The Viridian Design Movement

From: Bruce Sterling [bruces@well.com]

Sent: Sunday, February 09, 2003 5:05 PM

Subject: Viridian Note 00361: Beautiful Things

Key concepts:
Key concepts: war, beauty, Belle Epoque, the
necessity of keeping one's morale up in difficult times
Attention Conservation Notice:
Could keep you websurfing for months on end.

(((By the time we send out our next Viridian Note, the United States may be at war. This is a sad and ugly historical period, so it's time for us Viridians to mindfully contemplate pretty things. Such action is a moral necessity. In the memorable words of Italo Calvino, in his beautiful book INVISIBLE CITIES:

((("There are two ways to escape the suffering. The first is easy for many: accept the Inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the Inferno, are not Inferno, then make them endure, give them space."

(((In this Note we Viridians are vigilantly giving considerate space and time to things that are Not-Inferno. If you see one that you fancy, by all means help make it endure.)))


(((Okay, yes, that Australian observatory we mentioned horribly caught fire. But they SAVED THE DATA!)))

"Valuable data collected by the Mt. Stromlo Observatory in Canberra, Australia were not lost in a firestorm that destroyed the facility thanks to a 'comprehensive data recovery plan.' Data from the telescopes had been being sent to a StorageTek 9310 Powderhorn library at the Canberra campus of the Australian National University (ANU); administrative and research data had been being backed up regularly and stored at two separate remote locations."
http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/enterprise/story/0,2000025001,20271482,00.htm

(((Beautiful open-source web-art toys.)))
http://www.levitated.net/daily/index.html

(((London's Design Museum. Stay all day.)))
http://www.designmuseum.org/

(((The National Building Museum showcases big, green buildings.)))
http://www.nbm.org/Exhibits/current/Big_and_Green.html

(((Touchingly retro-prescient art by Boris Artzybasheff. Stun your friends.)))
http://www.enter.net/~torve/art/artzy/markiii.html
http://www.enter.net/~torve/art/artzy/executive.html

(((Now that you're unemployed, why not write some science fiction stories for cool pulp magazines? These lovely relics of a lost media age are barely surviving today, but people always write for magazines during Depressions. A great entertainment bargain. Subscribe now and save them for a later generation!)))
http://www.asimovs.com/
http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/

((((Ten bucks a month for your own Linux computer online.)))
http://www.workspot.com/

(((The strange and provocative WonderWalker.)))
http://wonderwalker.walkerart.org/

(((Hey Baby Boomers. Remember that weird, trippy, British LP cover art by Roger Dean, on big vinyl "progressive rock" records of the 1970s? Well, soon you can LIVE INSIDE IT!)))
http://www.homeforlife.co.uk/

(((Bangalore isn't just computer chips. It's also Indian eco-housing.)))
http://inika.com/chitra/projects.htm

(((Enjoy emergent, bizarre, toroidal circulation phenomena, and get wasted on Tia Maria liqueur at the same time. Yes, this stunt has been home-tested in the Viridian Vatican, and it works.)))
http://www.newscientist.com/lastword/article.jsp?id=lw201

(((Never mind the Bush push on fuel-cells == if you're a rich guy with a generous tax break, you can buy nifty-keen fuel-cell desktop toys.)))
http://www.fuelcellstore.com/products/index/demonstration_gift_index.html

(((Solar cells have quietly re-entered the White House.)))
http://www.buildinggreen.com/news/white_house.html

(((Convulsively funny Viridian comic relief from an old Onion article.)))
http://www2.gol.com/users/coynerhm/hippie_update.htm

(((Duncan Stewart of the Viridian Curia remarks: "Decasia is a film for the Viridian Movement. Deliciously analog. The film is made from black and white movie clips from the early days of the previous century. All in various states of corruption, from the celluloid of the film itself to the silver nitrate which provides the canvas. A stepping stone to a new level of organic artistry.")))
http://www.decasia.com/

(((An Arts and Crafts mall. That's right, a mall.)))
http://www.lileks.com/bleat/archive/03/0103/013103.html

((A fun, nifty-keen Danish webgame.)))
http://www.titoonic.dk/products/games/spider/default.html

(((Beautiful, beautiful sunflowers. Our kind, of course.)))
http://www.perpetualocean.com/artpage6/sunflowers.html

(((The 100 most beautiful women in Bollywood cinema. Okay, there's nothing remotely Viridian about this, but holy Vishnu, what a swarm of goddesses.)))
http://photogallery.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articlelist?mostcatkey=&catkey=1795245 8&type=

(((The vast and awesomely beautiful Eden Project.)))
http://www.edenproject.com

(((Cities of the future, by students of today.)))
http://www.futurecity.org/

(((Hoberman is making bug toys now.)))
http://www.hoberman.com/fold/grobots/mantis.htm

(((Dead design gizmos are often more beautiful than the ones that got market traction.)))

http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,38426|2,00.html

(((Cosmic scales convey the many consolations of natural philosophy.)))
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/

(((An Atlas of Cyberspaces.)))
http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/whats_new.html

(((The stunningly cosmic Celestia.)))
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/gallery.html

(((The harsh beauty of Mars, under intense and continuing observation.)))
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/index.html

(((Incredible inflatable space architecture. Why not put them in West Texas?)))
http://www.ilcdover.com/SpaceInf/habitats/transhab.htm

(((Take a carbon-fiber elevator straight into the heavens.)))
http://www.highliftsystems.com/

O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O
A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOREVER
O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O

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