process itself evolves. The nature of change itself is changing at the same time. And the awareness of self-regulation and the self-sustaining system is growing. In the Technium, which KK wrote about in his last book, he explains, ‘we are a component of the entire Technium, no inventions stand alone. It’s about the holistic thing, about the increasing choices we have, the freedom of possibilities, new options, new choices, more differences, and as human beings we want that! Selforganising systems, a better life. Web technologies allow us to do.’

The book Out of Control is about these self-sustaining systems in their nascent forms, so I think it’s worth reading now to understand the web, internet and network culture. The book gives both living examples, such as a tropical wetland, and artificial examples, such as computer simulation of our planet. In the chapter “Hive Mind” he explains ‘…The Atom is past. The symbol of science for the next century is the dynamic Net. The Net icon has no center – it is a bunch of dots connected to other dots – a cobweb of arrows pouring into each other, squirming together like a nest of snakes, the restless image fading at indeterminate edges. The Net is the archetype…’. He writes about birds, bees and swarms and he also lifts some examples from Darwin’s Origins of Species, showing the logic of both Computers and Nature. In the book KK mentions nine laws of God, a distillation of the nine common principles that all life-like systems share. As we shape technology, technology shapes us. We are connecting everything to everything; our entire culture is migrating to a network culture and a new network economics, called the internet of things. In 1994 ‘it was a breakthrough concept of contemporary science and technology. It links the best of cutting-edge biology, computer science, economics, organizational theory, art, and much more,’ according to Stewart Brand. For now, it explains much more about Wikileaks and all the leaks or wiki or social network- based things about to happen within the next few years. In the next Second Sight you will hear from Kevin Kelly, as we will write about Kelly’s book New Rules for the New Economy and in the first issue of 2012 more about the Technium and What Technology Wants. In January 2012 the Dutch version of What Technology Wants will be published in the beginning of 2012. TEXT: Andrea Wiegman

MOVE ON 20

Rihardzz, Shutterstock

MOBILITY •• VINCENT EVERTS (LEAFPLAN)

ONLINE ON THE ROAD Constantly online on the road with the electric car Actually I’m already online on the road for years

IT STARTED WITH THE BLACKBERRY ENABLING ME TO GET MY EMAIL AND TO LOOK AT WEBSITES, but nowadays with tablets, dongles and netbooks I am always online. Besides, sometimes unnoticed by me, which leads to unexpectedly high bills when I am abroad. But now I experience the peak of travelling online; I´m recently driving a fully electrical powered Nissan Leaf, carried out with the latest online technology. One of the special things about the car is that it is constantly online. Nissan has installed each Leaf with a GPRS chip that continuously sends data back to the Nissan website. For example you can track the battery status online, see how much you have used and receive an analyses on how you could drive more economically. Driving electrical means that my action radius is around the 140 km and that I then have to find a ‘refill pole’, a docking station. That means I need to plan my trips carefully around these stations. I myself have little ‘range anxiety’- the fear that your battery is dead and you can’t go further, but I know a lot of people do have that fear. The car knows where to find all the docking stations in Europe and continuously receives updates through the internet of new locations. This is helpful because the amount of docking stations is growing rapidly in Netherlands. There are 250 planned for next year alone in public places and parking garages. There will also be more and more quick loading stations, allowing you to

refill the car in 20 minutes at 80% battery capacity. I personally do not have a great interest in cars, but driving electric cars is one of the most important trends for the near future. The Netherlands has the most polluted cities with fine dust in Europe and (too) high C02 emissions. Electric cars can contribute positively to the reduction of the pollution. In addition, petrol and diesel engines are hopelessly inefficient and should be replaced. Together with my companions Ronald van Woensel and Remco Bron I started Leafplan. On the website www. leafplan.nl everyone can follow me in my electric car 24-7. You can see on the website where I am, how fast I go, how much battery I have left and how far I can still drive. In addition, you can watch and listen live with four cameras and two microphones to what happens in and around the car. The purpose of Leafplan is to show the practical and sometimes less practical aspects of electric driving. Leafplan is a non-profit project; sponsored by, among others, LeasePlan, Vodafone and Triple-IT. Nissan, by the way, is not a sponsor so we can be absolutely independent about our experience with the car. To make this all technically possible we have built in the back of the car a mobile broadcast street from Mobile Viewpoint that uses as much as six Vodafone SIM cards that sends the images of the four cameras and two

EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THE CAR IS RECORDED AND CAN BE VIEWED ON THE INTERNET

WE WANT TO DISCOVER THE LIMITS OF ELECTRIC DRIVING microphones to Leafplan.nl. Next to live images and sound, there are, of course, tablets and mobile phones on board, that broadcast location and speed of the car and that can be used to Twitter with the public. For Leafplan I interview well-known and lesser wellknown people in the Leaf, like astronaut Wubbo Ockels, but also my cleaning lady and my children's teachers. I interview them about electric driving and sustainability, while they make a test drive with the electric car. The interviews are broadcasted live on Leafplan.nl and can be reviewed later. WHILE DRIVING, WUBBO OCKELS EMPHASIZES THE MANY BENEFITS OF AND OPPORTUNITIES OFFERED BY ELECTRIC DRIVING FOR THE FUTURE. THINK OF ELECTRIC DRIVING ON SOLAR PANELS. BUT EQUALLY INTERESTING IS HOW SOLAR ENERGY CAN PROVIDE A HOSPITAL OF ENERGY. ELECTRICAL DRIVING IS JUST THE BEGINNING.

quickly. With Leafplan we are constantly online on the road, and that is a special experience. The car is one of the few places in these days where we can be alone. That is no longer the case in the car of Leafplan; everything that happens is recorded and can be viewed on the internet ... We found out that it is handy to be able to mute the microphone if you are talking via the speaker phone with your lawyer ... PeopIe also continuously let me know on internet that I can´t email or twitter while driving. And while my two children find it wonderful that people can watch them, my wife cannot get used to the idea and she switches the camera to our license plate so you can´t see her online ... Being constantly online on the road might not be suitable for everybody!

VINCENT EVERTS EN REMCO BROM We want to discover the limits of electric driving. We have, for example, tried to charge the car by dragging it behind another car and then brake gently so that the car is charging itself. To our great surprise this worked pretty well and we were able to charge the battery fairly

vincent@everts.nl remco@innovader.nl www.leafplan.nl

NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF ALL INVENTIONS

SHINE ON ENERGY •• JOHN SALOMON FAYE (ABN AMRO)

The Sun’s Infinite Radiation

Interview with JOHN SALOMON FAYE Investment Director Priciple Finance Energy, ABN Amro Bank

THE FUTURE IS IN SOLAR AND WIND ENERGY, WE HEAR IT EVERYWHERE. We know a lot about wind energy here in the Netherlands, but solar is a newer phenomenon. Solar energy today is where wind energy was five years ago. We asked John Faye, ABN AMRO Principal Investors in solar energy throughout Europe, about the status of solar energy and solar plants right now. What are the challenges for the future with infinite solar radiation?

JOHN, CAN YOU TELL MORE ABOUT YOURSELF AND YOUR INDUSTRY? “I am a French national with Senegalese and Irish origins. I ended up in the Netherlands for work, moving from Paris to Amsterdam to work with Dutch electricity utilities back at the time when I was in investment banking. I am now in private equity, working within ABN AMRO’s Principal Finance Group, investing in renewable energy assets, i.e. investing in power plants producing electricity from renewable sources.

