Seeds of Change - Heiner Benking's Blog - quergeist.info
Welcome to the NewsLog or Blog of Heiner Benking. A kaleidoscope of insights and impulses collected first in the DaZiBao (Rio) process Seeds of Change Viewsletter of the Club of Budapest since 1995, continually updated ever since. Now available for broader distribution and comments in this blog - enjoy, and come again !
14 Apr 2010 @ 22:28
please come back ! [link] and see programme about social media, culture, access,....
It was much too late last night, so tonight to get more concrete and public about THE re:public. I have not yet found a good review in English, and even the homepage of the re:public is only "partially" in English. So maybe see our "Freitag" weekly for a first view on the matter of WIKIPEDIA and MASS Phenomena: [link] I also recommend NEW THINKING: [link]
5 Mar 2010 @ 09:38
The Daisy and Sunflower [link] represent Unity in Diversity [link] http://open-forum.de/Dialog-selected-Publications.htm, the spectrum and variety of positions, perspectives and issues without domination and hierarchy. All participants might experience being on equal terms, no person dominates or sits on the top of the table, instead we see a rotation and beauty with the spectrum of tasted, opinions and concerns. Definitely there are Presidents, Heads of States and Networks, but also stakeholders, risktakers, drivers, observers, .... (all are needed !!: [link]) (see more at 21stCentury Agora [link] and [link]
We meet this week in Barcelonas a network of networks, the Anna-Lindh Foundation representing 43 countries in the EuroMed region. What I hope for is a Work-Nett of Networks. [link] & By the way I am representing here the Positive Nett-Works from Hannover and Berlin. [link] We will start with the first sessions now, so come back to check what is happening….
What I hope we can achieve this time? Something we already exercised around the 1001 Actions of the ALF at 1001 actions, [link] and the UN-CBD and UNESCO-DESD [link] Doing roundtables to dialogue in informal setting on “equal footing” what we call magic round-tables,[link] a setting we do as media-delegated dialogues [link] http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v396/__show_article/_a000396-000037.htm around events of any kind to make sure people interact deeply and efficiently and at the same time co-create, empower voices that matter…. Maybe see Voices from earlier events and check if you want to not only talk about dialoge, but experience and do it.
PLEASE COME BACK LATER - we are rushing here in busy times....
beside the Transmediale [link] and the Berlinale [link] full of media glitter and creative media movers and shakers. What a time... We are at the edge to thinking deep - not new for me as 3D vizualisation was my think & do "thing" (in deep and in colour since 25+ years), but only now the technology is at the edge of reaching the public eye and mind as we can see in movies and interfaces.
I will hop between the events and lounges , and my heart and concerns are with immersion into old & new spaces, as an old and new door and vistas opened, for example with new intefaces. See gesture cubes ! [link] or what we called Advanced Visual Interfaces. [link] Interfaces even for Cultural Heritage ! - see also this more recent virtual worlds proposal: [link] Going from 2d-3d is not new for me, from flat to deep and maybe also from Show to Schau ! [link] and being aware of interface design and immersion or the challenges of virtual reality [link] , but what it means to have all walls as monitors and connect the space in-between still rocks my mind. I know that we need spaces for knowledge in modern times of internet and media, like we need space for living, if we do not want to end in the noise of Cyberculture, and I know we can agree on spaces and frames, orders and rules, like we can agree to drive on the right lane and stop at the red light. But who dares to challenge orders and frames, not by postmodern irgnorance, but by negotiating, creating and moving line and objects. I always come back to the citation of Rueckert, maybe someone will check it out and help translate it to the modern media age!?
Whoever imagines mental deep permeable barriers which actually do not exist
and then thinks them away, has understood the world.
As space is entrapped in geometry's network of lines,
thought is caught in its (own) inherent laws.
Maps make the world comprehensible to us;
we are still waiting for the star-maps of the spirit.
In the same way than ambling through fields we risk getting lost,
the spirit negotiates its terrain.
Friedrich Rückert, Wisdom of the Brahmins, a didactic poem, Charles T. Brooks in 1882 – above is unfortunately only a clumsy first translation by Robinson/Benking as we could only get hold of the original German version. More at BRINGING DOWN NEW WALLS: [link]
So maybe we can find ways together between the movies, media, and realities locally and globally instead of being sumbmerged in the glut of endless, no-return Cyberculture [link]
If you care to see what agreed frames and spaces might look like, goto: TONY [link] or check out what we mean by deep and flatworlds: [link]
A footnote:
I am shocked getting today this [link] to get a Journal covering the topics above for a subscription of 500+ Dollar per year. See still high tech with lots of insider development potentials.
