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La prima edizione di un festival dedicato alle investigazioni sociali e artistiche della psicogeografia è certamente un evento di non poco conto. ‘Psy-Geo-Conflux‘ è il nome di questo festival, che vorrebbe essere annuale, e che si tiene a partire dall’8 maggio a New York City. Intesa come ‘lo studio degli effetti dell’ambiente geografico sulle emozioni e i comportamenti degli individui, la psicogeografia è stata una delle maggiori innovazioni concettuali dello scorso decennio, e una manifestazione di questo tipo la applica, oltre che teoricamente in alcune conferenze pubbliche, nella maniera più esaltante, ossia attraverso una serie di percorsi urbani da effettuare passeggiando guidati dai rispettivi performer. ‘Urban Chess’ di Sharilyn Neidhardt, ad esempio, svolgerà una partita a scacchi effettuata su due telefoni cellulari da due esperti, i cui ‘pezzi’ saranno costituiti da volontari disponibili a muoversi da un isolato all’altro, mentre in ‘Lost’ di Kathe Izzo, i partecipanti saranno coinvolti esclusivamente attraverso i loro numeri di telefono, in un elaborato piano in cui ci si perde e ci si ritrova. ‘New York Body ‘n’ Soul Map’ di Karen O’rourke prevede una condivisione online di itinerari e scorciatoie, mentre ‘Can .Walk Will Compute’ di Wilfried Hou Je Bek alimenterà un computer ‘pedestre’ per contribuire a risolvere algoritmi complessi sottoposti in anticipo all’artista. Altre ‘escursioni’ sono ‘City System’ di Lee Walton, ‘Free Words’ di Sal Randolph, ‘Ping’ di Kate Armstrong, ‘Serenade’ dei Toyshop’, e l’immancabile ‘Surveillance Camera Outdoor Walking Tour’ dei Surveillance Camera Players’.

Categorizzazione degli eventi proposti dal festival:

http://www.glowlab.com/psygeocon/pgc_events.html

Evento di portata internazionale, inserito nel contesto della Biennale internazionele di Design, Sant’etienne  , che si terrà dal 15 al 30 Novembre 2008.

Di seguito una lista delle iniziative, alcune delle quali avranno sede, nello stesso periodo, in tutta Europa.

VELO WALAS
Avinash Kumar on the story behind velowala.org, a media installation made by a
team in Delhi that brings the bike-based commerce of the streets of India alive
- in St Etienne. (Saturday 15/11)

ECOSOFT; WORLDCHANGING
New economic models, complementary currencies, local economy trading schemes,
alternative trade networks, community supported agriculture: Bethany Koby &
Ellie Thornhill talk about their eco-soft shop. They are followed later that day
by special guest Alex Steffen, editor of Worldchanging. (Sunday 16/11)

DESIGN IMPERATIVES; ENERGY
Allan Chochinov, editor in chief of Core77.com, gives a keynote on “design
imperatives”. Later, a worskhop on design and energy will discuss: can design
help us choose among the growing number of green energy offers ? (Tuesday 18/11)

COMPOSTING; DE-MOTORISATION; MANZINI
Clare Brass + Flora Bowden from SEED Foundation talk about their neighbourhood
composting service. Later there’s a design clinic : Design for mobility, or for
de-motorisation? There follows a special keynote by Ezio Manzini on “design
strategies for the small, local, open and connected”. Oh yes, and the French
edition of In The Bubble is launched at 18h. (Wednesday 19/11)

OPEN SYSTEMS AND INFORMAL TECHNOLOGY
A sustainable world will be densely networked – but not by closed, proprietary
networks. Juha Huuskonen (Pixelache, Piksel, Pixelvark, Afropixel, Pikslaverk,
PixelAzo) and Jean-Noel Montagne (CrasLabs, Paris) discuss how self organisation
and technological autarchy will be crucial in the coming years. (Thursday 20/11)

EDIBLE GARDENS ON LYON BROWNFIELD SITES; KIMCHI AND THE CITY
Emanual Louisgrand talks about l’Ilot d’Amaranthes – his gardens on brownfield
sites in Lyon. Later, a design clinic on Food and the City features Matthieu
Benoit-Gonin (Jardinethic); Debra Solomon (culiblog.org); and Francois Jegou
(solutioning.net). (Friday 21/11)