THE SUN’S IRRADIATION ON EARTH FOR ONE HOUR WOULD BE SUFFICIENT TO MEET AN ENTIRE YEAR OF THE WORLD’S POWER CONSUMPTION Amongst renewable energy technologies, solar photovoltaics are particularly interesting for institutional investors because of the stable irradiation, the long term stable revenues which these plants generate and the absence of volume-price risk. In plain English, you know from the very beginning what you are going to earn over the lifetime of the power plant. The other interesting feature of solar energy is the relentless decrease in the cost of the equipment, which roughly decreases by 20% for every doubling of manufacturing capacity, which means that the cost of producing power from the sun is fast approaching the point where it is competitive with conventional power sources, so called grid parity. And, of course, if you consider that the sun’s irradiation on earth for one hour would be sufficient to meet an entire year of the world’s power consumption, you can only conclude that it is only a question of time before solar power becomes a mainstream power source. AS THOMAS EDISON SAID TO HIS FRIEND HENRY FORD: ‘I’D PUT MY MONEY ON THE SUN AND SOLAR ENERGY. WHAT A SOURCE OF POWER! I HOPE WE DON’T HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL OIL AND COAL RUN OUT BEFORE WE TACKLE THAT.’ THAT’S WHAT I CALL FORESIGHT...”

Europe “Interestingly, the Netherlands would not exist in its current form if it weren’t for sustainable practices management of the land, of water - so this country should be fertile ground for alternative energy and new energy sources. However, it seems that the Dutch money

is being invested in renewable energy elsewhere in Europe. In the case of solar, you can argue that there are better places to harness the sun, but there are other technologies such as wind which could receive much more support in NL. Somehow there does not seem to be much political will to do so right now.

Necessity is the mother of all inventions Solar power will electrify large parts of the planet. It is just a question of time. Southern Europe certainly has a great solar resource, but unfortunately Europe does not yet have the grid infrastructure required to efficiently transport electricity. And since electricity is very difficult to store, this is a challenge.” What’s the future of energy and how long will it take before conventional power is overtaken by new power? “If you ask two energy analysts this question, then you will get three different answers... The power market is not homogeneous, so in some places, like California, Arizona, Southern Europe, solar will be competitive without any support in just a few years. Wind power already is, in other places, by the way. Necessity is the mother of all invention: since fossil fuels are by definition finite and conventional power relies on those, it is only a question of time before we decarbonize our energy infrastructure. The emerging renewable energy industry is trying to make that transition happen, but it is not easy. There is a lot of opposition to this fundamental change. But it will happen, and some investors like us are working very hard to make it happen, and to make a decent return in the process.”

NOBODY TALKS ABOUT THE NATURAL GAS BUBBLE OR NUCLEAR ENERGY ANYMORE

Photo by Kevin N. Murphy, Surfing Cocoa Beach Florida

YouTube: Steve Jobs Presents to the Cupertino City Council (6/7/11)

NEW STRUCTURES •• FARID TABARKI (STUDIO ZEITGEIST)

When thinking of APPLE one tends to think of the iPhone, iPod, iPad & iMac BUT in 2015 one will think of Apple as THE company with a campus that will be self-sufficient for power, with the national grid acting only as a back-up

APPLE JUICE APPLE’S OWN POWERSUPPLY

THE ‘SPACESHIP’ LIKE CAMPUS WILL HAVE A DIAMETER of 492.25 meters, which makes it wider than the Pentagon. The circumference will be 1.6 km and the planned office floor space is 260,128.5 sq m including a 27,870.9 sq m research facility. That’s enough space for 12-13,000 workers. By launching this ambitious project Apple is going to be in the forefront of one of the most fundamental shifts in energy production: radical decentralisation.

In 2025 nobody talks about the natural gas bubble or nuclear energy anymore. Why bother? We have got more energy than we could possibly use up. The incandescent light bulb is back after years of being banned and once again lights up every house as a Christmas tree. Energy-saving lamps, in contrast, are now banned because of the poisonous and scarce mercury they contain.