16 Jan 2010 @ 22:41 Grüne Woche THE GREEN WEEK in Berlin
Berlin is an exciting but alsounique, but also strange hub - 50 agriculture ministers 50 agriculture ministers and their cohorts flying in and out , but the public takes little notice, except flooding the fair geting some food and drinks. Little discussion you find about our diets, out agriculture, fisheries, and forestry.
The way we produce agro-fuels is of little concern, buch much is decided on the very bottom, on the ground and per capita, by the people and consumers. So maybe some people should revisit the CopenVegan entries, just scroll down 4 weeks ...
Summit declarations, as always are marvelous, the question is who is implementing and who is going to live with other forms of energy, new healthy but stange diets, and the way we handle out soils and waters?
I was tempted to show above the typical picture of the ministers meeting the press for a photo, but I felt to show the stage better some hours later. This is telling much more - not only that we need a jam-session with many more instruments and voices, but that the whole summit was still goverened by strange, distoted pictures of teh world (in our minds and aon the wall). Nobody seemed to have noticed that it most convenient to show the Planet Earth without the Antarctic (nobody is living there) and Greenland much larger that for excample India, when in reality it is the opposite - India is 3 times larger than Greenland !
During the day we where in the Berlin ZOO - with an Eskimo-Inuit from Greenland - remembering us about compassion with all living things - not just with Icebears - we will meet him tomorrow again at the GRUENE WOCHE.
Some Politicians argue for their lot, they like regional warning unaware of global heating, or confuse per capita versus per area - or any kind on singularily arbitray number. There is much confusion about scales, change (slow and fast/rapid) and issues per capita or per area). Ignorance abound you meet in the discussion on the podia or on the way...
I can only recommend at this late hour to visit my earth literacy pages - as there is too much ignorance and confusion on the basics and terms, so how do you think communication can work !? I can also advise to check the COP15 UN Climate entries from December 09 in this Blog and maybe see me later...
I need morfe soon - but please visit meanwhile the Copenhagen dilemmata and our little side-event in Copenhagen called CopenVegan. - and come back soon with "UNCLE" at the Polarworld events. - I need to get some rest now !
12 Jan 2010 @ 00:10
I finally have made available the interview with Alexander Christakis (PDF), who was sitting with Özbekhan and Peccei looking into the Club of Rome future work - early reports and possible futures in view of the mess already on the horizon - 40 years ago !
Please see the eulogy for Christakis' fatherly friend Özbekhan. I think everybody who has heard about the LIMITS to GROWTH should also know about the bigger picture: shared and hopefully positive: prognostic, participative and normative futures !! what this means to democray I have just
TWITTER tweeted at DoemoracyIS here:
11 Jan 2010 @ 08:16
Democracy is .... Please have a look and share widely: TWITTER feed: [link] more: [link] and: [link] Real-time results for twitter.com #DemocracyIs
see also the NO WALLS !! 2009 update:
2009 was not just Copenhagen CopenVegan “pitching”, bringing the sectors, scales, levels together, of the Interview with Aleco on 40 years Predicament of Humankind, but reconnecting with Indiana, and Lynton Caldwells new star, the Nobel Prize for see Elinor Ostrom.
Two and a half year ago, at Commission on Sustainable Development held on 15 May 2007 at the United Nations in New York, we urged delegates to be bold ! and not only use the term "crisis" in an official United Nations documents, or headlines:
FOR BOLD DELEGATIONS
Give the title-less negotiating text a TITLE. Here is a proposed title in this carbon-constrained globalizing world where mitigation and adaptation are needed to cope with the climate crisis:
Commission on Sustainable Development +15 AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS: 2000 – 2100, see document (hand-out):
What happened in Copenhagen?
1) Many of the CSD members, were not at the COP conference, so there was no apparent continuance or cohesion.
2) Civil Society and Media were not in "place",
3) There was a lack of inter-cultural checking of climate change language, terminology or cultural expressions used in the preparation of the final document.
4) Insufficient participation and deliberation by those who attended such an important conference.
I urge bold delegates today at UNFCC [more] and in further summits to:
1) Outline the frames of reference using stronger words and communication. These must go beyond isolated words and values.
2) Harmonize information and follow the proposed route towards wider targets such as the EESC proposal side-event: "Climate Change, GDP and measurements of prosperity" , or this years Nobel Prize to Eleanor Ostrom, Economy and Political Sciences, Dec, 8., 2009, (slide 44).
3) Use the arts and role-play when showcasing their positions, and make these fit the situation. eg: See Richard C. Collins and the performance/video "The Challenge of the Madrigal Sea" (Chesapeake Bay 1993) "A Coastal Sea in Trouble", for example, or the round-tables to discuss "Another Earth in Trouble?" at UN Climate 1995 , the "non-predecessor" of Kyoto". [more]
This is a first hand response after attending to Copenhagen 2009 for two weeks. We have worked for many weeks prior to the conference with others around the world. This blog cannot give all the answers, but if you visit "pitch" (PDF 2MB) and look at the last side-event of the KLIMAFORUM 09, it will help you to be involved and add your views and also vote. What I mean is well described at the pitch - slide 22,25,28, 43,44, and 64. 21stCenturyAgora site, in the Obamavision exercise, and in the event mentioned above.
