MONTHLY EMAIL NEWSLETTER: JULY 2011
Escape from the STEM cell
Last month, as the Dutch government expelled trouble-making artists from the state funding system, UK and US policymakers demanded a stronger focus by education on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — the STEM subjects. They claim a STEM workforce "determines a nation's ability to sustain itself."
No it does not. A too-sharp focus on STEM creates an innovation policy that is not fit for purpose. We need to diversify, not reduce, our ways of knowing and acting in the world. We need to emphasize the social dimension of innovation, not just technology. And we need to master systems thinking more than silo thinking. Experimental art and design can help us do all of the above — not as an alternative to science, but as its enrichment.
True innovators decline to remain locked in the STEM cell — as this month's stories show. They include craft brewers who are also into urban renewal; geeks who are also into gardening; and a blacksmith who's designed a high-tech permaculture greenhouse. These guys, who use science and art in a whole systems context, are where the future lies.
Speaking of artful science, I'll be in Sweden at the new FuturePerfect Festival, 28-31 July. It's billed as "an adventure in living well" — and we'll discuss these issues there.
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NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE >>
JOHN THACKARA
Knife Sharpening
Last week I was taught how to sharpen our kitchen knives by a wood carver, Howard Raybould, who's been honing his technique for 30 years. It's the most useful skill I've acquired since learning how to ride a bike.READ MORE
JOHN THACKARA
Shoe Town to Brew Town
When Jimmy Carbone, co-creator of The Good Beer Seal, was considering running for mayor of his old hometown in Haverhill, Massachusetts, he began to ponder possible new uses for industrial buildings that had fallen into disuse.READ MORE
JOHN THACKARA
Geeked-out Gardening
The day after I celebrated his Kickstarter success with Tyler Caruso, co-founder of Seeing Green, which is about measuring the value of urban agriculture, I read a fascinating piece by Simon Kuper in the FT about the use of data to analyse every tiny aspect of a football match.READ MORE
JOHN THACKARA
Open Season on Dutch Cultural Innovation
In a memorandum titled More than Quality the Dutch Arts Minister Halbe Zijlstra has announced savage cuts to the country's arts budget. Among media arts & technology organizations to lose their structural funding are such long-term friends and partners of ours as STEIM, Waag Society, V2, Submarine Channel, and Mediamatic.READ MORE
JOHN THACKARA
Kick-off!
The project is a year-long research effort to measure the stormwater management potential of two urban farms: Brooklyn Grange (a rooftop farm) & Added Value (raised beds) in NYC.READ MORE
JOHN THACKARA
Bad taps, Good taps
Continuing our theme of systems thinking and the need for a new aesthetics — oh, what the heck, let's talk about taps.READ MORE
JOHN THACKARA: RECENT ESSAY
How to Make Systems Thinking Sexy
John Thackara's 2011 Buckminster Fuller Challenge keynote address.READ MORE
More essays by John Thackara >>
Transforms designers: Educating head, heart and hands.
MFA Products of Design at the School of Visual Arts >>
Almost one billion people don't have safe and clean drinking water
Mohawk & charity: water. Helping to bring clean water to developing nations >>
MORE FROM DESIGN OBSERVER
JOHN THACKARA: RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Animate EarthStephan Harding
Dam Nation: Dispatches from the Water UndergroundCleo Woelfle-Erskine, July Oskar Cole, Laura Allen, editors
Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate ChangeClive Hamilton
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