The combustion engine has faced a similar fate. In 2025 it has been able to enter the history books as the great polluter it has been for over a century. Today, a car is completely clean. Some of the infrastructure is still old-fashioned, lacking basic automobile guiding systems that reduce the accident rate to zero, but in terms of energy, there is no more waste. It’s hard to imagine that transportation was made possible by an endless string of explosions of millions-year-old animal and plant remains. The car is dead – long live the car! With the increasing efficiency of solar cell technology, on roofs and in our windows, homes and offices are becoming a very important part of the energy production system. The more than seven million homes in the Netherlands will soon produce, together with windmills and biomass technology, the needed energy for our homes, cars and industry. As housing associations in

The Netherlands own almost two and a half million homes they have the potential to become the largest energy producers of the country. Smart homeowners have already acted. By installing the needed equipment and striking a deal with a company that will buy the energy they won’t need themselves their house is their own private money tree. Radical decentralisation at its best. There they were: the environmentalists, the bureaucrats and the entrepreneurs. Thanks to, or in spite of, all their initiatives the energy problems have been resolved, and we’re back to guiltless travelling and leaving the lights on when gone. Energy abundance has replaced energy scarcity. House owners are not consumers anymore, but have become energy entrepreneurs, making money from the energy-converting solar paint they used for all the walls of their house, and related simple innovations.

Challenge With 14 years to go before our vision turns into reality, there is a great challenge for business, government, civil society and consumers to come to terms with this radical decentralisation. How suburban household energy prosumers will organise themselves, how corporations will share in the profits and how local, national and supranational authorities will regulate things, is still in the stars. But in some way, it will happen. Radical decentralisation is the future. It’s a stark contrast with how we used to deal with things in the last century. The twentieth being organized top-down, the twenty-first will be not only bottom-up, but more importantly, horizontal. The network of ideas will replace the advocacy of interests. The power of the group will be less relevant than the strength of your connections. This strength does not depend on the number of your connections, but rather on their quality (how well do you relate to those relevant in your world) and their diversity (how do you enlarge your connections’ networks by connecting with theirs). Most connections will be local, just like it is now, but the rest of the world is never more than three connections away. Hyper-local and global are the same.

Rethinking business as we know it Where will the environmentalists get their much-needed money from, in times to come? It’s more likely that local networks will be a much more reliable source than central government. But it remains to be seen whether the conservationists’ old pitch will still be valid. From

energy scarcity we’ll go to a scarcity of food and space. How to reconcile these scarcities with biodiversity and climate change, will be an important theme of the environmental movement to focus on. They could very well advise Apple on how to grow it’s own food on the new campus. These developments will not leave business unchanged. Suppose that the inhabitants of a neighbourhood with a gross income of a couple of millions devise a smart system to give local farmers direct access to their kitchen cupboard, while eliminating all the middlemen. The supermarket will surely have a problem. Consumers will use their power to control their basic needs and keep them close to themselves. And how will energy power and gas companies like E.ON and Vattenfall respond when these prosumers are starting up their own initiatives to produce energy as they’re already doing all over Europe? We’re not talking about just a handful of competitors anymore we’re talking about millions. But one could also see them as great and reliable suppliers of energy. Russia eat your heart out?! But not only prosumers will play a big role in this shift to radical decentralisation. As the new campus of Apple shows also businesses have a lot to gain from a more local approach towards amongst others the production of energy. And they shouldn’t stop there as other shifts to decentralisation like 3D printing, crowdfunding and more flexible working arrangements are making a rethinking of business as we know it very essential indeed. And Apple seems to be leading the way ……. again! FARID TABARKI www.studiozeitgeist.eu twitter.com/studiozeitgeist Farid is director of Studio Zeitgeist which conducts/ coordinates research and develops projects on the local, national and European Zeitgeist. Studio Zeitgeist works on themes like radical decentralisation, radical transparency, (social) media, generations, aesthetics and education. It has developed projects for, amongst others, MTV, Philips, Hyves, TEDxRotterdam and the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. Recently Farid has co-founded the Finishing School, an education institute that primarily focuses on teaching broad knowledge, etiquette and empathic leadership with ‘high potential’ twenty & thirtysomethings as its target audience.

INTERVIEW •• WILBERT VAN DEN BOSCH (RABOBANK)

“IF YOU WANT TO EXPLOIT A WINDMILL TOGETHER...” THE COOPERATIVE MODEL FOR THE FUTURE Interview with Wilbert van den Bosch, head of the Directorate Cooperative and Sustainability Rabobank

2012 IS PROCLAIMED BY THE UNITED NATIONS AS THE YEAR OF THE COOPERATIVE ORGANISATION Mongolia initiated the request for this because the cooperative model as a form of organization can help developing countries with making a big step ahead. WILBERT VAN DEN BOSCH agrees with this.

