Designer and inventor Werner Aisslinger doesn’t just come up with ideas – he also designs the technology that turns them into functioning items. His exhibition at Haus am Waldsee is a Wunderkammer of jaw-dropping innovations, inspired by and employing nature to create sustainable solutions for 21st century living.
Grow your own chair!
Hydroponics in the kitchen
Grow your own mushrooms!
Beehive-inspired relaxation furniture
"Anti-digital" sofa facing out towards the garden and lake
"Book" shelf
The Internet has been subtly shaping the bonds between us for over three decades, but it is only much more recently that the development of the social web, in combination with increasingly sophisticated mobile hardware, has brought to light the potential power of the 21st century individual.
In their 2012 book, Networked, researcher Lee Rainie and theorist Barry Wellman coined a new term for this influential combination of software, hardware and connectivity; they called it The Triple Revolution. The authors note that with Internet access becoming progressively ubiquitous, making each and every one of us more instrumental than ever before, it is our newly extended networks that render opinions and actions particularly meaningful.
Indeed, leading American thinker Dan Tapscott believes that new, web-enabled networks are key to solving contemporary worldwide challenges, harnessing collective influence to sway governance, policy, advocacy, and global standards across all manner of organisations, from nations to institutions, large or small. According to Tapscott, author of bestselling book Macrowikinomics, these multi-stakeholder networks should consist of four pillars: the nation state, the private sector, civil society and–now–you. This newfound influence of individuals is shifting the political and personal landscape, reinventing democracy based on active citizenship and true transparency. “The future is not something to be predicted,” he argues, “but something to be achieved.”
Many commentators have lamented the rise of the social web, anxious that it breaks down traditional ties such as the family and local community, increasingly isolating individuals to the detriment of themselves and wider society. Yet as as Rainie and Wellman quite rightly point out, “people are not hooked on gadgets – they are hooked on each other”. Now, more than ever, we are accorded endless opportunities for development through extensive networks that, though perhaps looser, are much more far-reaching and person-focused.
During these times of economic and environmental turmoil, our interconnectedness is one of our strongest assets. Thanks to the Triple Revolution, the power to make meaningful and lasting change is finally at our fingertips. So how will you use it?
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Or how I learned to stop worrying about social media and up my game.
Yesterday I had a headache that felt like Twitter. It was, in fact, merely a symptom of caffeine withdrawal: dilated blood vessels in the brain and over-sensitive receptors flailing furiously for their next fix. Thankfully, I’m fine now, but Twitter is still here, and it seems it’ll take more than a cup of coffee to silence this particular neurological cacophony.
2011 was the year that Twitter stole my brain. Since signing up it’s slowly dawned on me that I’ve entered into some Faustian pact, wherein I’ve exchanged access to endless information for my ability to digest it. I can’t say for sure that social media is responsible for the gradual erosion of my soul – that might be a bit extreme – and I don’t even know what I believe about how or whether it is changing our brains. Maybe I haven’t been able to concentrate for long enough to come to a conclusion, but I’ve definitely noticed some changes in my behaviour, many of which are outlined in Assisted Living Today’s excellent infographic, which you can check out below (if you’re still focused enough to bother).
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to kill off my online identities and join the Luddites. We should be celebrating that we’re clever enough to invent and use these new technologies so intuitively. It’s no coincidence that 2011 was also the year that people used social media to shake up the established world order. What’s more, we adapt so well to this new online environment. Surely, if readers’ concentration wanes, writers have to up their game (really hope you’re still with me). I’m sure I’ve read more than three articles from start to finish over the past 12 months, but these are the most memorable, and for very different reasons.
Slow Travel Berlin’s interview with Ewan Pearson was captivating because of the thoughtful questions and intelligent responses, covering complex topics with rare insight and sensitivity. Pearson’s comments on gentrification and the new xenophobia have stayed with me and clarified somewhat my confusion about the topic: “…A lot of the rhetoric coming from the more anarcho-left seems uncomfortably close to that of the nastier bits of the old-school right: anger at tourists, foreigners and people who are not from Berlin. It’s pretty unpleasant.”
Okay, this is a pretty predictable and voyeuristic choice, but it kept me glued to my screen like little else. Eyes wide, heart in mouth, I read Popular Mechanics’ What really happened aboard Air France 447. I’ll say no more, except that – for all the wrong reasons – it did help solidify my ongoing boycott of the airline industry.
Talking of which, Grist’s ‘Brutal logic’ and climate communications honed a hugely complicated subject into the most comprehensive and logical argument I’ve yet read on climate change discourse. I won’t paraphrase because the article is worth a full read to see how author David Roberts reaches the conclusion that “everyone… no matter what role they play, could stand to push the edge a little bit occasionally, reminding their audience, whatever audience, that climate change is some genuinely dire sh*t and that now is the time for ambition and courage.”
To an ambitious and courageous 2012!
Infographic by Assisted Living Today – Assisted Living Facilities
The literary world has gone literally mad. Ignoring one of the most ubiquitous proverbs in the English language in a desperate attempt to save a floundering industry, book publishers have started eveloping their wares in ever more elaborate works of art.
It may seem like stating the obvious to point out that the beauty lies on the inside of a book. I could continue with a stream of clichés that convey the idea of not judging a book by its cover, but there’s no need because we know them all by heart. There’s a good reason that phrase is so popular.
For me, nowhere is it more true than when applied to this issue. Books are my music; literature my life companion. I dithered over getting a Kindle for a while but living in a country where English is not the first language, it quickly became a no-brainer as I devoured weighty paperbacks long before the next arrived, complete with hefty shipping bill. Since the Kindle arrived I have spent more on books than ever before in my life, and feel all the more enriched for doing so.
There are a number of troubling implications of this new trend towards the ‘beautiful book’. Firstly, it is an insult. Are we really all shallow consumers who value form over content, blinded by pretty colours and pictures, effortlessly coaxed into somnambulant shopping? Secondly, these assumptions actually devalue the real product. Adding a superficial layer of ‘art’ in order to capture the attention of potential customers is also – I think – insulting to the author, part of whose soul lies within those pages.
That’s why I found Julian Barnes’s recent comments particularly baffling. Paying tribute to those involved in the creation of his Booker winning novel, Barnes said, “Those of you who have seen my book, whatever you think of its contents, will probably agree it is a beautiful object. And if the physical book, as we’ve come to call it, is to resist the challenge of the ebook, it has to look like something worth buying, worth keeping.”
Resistance? This is not a battle, this is an opportunity. Ebooks are not a challenge to be overcome, they are the means to make access to literature truly democratic, not to mention a new market with huge economic potential. Just because an ebook can be copied, that does not mean it will be stolen. I could have downloaded the last 20 books I read for free, but I didn’t, because I recognise their intrinsic worth. If they want to save their industry, publishers (and authors) threatened by this brave new world would do well to do the same.
