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 !
29 Aug 2008 @ 09:39
iIt is like a deja vue for me reporting from Berlin's ICC, from IFA 2008 [link]
Already 27 years ago we focussed on exactly this integration, terms like infografik and CIM and CAE I have used in my main theme of the CAMP '83 keynote (daily focus on Management, Marketing,.. and Visualisation (Computer Graphics) - CAMP was organised by the WCGA (World Computer Graphics Association).
It was very visible what the futures could be for policy-making, markting and sales, when you could see the marriage of GIS and market and customer data, not just used for sales but election stratgies.
We at that time had not yet heard Bill Gates telling us that Computer and Television will not marry and earlier at Photokina Cologne in 1985 that digital cameras will take centuries,... or when having one of the first PC's connected to a prototype 600 dpi electroerosion IBM printer that our IBM-PC, without our UNIRAS Rasterizer (hardware box) took one full day to raster the image (just black/white) and we were the champions in colour dithering high-res, making such a PC busy for days (if not until breakdown).
See? Depth, Qualities, Scales are different when we compare yesterday and tomorrow. Jong Wo Park just visualised for us 281 Exabytes .. 100 floors disquettes all over Berlin 100 floor or 300 meters high !
I will go back to scales, proportions, consequences,.. later.
Deja vue ?
Yes, we spoke about text & graphics merge at DRUPA 1981 in Düsseldorf – showing that the Apollo Domain (Distributed Operating Mulit-Acccess Interactive Network) did already that: (multi-user, multi-tasking, multi-window) able to manage different data, coded and non-coded come together – same as the Talk of Jong Woo Park, President of SAMSUNG right now. [link]
Jong Woo Park remembered us that so many industry leaders and technology out-lookers where wrong in the past and showed how easy it is now to integrate seamlessly. He used body metaphors, repoprting that swimmers at the Olympics in Beijing..
MORE COMMING ---- IN THE WORKS Friday 29.August More >
8 Aug 2008 @ 22:01
other people marry today - today I joined. Which is quite something for me personally after refusing memberships, decling offers like from the Royal Society, leaving Clubs, ... being tired of all this self-gratification elbowing, ego-exercises of modern celebrity saving-the-world efforts, and NGO-turfs [link] and "turns" worse than the old boys networks and ignorance ivory-towers of all this "clan and group-think" -'ers....
So today I stepped out of the maze of overexploiting myself by the only one possible mean I had left: not-associating myself any more.
So tday I renewed alliance to a group I was involved with 14 years ago and liked very much, called: TuWas ! [link] TuWas means: "Do something"! - not just talk, but act (responsibly) (aware of all ecological, societal and cultural challenges we face).
I had uploaded and later added more context here for the CHANCES 2000 exercise we did in the 90ies at Hannover Fair:
[link] maybe of interest is also CHANCE 2000 we did a few days later - actuall Christoff SChlingensief did it and we were just part of the "ELECT YOURSELF" - campaign theater in the circus tent: [link] - [link]
(I only add this here as these 2 exercises: "sharing spaces" and and "sharing voices" are my central concern and avenue for action, and the events have lasting memory value for me. I will add more documenation as I feel they show how to get broader audiences and get messages across by and with all or many "means"...
(I now also add the FUTURES of sharing Voices, Spaces, Futures) as all this was pragmatic and there was so mcuh energy and hope. Lets try to connect to these stream on my earlier homepages from the 90ies (done in Ulm before I setteled in Berlin):
NEWCIV:
[link] - - [link]
Ceptual Institute
[link] Well, I think some consolidation of web presences and publications needs to be done sone - maybe using Video to bind the times and issues together and tell "stories that matter"?
18 Jul 2008 @ 16:23
Still out of breath I am reporting from The Global Ecological Integrity Group - Conference (GEIG) [link] This conference was co-organized by Laura Westra and Klaus Bosselmann. Local Organizers: Farah Lenser, Open Forum and sponsored by Franz-Theo Gottwald Schweisfurth Foundation.
This July 16-20, 2008 we had "fireworks" of contributions, of events, and side-events
like with the THE ETHICS SPECIALIST GROUP (ESG) of the THE WORLD CONSERVATION UNION ...
[link] (PDF)
I see this GEIG people draw much on philosophers like Hans Jonas - a good move to get more concrete about Ethics with Space and Time horizon. [link] I just proposed to add not only the SPACE & TIME HORIZON of his Responsibility but to add the ex-centric postionality of Hellmuth Plessner, The concretenes of Jean Gebser, and his long time friend Robert Jungk - who was 10 years younger (exactly) - see more here:
[link] and (in German): [link]More >
13 Jul 2008 @ 14:27
At the 14. Anniversary of Robert Jungks (Bob) death tomorrow July 14, I want to revisit his essay "The New Encyclopedists" 30 years ago and his view on science 20 years in a form of a late eulogy.