IT IS ABOUT TIME WE FOCUS ON THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE COOPERATIVE FOR THE FUTURE AND FOCUS LESS ON THE PAST WILBERT VAN DEN BOSCH IS CLEARLY A BIG FAN OF THE COOPERATIVE, that needs no further explanation. He worked on the boards of several local Rabobank offices, the cooperative Dutch bank. But he takes it a bit further: he calls the cooperative ‘one of the most intelligent forms of organizing with the most humane philosophy which respects both the individual and the group – it’s all about cooperation.’ That’s why the opportunities offered by the cooperative organization form are interesting; how it fits in the current zeitgeist and on which values it is based. Wilbert is a passionate speaker who clearly is very knowledgeable about the past, the present and the future. Although it is about the role of the cooperative organization in the future, he stipulates that it is of significance that the cooperative model is more than a century old and that in the twentieth century a lot of experiences have been build up, so that the time has come to take further steps. He believes that this is he role of the Rabobank. With so much experience, they are able to help new parties learn more about the cooperative system. The Rabobank grabs the opportunity of ‘the year of cooperative’ with two hands. Not only to show the power of their own organization or to propagate that the cooperative model is the future in a Western context and use their experiences of the last century. They also want to start a dialogue, also with young people, about what the future form of the cooperative will look like.

Triangular relationship The cooperative organization form originates from the end of the nineteenth century and is based on the theory of the Austrian Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen. The cooperative has its origins in farming where at one point, certainly in bad times, but also in better times, it was smart to work together to spread both the costs and the risks. Important in the cooperative system is that there are three stakeholders. The cooperative is divided into the so-called triangular model consisting of effective members, a professional board and an

independent expert and supervisory board. The power lies in the middle. And there is no problem if there are tensions, for this brings dynamics to the organization. All three stakeholders regulate the balance.

RAIFEISSEN INTRODUCED THREE MAIN PRINCIPLES WITHIN THE MODEL

You keep your own responsibility

You do realize that you are better off together than alone

However you take responsibility together for the board, the governance, a wide notion of influence, decisive power and supervision. “Actually the cooperative model rests between pure liberalism and communism. Each individual looks after his own interest, perhaps even at the expense of the society, but at the same time they look after the collective interest. And in that sense there is an inhibitory effect on that. The cooperative system is in this way self-regulatory and ensures that nobody will go too far. And that is interesting in this day and age when capitalism has gone over the top.” “WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD AND WHY IN THIS DAY AND AGE IS THE COOPERATIVE MODEL SO INTERESTING?” ‘Yes, there is something going on in the world and that is rooted deeper. If we look to the bank, some things have changed since the 1960s. Until that time we had the pay envelope. But then we replaced it with bank accounts.

The banks grew significantly and growth continued. In the 80’s, 90’s of the last century and in the beginning of this century individualism and materialism also grew. And, like a parabola individualism and materialism reached their peak. People have other needs, they want to connect, to have contact with each other, and together look for solutions.’

tive model also gains ground for instance when a group of people in a remote village get together to get connected to fibreglass. Or when a group of consumers want to build a windmill for their own energy supply. These are both recent cases.

Within the cooperative model individualism and cohesion go together. “That’s the interesting thing about this model’, he continues, ‘We’re going to learn more and more from rural societies, from ancient tribes and medieval society. There is a lot more space for quality of life, for connection. There is room for spirituality, for life in addition to working. Producing is not an end in itself as it was after the second world war. This development goes fast and institutions change and some even fall apart.

According to Wilbert van den Bosch the cooperative model is interesting for many more organisations and institutes. Especially those that are leaning too much towards the liberal market philosophy, because of copycat behavior, and being too business minded, and the pyramidal ‘shareholders-thinking’, as he calls it. He is referring to universities and colleges, but also to health care institutes. And he himself is a member of the supervisory board of a Parking Service Cooperative where several municipalities are working together in parking management.’