DESIGNING SUSTAINABILITY EVENTS
A Doors of Perception lunchtime discussion. If you are serious about hoping to
do an event City Eco Lab (or Dott 07) in your own region, Doors cannot fund it -
but we can help with the strategy and process. (Saturday 22/11)

RE-LOCALISATION AND SMALL BUSINESSES
Design clinic for and with local companies. (Monday 24/11)

NURTURING A REGION’S HARD AND SOFT RESOURCES
How to find and document eco-materials – and human savoir faire (Tuesday 25/11)

WATER AND THE CITY; SUDS
Re-connecting a city with its natural systems: projects for St Etienne’s River
Furan. Plus a design clinic on sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS).
(Wednesday 26/11)

MAPS OF THE FUTURE
Pirjo Haikola from the Why Factory (NL) a research institute on the future city
founded by Winy Maas and MVRDV, shows how maps are used in rethinking,
researching, reshaping and enhancing images of future urban life.
(Thursday 27/11)

SO WHAT EXACTLY IS AN ECO NEIGHBOURHOOD?
Citizens and designers involved in one of St Etienne’s “eco quartiers” (eco
neighbourhoods) discuss what functions make a place eco – or not -
and how to measure their performance. (Thursday 27/11)

LESSONS OF CANTEEN 80KM
The City Eco Lab restaurant, Cantine80km, serves food sourced within a 80km
radius – the maximum distance food may travel in France without being
refrigerated (Friday 28/11).

TRANSITION CITIES CONFERENCE
Transition Towns groups are growing like wildfilre. The transition model
“emboldens communities to look peak oil and climate change squarely in the
eye and unleash the collective genius of their own people to find the answers
to a big question: for all those aspects of life that this community needs
in order to sustain itself and thrive, how are we going to rebuild resilience
(in response to peak oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (in response
to climate change)?” The Transition Cities conference will share ideas and
insights, tools and techniques, and explore what works and what doesn’t.
November 27-28 Nottingham.

ECONOMIC ASHES TO ASHES
The policy think-tank Demos is launching a new book in London called After the
Apocalypse. The report asks, “what we do when the (financial crisis) dust begins
to settle?” When, or if? The speakers listed are heavyweight inside-the-tenters
- but I wish Demos could also have invited Ilargi from Automatic Earth.
6pm, Wednesday 5 November at Demos, London.

ONE PLANET, ONE DAY
A sustainability event hosted by BioRegional in London will focus on real life
developments and businesses: One Brighton urban living; Sonoma Mountain Village
mixed-use community; B&Q One Planet Living retail (sic); Masdar City zero carbon
city; One Planet 2012 London Olympics; Mata de Sesimbra eco-tourism and
conservation development, Portugal. Is building eco cities like Masdar from
scratch in the middle of a desert appropriate, or even viable?
The debate could be lively. 3 December, London.

WEB-BASED TOOLS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE.
Social Innovation Camp is looking for the best ideas for web-based tools to
create social change. From 5-7 December the camp will connect software
developers and designers with front-line practitioners to develop six web tools
to change the world. Idea submissions are required by Friday 7 November.

MASTER OF ADVANCED STUDIES IN DESIGN CULTURE
A new masters at the interface of science and society has been launched at the
Institute for Design Research in Zurich.
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NORWEGIAN JOURNAL FOR DESIGN RESEARCH
invites articles in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and English.

SERVICE DESIGN CONFERENCE
Speakers include Shelley Evensen (Carnegie Mellon University) Rory Hamilton and
Sean Miller (Live|work), Jamin Hegeman (Nokia), Oliver King (Engine), Craig
LaRosa (Continuum) and Denis Weil (McDonalds). 24-26 November, Amsterdam.

450 FILMS ABOUT ARCHITECTURE
I’m not sure whether this counts as a threat, or a promise, but the new website
of Rotterdam’s Architecture Film Festival lists a staggering 450 movies. The
next festival (it’s biennial) begins 29 October 2009.

THE INTERNET OF THINGS
Rob van Kranenberg (with Sean Dodson) has published a a timely book about
“ambient technology” and the all-seeing network of Radio Frequency
Identification Devices (RFID). Anyone living in a city is exposed daily to
dozens of closed-circuit television and camera-phones – but in a few years’ time
even more pervasive and technologies will take their place as consumer goods are
assigned IP addresses, just as web pages are today. Are designers, architects,
policy makers equipped to deal with these fundamental issues ? They will be
better prepared if they read this book. It’s downloadable for free.

