Tour of Design Interactions at Show RCA 2012 with Tony Dunne

From Dezeen - http://www.dezeen.com/2012/06/25/movie-tour-of-design-interactions-at-show-rca-2012-with-tony-dunne/

Seen: The Secret History of Our Streets - Caledonian Road

Introducing the Cally Road!
See it here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01k6k3m/The_Secret_History_of_Our_Streets_Caledonian_Road/

"In 1886 Charles Booth embarked on an ambitious plan to visit every one of London's streets to record the social conditions of residents. His project took him 17 years.

Once he had finished he had constructed a groundbreaking series of maps which recorded the social class and standing of inhabitants. These maps transformed the way Victorians felt about their capital city.

This series takes six archetypal London streets as they are now, discovering how they have fared since Booth's day.

Booth colour coded each street, from yellow for the 'servant keeping classes', down to black for the 'vicious and semi-criminal'. With the aid of maps the series explores why certain streets have been transformed from desperate slums to become some of the most desirable and valuable property in the UK, whilst others have barely changed.

This landmark series features residents past and present, exploring how what happened on the street in the last 125 years continues to shape the lives of those who live there now.

This episode features Caledonian Road, which starts next to King's Cross station and heads north for over a mile. From its beginning, the street has been resolutely working class and when Charles Booth visited he found it a depressing district.

But the people of 'the Cally', as it is affectionately known to residents, have held their community together despite being challenged by powerful outside forces as well as a reputation for being a bit rough around the edges.

Featuring fascinating and often passionate accounts from residents both past and present, the film tells the story of the changing faces of this remarkable street."

Production City

- The city as a production line, expressed through abstracted and manipulated collected sound. Research from The Mass Ornament project. 

Juan Enriquez: Will our kids be a different species?

11:20 mins - Ed Boyden, Retroviruses, downloadable memories into binary code.

13:00 mins - Increase in autism and other different mental conditions. We now take in as much data each day as people used to in a whole lifetime. Massive inputs of data + plasticity of the brain, hyper-reactive.

14:00 - Rapid evolution of the brain through (autism)
- gene modifications (maybe from fast food)
- mating with similar individuals (concentrations of like-minded people) / genes reinforcing
- intake of massive amounts of information. (to cause hyper-sensitivity or other conditions)
- chemicals

We are transitioning as a species. We have already been through over 25 changes in our species.

We are transitioning into a homogeneous, for better or worse, that is conscious of their environment and is directly and deliberately controlling the evolution of its own species of through bacteria, plants and animals....

Martin Parr

"This rub between mythology and reality is the inspiration – and the contradiction"

Visited: Heatherwick Exhibition @ V&A

The model I helped to make is now on show at the V&A. See the model and Thomas explaining the project above.

Exhibition information - http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/heatherwick-studio/

Watch a video about the studio here - http://vimeo.com/43975572

Hearing Thomas talk about the Christmas card project is also worth watching -

Seen: Surviving Progress

Progress Trap

Ronald Wright "A short history of progress"

economics. manufacturing. over production and consumption. synthetic biology. deforestation of the amazon. congo's debt. china. planetary brain.

"We have retched an era of limits"