Network economy ‘In this network economy, because that is what a cooperative sometimes looks like, the individual has the space and possibility to do exactly what he/she is good at and share the other aspects of work. There is at this moment also a need for renewal. The cooperative banks have practiced a lot and have even had an important role in the banking history. A cooperative company works as an equalizer and therefore sets the price in a market. The Rabobank can no longer demonstrate this point in the Western world, because the rates and prices are overdeveloped, but in developing countries Rabobank Foundation and Rabobank Development do notice this effect. Nevertheless the cooperative model is interesting for the Western world. All in all there are 7000 cooperative organisations in Netherlands of which a 1000 are active. Examples include purchase cooperatives, such as the Milk cooperative, Friesland Campina, the Coop supermarket, but more and more the coopera-

Nature

The commercial parking companies were getting too expensive, citizens were worse off. Due to the fact that various facilities are now being shared – the companies work together, but are still independent - the parking rate has gone down in these cities by 10%. And if we put the focus on energy, then Wilbert is very certain, he says, that actually the cooperative organisation is the standard in nature. Plants are decentralised (NKcheck!!). After all, nature is organised decentralised. Therefore, we must ask ourselves whether we should strive for the ‘localizing of things’ where people manage things together. “And the reason why the cooperative model is an intelligent way of organizing, is because it accepts that life does not only follow a linear path and it accepts that life is not only progress, but that life develops cyclically. It is realistic and very practical at the same time. It is absolutely not idealism, but an ordinary company. 80 countries participate in the year of the cooperative organisation.”

THE COOPERATIVE MODEL ACCEPTS THAT LIFE DEVELOPS CYCLICALLY. IT IS REALISTIC AND VERY PRACTICAL AT THE SAME TIME. IT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT IDEALISM, BUT AN ORDINARY COMPANY 64

IT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT IDEALISM

COOL AS NEPAL ICE

Studio Jux Tailor: Kamal Pariyar

FASHION •• CARLIEN HELMINK (STUDIO JUX)

YOUR NEPALI TAILOR

ROCKS! To create beautiful things, with beautiful materials that are produced under beautiful circumstances, that is what CARLIEN HELMINK (1983) is doing it for. She is, together with designer JITSKE LUNDGREN (1980) the owner of the sustainable fashion label STUDIO JUX.

“YES”, SHE TELLS ENTHUSIASTICALLY, ‘Jitske experienced as designer fairly quickly that the reality of the fashion world was not as nice as it seemed. She loved fashion, but she felt betrayed after her first experiences in the fashion world. Certainly when she was visiting India and she saw a man standing with his whole body in a purple dye bath. She couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw under what circumstances things were reproduced.’ Now Jitske runs their own factory in Kathmandu (Nepal) together with a Nepali woman. Carlien works from their office in Amsterdam. She is the manager and deals with the client contacts. They operate differently than the established fashion brands: they make beautiful things with beautiful materials, and it has to make them happy. This is the basis of the company philosophy, founded in 2006 and commercialized in 2009. Jux comes from the German words ‘Jux und Dallerei’, which stands for happy

and fun. That is the essence of their brand, organic and pure materials that is what matters at eco fashion, of course, but for the Studio Jux label the labor process is just as important. In their own factory in Kathmandu, the tailors make the whole garments. They are internally trained and have steady jobs.

Fun Also the consumer is allowed to meet the tailor. They gained a certain fame last year with the slogan ‘Your Nepali tailor is a rock star’. Through the site of Studio Jux you can meet these rockstars with a ‘handshake’. If you bought a piece of clothing there is a number. That number tells you who the tailor is of the garment you purchased. You can find out what the ambitions of the tailors are. One wants to save for a motor, the other likes to continue studying. And that's fun. You discover that the ambitions of the Nepali are not different than our

