Sometime over the Autumnal Equinox weekend, I noticed I had fallen out of love — with a man, New Zealand, and well, just about everything. Everywhere I looked, all I saw appeared rorted, munted, or just plain shonky, to use the vernacular. Almost two months later, strolling through the new Tender is the Night exhibition at City Gallery, an exhibition that asks us all how it feels to fall in and fall out of love, I noticed a stirring, an awareness that this state too had passed, and there are so many things I’m excited about and looking forward to sharing. Here are just a few:
1. Tender is the Night is a wonderful counterpart to City Gallery’s recent Roundabout° exhibition, which explored big love, aroha, and compassion in a selection of contemporary art from around the world. This one draws in close and even dares to get a little wet while exploring the complex and intense nature of personal desire, love, longing and loss across both time and place.

   I’m always drawn to Ukiyo-e, literally “the floating world,” the elaborately colourful woodblock prints from the Edo and Meijii periods of Japan, and this exhibition includes some wonderful examples. Right next to — and inspired by — the shunga, a sexually explicit subcategory of Ukiyo-e, is one of my favorite works in the exhibition, “Hungry Ghost with Dragonfly Jar,” (pictured above) a gouache painting by contemporary New Zealand artist Kushana Bush.

   The other piece I fell in love with and just wanted to hang out with all afternoon is by another young artist from New Zealand, Francis Upritchard, “Wife” and “Husband” (below). At first glance, I was struck by the emotion on each face and the tensions between them. Only after a while did it become apparent how splendidly they were crafted from other animals in the form of recycled fur coats and gloves.

   

   Tender is the Night runs 7 May – 17 July 2011 at
   City Gallery Wellington, 101 wakefield st, Wellington, New Zealand
   Related events:
   Curators’ Tour (The awesome Heather Galbraith) Friday 27 May, 12.30pm
   Open City Friday 8 July, 6–9.30pm Entry $10/$5 concession (including City Gallery Friends)

2. First Light bach Energy Solar Decathlon Entry 2011 at Frank Kitt’s Park through May 22, 2011.
   
   This should be number 1 in excitement level, but since I wandered over after checking out Tender is the Night, I’m reporting in chronological order. New Zealand is graced with all the forces of nature in such abundance — sun, wind and water — and it’s crazy that our homes and buildings are not making the most of them. One of my projects and passions this year is designing a regenerative family house here in Wellington, and I have been disappointed to see best practices in the area have been so far, not so great. Thrilled to find a team from Victoria University has designed a beautiful, energy-efficient, fully solar-powered bach (NZ summer vacation house) called First Light House that’s been selected as the first Southern Hemisphere contender in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011.

   First Light pushes the edge in renewability, and most excitingly, has done it by partnering with local providers and manufacturers. Which means the capability is here, and it’s up to all of us to demand it in our designs and purchases going forward. Alas, the audio in the video of my tour of the house’s impressive systems by Victoria University student Zach was hard to hear due to the NORML concert taking place across the park (which is kind of excellent in its own way). So check out the intro to First Light House yourself in their video below, updates on their blog, and in person at Frank Kitt’s Park in Wellington through May 24 and in Washington D.C., USA Sept 23—Oct 2, 2011.

3. Our Choice, the follow up to An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore, transformed from book to app by Push Pop Press, for an excellent interactive reading experience on the iPad. The interface that strives to emulate printed books disappears, and the interaction begins to feel native and intuitive. All media flow into one seamless whole; the project envelops text, image, interactive graphics, audio, animations and video as appropriate to communicate the message and further the narrative. It’s also important and worth your time for all the actionable solutions for renewable energy, conservation, business, and governance it offers. Mike Matas of Push Pop Press gives a compelling demo below. Kudos to all involved, and I hope their creation software becomes widely available, soon!

    

4. Louie Schwartzberg’s TED Talk on the hidden beauty of pollination
   I spent a lot of time in the Sonoran Desert last summer, photographing cacti blossoms and even a few bats. But never once did I see their amazing pollination ritual, featured in Schwartzberg’s video below along with hummingbirds, monarch butterflies and more. Schwartzberg says “Beauty and seduction, I believe, is nature’s tool for survival, because we will protect what we fall in love with.” I dare you to watch the video below and not fall in love with everything in it.