PLEASE COME BACK as I have to "jump trains" tonight and need to recover in the "calm season" at years end. Meanwhile maybe check the slides below: (I will use Lecturnity so you have a full presentation maybe at the end of the year).
see also the 2007 WASAN ACTION FRAMEWORK on CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY - Interdisciplinary Round Table on Climate Change and Energy Strategies (CCERT)
September 14/15, 2007 Muskoka Lakes, Ontario, Canada, website.
18 Dec 2009 @ 08:00
Last night we harvested in the Survival Academy, revisited the side-events and looked into the future of the Academy and also the beautiful and precious planet, and not just of us Earthlings.
Stay tuned - check the links from yesterday and check out the young guy and ladies being the backbone of this UNFCCC COP15 in Copenhagen, CopenVegan, HopenHagen.... I am getting confused these days - sik more about the survival Academy and the side events here: One idea came up, was revisited !! It was to make again a parody about teh "situation", same as in the MADRIGAL SEE (Chesapere Bay, Baltimore) 1993 or so and then revisited at UN Clima'95 in Berlin, where we asked:
"Which world is in trouble !?" and how to go beyond Summits and Agendas !!.
Obama just passed by on the way to Bella Centre / no time for a breakfast deal / looks like he has to help bracketing and coping comming to survival ends hopefully tomorrow some time / and hopefully not a quick-fix but something towards something solid, lasting, helpful and that matters towards mount awareness and shared orientations and solutions... stay tuned - Copenhagen is "hip" these days...
I need to sum up this "negotiations" a.s.a.p. - but as we have fallen into deep solemn vigil coma after weeks and months of preparations, it seems better to take a deep breath, consider this proposal for an emergency summit, but also to relax, step back, look from above and with lots of oblique views http://benking.de/Global-Change/Geoecodynamics-1988.html. on the matters, as it it important to know where we and want/need to go, individually, socially, culturally and collectively !.
Mark Twain one wrote: "When we lost our direction we doubled our efforts" (or so). A case for general orientation and governace, not just for personal directions... beyond turns and turfs.
Good Night & Good Luck !
This is Heiner Benking's News Log, a private-public diary presenting events, symposia and happenings in Berlin and elsewhere - my farings, foci, issues and concerns.
PLEASE CONSIDER THIS PERSONAL BLOG an ARTISTIC and PERFORMATIVE MEDIA INTERVENTION !
The Log links to my work and interests and presents issues and special concern of maybe a very small group of "concerned, engaged generalist" - a Global Interest Group (GIG). This needs to be seen in contrast to the ubiquitous Specialized Interest Groups (SIGs), the "scientific" approach to organize subject areas and specialization and standardization and harmonization! of means, nomenclatures, and modes of thinking. My favorite stories in the WHOLENESS SEMINAR include:
BELA BANATHY: "GENESIS
OF GENERAL SYSTEMS THEORY" and "IVAN HAVEL: Longing for Unified Knowledge" where a "specialist" runs into the founding session of the early foundations General Systems, mumbling "this is not my field" or where Ivan M. Havel expresses his search for other kinds of knowledge.
As a starter I also recommend to check my MINDPRINT site, where we add the need for HANDPRINTS and MINDPRINTS, as FOOTPRINTS are good to visualize and communicate numbers, densities or consumption per area, but are not sufficient to negotiate and "harmonize" across domains and communicate gains in different cultures, technologies, times,... in short: incompatible but relevant information and our work on dialog, peace, policy-making, and multi-modal, faceted issues and consequences.
What am I? This is a "well-packed" question for which I have not the or a single answer. Some called me an in-betweener, go-getter, facilitator, hub, marvel-hero, trim-tab, bricoleur, bricoleers??? - career designeer, .... Some even "hank" which I disliked or Story which I liked very much !!
I have no single answer as I feel we need to walk the talk and sing and dance Life ! in spectra and fields in multiple embodied spaces.
To nebulous an answer? I am sorry but I do not go for overclaims and oversimplifications, under-complex and over-simplistic approaches with clan-think mindsets about real issues in clear contexts!
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14 Apr 2010 @ 22:28
5 Mar 2010 @ 09:38
9 Feb 2010 @ 20:13
16 Jan 2010 @ 22:41
12 Jan 2010 @ 00:10
11 Jan 2010 @ 08:16
19 Dec 2009 @ 08:53
18 Dec 2009 @ 08:00
10 Dec 2009 @ 19:45