Both were published in his book: "Future between Fear and Hope" - pleadings for political imagination" in 1990.
I have only discovered this book only a week ago, and feel very touched and moved by it, as they are relevant today as they are in the futures to come, if we do not come up with answers and solutions to his questions, concerns, and warning.
Why do I put this up and why only now?
Bob when we met in 1991 has been all eyes and ears when I spoke about my work around international knowledge organisation and dialogue. Only now I can see that he has been laying out the issues so deep and insightful that I can only be at awe when I gaze at his essays about the needed for a new Encyclopedists and the trends he outlined 10 years later in "The Evolution of Science (1988).
I myself liked his interest s and good questions but had no clue that he cared so much about knowledge organisation and challenges of future communication and media. But now reading his texts I can see why he has open so many doors for me, to people and organisations like Anthony Judge, UIA and his Encyclopedia [link] the World Future Studies Federation (WFSF) Turku 1993 [link], the World Future Society, or Hans Jonas [link] (an old friend of him, born 10 years minus one day earlier, ... Bob opened doors and urged me to get involved with great recommendations of his, in symposia and events, asked me to help organize the German Churchday with a special event under the title: "Water, Sources of Creation": [link], help organise his 80th birthday celebrations in Munich, and Graz: "Eco-Town - Graz End and Beginning" [link] ,..., and repeatedly encouraged me to continue with all my "gots" in the field of education and policy.
Why I can see this and speak up only now?
I was under deep shock having lost Jungk and Jonas when I was just starting to explore the incredible depth they both stand for. And because the Jungk camp was in deep sorrow and agony - not listening - but crying and fighting.
Why I feel I should speak up now?
I have been addressing and focussing on the questions and challenges he raised in the 2 essays above.
AND I feel not only that his analysis and synthesis are very insightful and special, but that I have answers to central challenges he poses. (not me alone but in the context of all the valuable leads he provided me with !
Robert Jungks book is urging us to develop further sharing and imagination:
I started to summing up his central analysis and what needs to be done in German. Please have a look:
Here is the essence:
First: There is a need for a new Encyclopedists, Jungk sums up what Diderot and D’Alembert wanted and where they and later attempts failed, brings in the new project on the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, and outlines what needs to be done.
Second: In Evolution of Science he is very critical with Science, another Feyerabend I would say, but continues with trends to make a difference, guiding us to move towards positive ends:
We should develop the following trends: 1. from narrowness to width (holistic thinking etc.), 2. from abstraction to reality, 3. from elitists to participatory, civil, humane sciences, 4. from conformance to resistance, 5. from secrecy to openness, 6. from dogma to pluralism.
All this when I read it last week was like a revelation. This was what I am doing and aiming at over the last 20 years. No so clear and explicit. And it showed that I am not alone in this – so many people are working on the same obvious but somehow for themselves unaware "supergoals".
Bob laughed heartily when I showed him the Motto of the UN G7 UNEP Harmonisation project I consulted at that time: "much is known, unfortunately in different heads”. (Werner Kollath)
As most of Bobs writing is not available in English and all the nuggets he left tend to be forgotten by new generations, I feel it is time to table again what was done in my most productive time: 1989-1994.
I will provide here links so papers and subjects can be found, studied and improved: More >
11 Jul 2008 @ 12:03
Subsuming and resonnating after trying to recover from our 4 weeks 1001 actions for dialogue some items still haunt me.
Can we connect old and new agoras? How should they look like? Is there only one New Agora as THE Colaboratory for Democray to harness the wisdom of the people ?
What happens in online and large groups !? and what can be done when the times available is very limmited, or the location is "difficult", or expectations and assumptions of participants are too diverse, or do not match at all?
As you know I am a "Lover of Democracy" [link] and so a "fan" of the work of Ozbekahn, Christakis and Judge [link] Please see also: [link], or: [link], or: [link], and last not least: [link] ...
I strongly recommend to study these sites. And maybe see more on system sciences, dialogue, angoras here: [link] or here: [link] or FUTURES: Agoras for the Global Village: [link]
Study the methods and procedures, and look out of the box bridging ways and means, and also into how to empower and not just harness, as we do with the Magic round Tables.
One central challenge for me was to include local and global agoras, the timing of people in different realiteis and worlds, and exercise with them time-credits. Why ? for the sake of reducing our carbon footprint ! and avoid travelling onely for a one-day stand.
