Metaphorically speaking, I agree with the lyrics of The Indigo Girls’ song when they sing “we’re better off for all that we let in.” The song reminds me to be open to challenges and growth, but of course sometimes “all” the suffering of the world is too much and needs to be balanced by celebration […]
The Resilience of Meaning
Stephen Willats is interested in both information networks and networks of meaning, each connected to real people in real locations. In Willats’ art, these networks intersect and overlap in complex ways; words, pauses, gestures, posture, and spaces between, all contribute both information and meaning to exchanges that are captured as “Data Stream: A Portrait of […]
Prairie Alert: Act NOW!
Today, David Monk asked help spreading the word about this state of affairs: “Heartland Pathways has received very late notification from the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) that an important relocated remnant prairie at the I-57 rest stop near Pesotum is about to be destroyed to make way for expanding sewage facilities. This prairie has […]
In Need of Some Sociological Imagination
I spent much of my week distracted and distraught by the demonstrations and confrontations in London, Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool, to name some of the locations of unrest this August. Perhaps I was particularly tuned in to that part of the world because in June I was working in London and Bristol, and in […]
Engaged vs. Entrepreneurial Universities
One keynote address at the recent Erasing Boundaries symposium was by Henry Louis Taylor, Jr., from the University of Buffalo Center for Urban Studies; it was entitled “The Engaged versus the Entrepreneurial University: How Neighborhoods Matter.” (See earlier posts for descriptions of the symposium.) Taylor posited these types of universities as two distinct, indeed opposing, […]
Case Studies of Engagement
At the recent Erasing Boundaries symposium, there were so many sessions with fascinating case studies of people’s engagements. (See “Spaces of Connection” post below for more information on this symposium.) Jocelyn Zanzot (Auburn) spoke about the Rural Landscape Studio in Macon County, Alabama, in which she and her students worked with the Shiloh Missionary Baptist […]
Local, Global and Digital Engagements
As noted in the previous post, I was able to attend the Erasing Boundaries Project symposium in April 2011 in New York City. The project is a collaboration among landscape architecture, architecture, and planning faculties, students and community partners. The two days in New York were packed with stimulating presentations and lectures. Kudos to the […]
Spaces of Connection
The Erasing Boundaries Project hosted a national symposium in April 2011 in New York City called “Educating at the Boundaries: Community Matters.” The project is a collaboration among landscape architecture, architecture and planning faculties, students and community partners. This was the second symposium; the first was held in 2008. The goals include examining the pedagogy […]
Of Rockets and Humanities
Speaking a year ago at the 50 Years of Public Computing at UI symposium (April 15, 2010), Professor Marc Snir noted that technologists at times have been uninterested in the outcomes of their inventions: “Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That’s not my department.” Of Community Informatics (CI), Snir noted: […]
Responsive Architecture
I had the good fortune to hear Tristan Sterk talk the other night in Champaign. He’s teaching now at the Art Institute of Chicago, and came down at the invitation of Therese Tierney, an assistant professor in the School of Architecture at the U of I. Tristan is principal of the Office of Robotic Architectural […]