TO CREATE BEAUTIFUL THINGS, WITH BEAUTIFUL MATERIALS THAT ARE PRODUCED UNDER BEAUTIFUL CIRCUMSTANCES own ambitions over here. Of course the conditions in Nepal are very different, as is their idea of fashion is different too. That is why Jitske travels regularly back to Netherlands or visits areas in China, where some suppliers are. They label the clothing of Jux as ‘Cool as Nepal Ice’, reflecting that the cool-factor remains important. The girls have sustainability in their DNA. According to Carlien, there is no other way. Something like this you cannot half do. It is a belief, a philosophy that changes your life, after that you can't go back. Before she worked for Studio JUX, she did not realize you could make beautiful things under beautiful conditions and be sustainable and commercially successful. Now she knows better. Of course they are not making the money that Dutch managers make, but the first salaries are paid. So there is progress.

Manifestation And to the question of if she sees a shift towards more sustainable consuming, she replies: 'Yes, absolutely!'. On the one hand you see suppliers in China, for example, having higher demands, they want a good salary and no longer make everything for the same price. China started to consume too and now have a better idea of what their work is worth. On the other hand, you see the consumer in the Western world change. There is increasing demand for small unique garments. 'I think clothing is a manifestation of your identity, and that doesn’t match anymore with mass production. The consumer is not yet so far that they are asking for really good sustainable clothes. The average consumer, in her view, is not thinking about it. She notices more and more under her clientele the demand for beautiful sustainable products like those from Jux. All her customers are young, are already working a few years in fashion, but struggled after a year or two with their conscience. A couple of things just aren’t right. Carlien is an advocate in the Netherlands for sustainable fashion. She is a board member of the

association ‘Clean and Unique’ where people can turn to when they have questions about starting a sustainable label. The entrepreneurs help each other, less competition than in the commercial world of fashion. The group of sustainable fashion producers is, in any case, very positive and they work together. That humane aspect is a huge plus for Carlien. Also in Nepal, the last time she was in Kathmandu, a father was so happy that two of his daughters were employed in the factory, that he organized a lunch for the company. That sense of connecting through doing good work, that is the energy and positivity that gives the power to their work.

Beautiful products Also with new suppliers they want to know everything about the labour conditions of their personnel. They ask a lot of questions before they do business with someone. Because, they believe, if the working conditions are better the tailors will produce nicer products. Fashion is and remains an organization that creates beautiful products and that is not possible if people have to work more than 12 hours a day, if people are not being taking care of. Making nice clothing together under good conditions, gives these young entrepreneurs enormous power. Every time Carlien has been in Kathmandu she experiences the same energy. She has contact on a daily basis through Skype with Jitske. Yes, modern technology makes it happen. modern technology diminishes the distance between Kathmandu and Amsterdam. She even believes that without modern technology, like for example Skype, it would not have been possible to organize a company together in this way.

STUDIO JUX www.studiojux.com

THE SWEAT AND DUST IS PURE LUCK AND PURE, DEEP ROOTED LUXURY

Photo by: THOS

FASHION •• TSCHAGSALMAA BORCHUU (THOS)

LUCK XURY Easterners see substance where Westerners see objects.

THE POWER OF INTANGIBLE QUALITIES

An interview with Tschagsalmaa Borchuu, founder of the brand Thos. THE BRAND THOS CAPTURES THE INTANGIBLE AS A NEXT LEVEL IN THE EVOLUTION OF LUXURY. No mere storytelling but deep, longlasting, rare, fulfilling and down to earth luxury. Thos brings a luxurious cashmere sweater with a tainted twist. In the West, luxury always has been tangible, expensive and high quality. Luxury became attainable for all of us only within the last couple of years. At the time when brands started branding, luxury houses sold their soul by selling cheap products with a tiny link to the real luxury item. We all know that nowadays everybody can own a piece of a big fashion house like Hermès, for example: sunglasses or a bottle of perfume. But now we find ourselves saturated by materialism. Thos believes that we need more content and that luxury is becoming more intellectual. Thos recognizes that money does not make us happy: “We used to work 24/7 for nothing and spent all our

money on expensive stuff but still we seek something sustainable and lasting. Thos believes that future luxury is not fixed to a product only but to a deep feeling, the feeling of luck and happiness”.