I hope you enjoy this proposal for the Anna Lindh Foundation: [link] and the outcomes of one of the side events around the 1001 actions/nights
and 100 001 diversities exercise (below). I found it very encouraging indeed. Please check: [link] Proposing 1001 actions and 100 001 diversities provided a very interesting learning curve. Senior People in our German Foreign Office or positions around the UN and UNESCO called our side-event proposal: Mutig and gewagt (daring) or stark and needed.
What an encouragement ! I will go into this later...
15 May 2008 @ 06:22
A campaign for intercultural, interdisciplinary events and side-events, formal and informal, to promote dialogue and unity in diversity across scales, nations, languages, cultures, diciplines, sectors, lervels,.. is starting today: May 15 to June 15, 2008
TITLE: The Cultures and Powers of Diversity
Map Diversity and Mind Unity in Diversity - Create it & Accept it - Share & Expand it ! [link]
BY DIVERSITY WE MEAN: cultural, natural, biological, genetic, temporal, spacial, lingual, media (signs), artistic and creative diversity !
– even diversity of viewpoints, positions and world-views and world models or world maps ! and the need of not needing to agree and the beauty of difference (diversity) in view of requisite variety.
Why are these “Diversities treated seperately ? cant we learn from each other ? or do we think there is no common language and no overview possible? Can we come to grips with broad issues and vague subject areas?
There is also a diversity of views and positions, representations and displays, call them signs, symbols, schemas, maps and models.
What is needed is to go beyond dualistic approaches, thinking just from an individual an collective, or personal or societal, just as we are seperating goos and bad, black and white, north and south or east and west.
So let us explore and negotiate the merits of having more than one way to go and present, one perspective or one direction.
And see outcomes like from the EcoTHEE - 2008 Agora: [link]More >
19 Nov 2007 @ 15:07
Finally the new and last IPCC report has hit the streets - but did it "hit" the "people" even when it matters to all of us?
Is this a matter that make us all act?
Why did the world did not react 20 years ago when the Climate and Development Conference in Hamburg with Willy Brandt, or when the COP-1 in Berlin took place in 1995?
Doomsday scenarios were already ubiquitous at that time, and earlier, media asked scientists to present vividly worstcase, serious scenarios!
People in Charge, like Elisabeth Dowdeswell (UNEP) wrote we know enough - we need to act to fight the crisis now - But how when me behave as this has nothing to do with us and we close our eyes and senses, and continue with business as usual.
Why was it so hard - even at CSD-15 - to speak about a climate crisis - which is much more than just climate change and the challenges we face?
Below I will focus on the reasons why I think we do not confront and tend to ignore the issues - why they do not "hold" in our memory -a nd so we can get dumbed down and continue "muddling through" - See more below: More >
26 Oct 2007 @ 08:09
HERE SOME QUESTIONS:
Is there a “store of knowledge" which we learn about, and jointly explore, share, and apply ??? - see the context, the frame, and the why we should learn? and what??
Should we use Signs, and Symbols, Images, Analogies, Maps and Models and Puzzles to help us digest and share what we know about the world?
See here the http://www.zeit.de/2007/44/Kanon-Auftakt and the themes in our German ZEIT Magazin.
So how to come to shared references or "order" ? as a pile of stone is not a house or canon. How about making use of Intelligences, Minds, Reason, ? and see them as one and combine them - because it is hard and misleading to be one-eyed and self centered only, leaving levels, times and others "out of the picure" instead of comming "down to Earth"?
Pls. see also below regarding grounding and purpose and responsibilities the question to Al Gore about "up to the moon" ? or "down to Earth" !
I hope the texts and references in the "corpus" below make sense and help us to make what we can know more real and shareable. More >
21 Oct 2007 @ 10:13
Al Gore might want to answer one or more of these questions which were posed to him for his comming-out in Berlin next Tuesday.
There are more questions and the people can vote which one they consider most relevant for him to answer.
Pls. visit this link, and maybe even vote here
And now my questions: 1-4 (in full in the body below)
1. Apollo Alliance, 2. Earth Literate or Ignorant Leaders ? 3. Participation, Inclusion, Empowerment, Co-Creation, and shared agreed Actions? 4. Have you revisited "The Problematique" from 1970? More >
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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29 Aug 2008 @ 09:39
8 Aug 2008 @ 22:01
18 Jul 2008 @ 16:23
13 Jul 2008 @ 14:27
11 Jul 2008 @ 12:03
15 May 2008 @ 06:22
19 Nov 2007 @ 15:07
26 Oct 2007 @ 08:09
21 Oct 2007 @ 10:13