CURRY STONE DESIGN PRIZE
A South African architectural firm whose ingenious, yet simple design
re-envisions low-income housing for a Cape Town shantytown, was named the
winner. Luyanda Mpahlwa, 49, and Mphethi Morojele, 45, received the $100,000
prize, administered by the University of Kentucky College of Design. The prize
is given annually to breakthrough design solutions with the power and potential
to improve our lives and the world we live in.

NUBIAN VAULTS
In the Sahel, desertification is a major threat to the local people and their
environment. The traditional use of raw timber as a construction material,
particularly for roofing, is no longer feasible. Population growth,
deforestation, and desertification have contributed to a shift in rural areas to
importing building materials, including sheet metal, to be used for roofing. To
address this problem, the Nubian Vault Association (AVN) has adapted an age-old
construction technique that has been used in other parts of Africa and
throughout the world. To date, AVN has trained 110 builders, is currently
training 100 more, and has built 550 vaults in Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, and
Togo. AVN needs money to establish new partnerships and bring its “Earth Roofs”
program to other countries in the Sahel. We know the people – which is why we
urge you support AVN if you can.

CYNICAL ABOUT SYNTONY
The Royal Society of Arts asked me to fill in a survey: “Can Cynicism be good
for Society and Democracy?” The survey was so repetitive that I gave up half-way
through. I should have known better – and stopped earlier – when I saw the word
“syntony.” A significant cause of the cynical society is surely the creation of
synthetic buzzwords. But one thousand of my fellow Fellows, being made of
stronger stuff , completed the survey – and cynicism is indeed infecting the
very fabric of our society. Top of the list was politics (51 per cent) compared
with 31 per cent for “general cynicism of life” and 30 per cent for business.
What a surprise!

Ogni anno, solo in Italia, si svolgono circa 50.000 manifestazioni musicali (esibizioni, concerti nei palazzetti, festival all’aperto) e l’ambiente ne risente: si producono infatti circa 45.000 tonnellate di CO2, l’equivalente delle emissioni nocive di 22.500 automobili. Ma qualcosa sta cambiando anche nel mondo del rock: a quasi quarant’anni da Woodstock, il festival che ha cambiato la storia della musica, i concerti diventano ecosostenibili.
L’Outside Lands Festival, che si è svolto nei giorni scorsi a San Francisco, ha ospitato 150 mila persone in tre giorni per sentire alcune grandi band della scena musicale degli ultimi anni. In totale si sono esibiti 65 gruppi, alternandosi su sei palchi, i quattro più piccoli alimentati a pannelli solari. L’Outside Lands non è stato un semplice rave di musica rock , ma una manifestazione “per insegnare, o almeno provare, a difendere l’ambiente per cambiare il mondo”, hanno spiegato gli organizzatori.
Oltre a musica per tutti i gusti, tra le attrazioni della manifestazione c’erano auto elettriche, stand per spiegare come coltivare un orto, biciclette gratis per girare nel parco, un tendone della Microsoft per dare un’occhiata alle novità del mondo di computer e banchetti di prodotti biologici.
Jack Johnson, il supporter della manifestazione ha affermato: “Abbiamo lavorato per tre anni a questo festival ed erano presenti oltre 150 persone. Forse sapevano già tutti che è ora di iniziare a voler bene questo pianeta, ma magari qualcuno è tornato a casa guardando le cose con occhi diversi”.
Trasformare i concerti in manifestazioni sostenibili e rispettose dell’ambiente è anche l’obiettivo di Edison, tra i primi attori del settore dell’energia elettrica e del gas: la compagnia ha lanciato il progetto “Edison-Change the music” www.edisonchangethemusic.it/ per sviluppare la cultura della sostenibilità e del risparmio energetico nella musica. Secondo la compagnia un concerto «ecocompatibile» permette di ridurre le emissioni di CO2 di circa il 75%.
Come fare? L’approccio sostenibile predicato da Edison è l’utilizzo di energia da fonti rinnovabili per gli impianti elettrici e di illuminazione, mezzi di trasporto collettivi in sostituzione delle automobili private e materiale promozionale stampato su carta riciclata
“Il risparmio e l’efficienza energetica sono leve fondamentali – ha dichiarato Andrea Prandi, direttore relazioni esterne e comunicazione di Edison – Abbiamo scelto la musica perché è un canale universalmente riconosciuto come capace di aggregare e diffondere, grazie anche alla potenza di Internet, messaggi positivi”.