Capture the feeling Thos biggest inspiration is the Mongolian horse race: thousands of horses with child jockeys on their backs, going the long distance race to fulfill spirit and belief. The Mongolians are eager to feel the horses’ dust and sweat, as they believe it holds ultimate luck and energy. As an old Mongolian lama said: “The universe consists of infinite different elements of dust. It is in constant interaction with the appearance of dust from our Planet Earth, such as spiritual, physical and emotional dust. The dust of the horses at their peek reaches the universe the fastest because of their supernatural power, and it returns to earth as shimmering gold…”

Luck-xury The intangible as the next level in the evolution of luxury After being mesmerized by this horse race and by people who were so passionate about it, Thos started thinking of how to capture the intangible luxurious feeling of luck and power. The solution would be found in a sweater. Thos managed to make the spirit of the Mongolian horse dust tangible in contemporary luxurious clothing by designing a sweater of the most precious material, cashmere. Whereas in the West cashmere is an easy way of showing off your wealth, in Mongolia lots of nomads just manage to survive by raising cashmere goats. Thos plays with the snobbery of cashmere by adding sweat and dust to the cashmere sweater, now loaded with a resonance of emotions and luck felt during the race. The sweater could be understood as the materialization of an ongoing conflict between a western and eastern understanding of luxury. At the same time, it’s an approach to soothing the conflict of tangible and intangible luxury in a new synthesis. Items of the limited edition line were actually worn by a child jockey during a Mongolian horse race. The ready to wear line has a sophisticated link to the brand philosophy. Each item contains a single cashmere thread from apparel worn during the horse race.

The native Mongolian Tschagsalmaa Borchuu, who currently lives in Germany, is the mother of Thos. Mightn’t she forget Mongolian values while wearing this sweater in Western society? “No, the sweater is filled with all of the emotions occurring during such a spectacular event. Even though I grew up in the West, I still have strong connections to my Mongolian roots. You might think that my consciousness of heritage and tradition would fade away in the West, so far away from primitive beliefs and rural behaviour. But to believe is a strong power that ignores effort, distance and age. This power is reflected in the belief of the Mongolians and in the brand philosophy of Thos. The sweat and dust for us are pure luck and pure, deep rooted luxury because they are filled with happy emotions. This is the power of spirituality. Thos is sharing the spiritual power of Mongolia with the world in the material of the sweater”. TEXT: Valerie Boersma, PHOTO'S: Thos

THOS www.thos.mn

COLOPHON •• SECONDSIGHT OCTOBER 2011

Editor in Chief

Translation

ANDREA WIEGMAN andrea@secondsight.nl

MARTHA HAWLEY NANCY KOLEDA

Co-editor

Concept, Design & Image Editing

TRUUS DOKTER itfits@xs4all.nl

BARLOCK-SERENDIPITY JESSE SKOLNIK, MARC VAN BOKHOVEN, PAULA EKLUND

Project manager

Printing

KRISTEL VEERMAN kristel@secondsight.nl

DE SWART, THE HAGUE

ISBN 978 94 91131 04 2

With contributions by KEVIN KELLY FRANCESCA DEMICHILIS CARLOS CUELLAR BROWN PATRICIA BRIEN DAVID SMITH KENTROY YEARWOOD CARLIEN HELMINK TSCHAGSALMAA BORCHUU MARGARITA POSADA MARJOLEIN WINTJES JUSTUS BRUNS MINGUS VOGEL PERNILLE KOK-JENSEN NALDEN CHRIS COLLET VINCENT EVERTS JOHN FAYE WARNER PHILIPS WIM J. DE RIDDER FARID TABARKI NICOLA MILLARD PASCAL FINETTE PETER VAN GORSEL WILBERT VAN DEN BOSCH LISA COOKE FRANK LEEMAN PETER LAANEN JENNY ELISSEN REMCO BRON MARLIESE HUIJZER IKENNA AZUIKE DANIELLE KWAAITAAL ALOMA TREISTER VALERIE BOERSMA KARLIJN KLAVER

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