5. Long Now talk with Tim Flannery on evolution.
   This episode of The Long Now’s Seminars about Long Term Thinking, one of my favorite podcasts, introduced me to Australian biologist, Tim Flannery, and now I can’t wait to read his books: The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth, The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People, The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples, and Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet. Yes, I’ve ordered them all. 

   There’s so much richness in his talk, it’s worth at least a couple of listens. But my favorite parts come in the question and answer period, when Tim Flannery explains that love is an evolutionary outcome:

   “There are powerful forces at work that result from that cruel and amoral mechanism called ‘evolution by natural selection’ that creates this thing we call love between human beings. The bonds between species and the bonds between individuals. All of that — that’s an evolutionary outcome.”

   Stewart Brand: “That sounds a little warm and fuzzy.”

   Tim Flannery: “Well, why should it? Everything about us, every manifestation of life is a result of evolution by natural selection. Love is a part of that. It’s part of the bond that keeps civilizations together. We can have love of country, love of our environment, love of other people. This is part of the evolutionary outcome.”

   He then goes on to explain that we’ve gone through a period of being “future eaters,” expanding our powers and capacities without having awareness, wisdom or understanding how the global system works. We’re in a race between true intelligence and our technical capacity.

   Here’s to expanding our wisdom and intelligence to create happy outcome for living beings!

Delighted to connect with artist Monica Moreno aka SonikaMonica from Barcelona at her studio in the flamin’ artichoke in Featherton, New Zealand. She introduced me to the wonderful phrase “Donde hay pelo hay alegria” – Where there is hair there is joy, the theme of her upcoming exhibition at Roar gallery in Wellington, 29th October – 14 November 2009. Her sculptures and paintings exude the colorful exuberance of Alexander Girard and embody an untamed joy both reverent (exploring ideas of inner peace) and irreverent (Cinderella with hairy legs).

Today marks the 40th anniversary of man’s landing on the moon, and I keep having flashbacks. Not to July 20, 1968 — I wasn’t born yet — to October 17, 2008, when I helped bring the Apollo 13 crew safely back to Earth. At least fictionally.

Generally, I don’t have a great rap as a theatre date. Except to the people waiting outside for a chance to take over my seat at intermission. All too often I’m painfully aware I’m in a cramped coach seat watching characters wrapped up in a drama I couldn’t care less about. But Apollo 13: Mission Control hooked me before I even entered the theatre.

Outside, a replica of the Saturn V rocket commanded our attention, and as we queued awaiting the doors to open, the astronauts descended the staircase and entered the capsule before our very eyes. We cheered them on then entered the theatre control room.

Instead of rows, we had consoles. Where we chose to sit determined our roles. I was in charge of boosters, my date manned monitor 17. Each one was a masterpiece of fiddly controls and blinking lights, monitors we could switch between feeds of the astronauts and instruments.

Apollo 13 was intended to be the third mission to carry humans to the surface of the Moon, but an explosion of one of the oxygen tanks and resulting damage to other systems resulted in the mission being aborted before the planned lunar landing could take place. (Thanks, NASA.) In this version, it’s up to us to safely return the crew to Earth.

I had only been in New Zealand a couple of months when I saw Apollo 13, but sitting at the console in Mission Control, I felt like I was back in the United States. The U.S. of inspiring dreams, the home of the brave and land of the free, the best and the brightest. Not the October 2008 U.S. of economic collapse, “enhanced interrogation,” and Sarah Palin as quite possibly the next Vice President.

Perhaps this could only be created by outsiders – New Zealanders Kip Chapman and Brad Knewstubb, inspired by a replica control room used for the Apollo 8 mission in 1968 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Chapman told the New Zealand Herald, “We were worried about that because who are we to tell the story? But it’s such an interesting story and a universal story of survival so why shouldn’t we tell it?”

I’m so glad they did. The accents, haircuts and details were spot on. The sweat, the adrenaline, the excitement – so real. The only sweet giveaway that we were not in Houston was the big map with New Zealand in the center instead of, well, cropped off the right edge.

Apollo 13: mission Control stands out for originality, creativity and geeky passion. By far the most fun I’ve had in a theatre in years. It won’t be long before you can see it in the U.S. – they need it over there! In the meantime, people of Hamilton and Auckland, New Zealand, – don’t miss “Apollo 13: Mission Control“

Hamilton:
July 20 – 26, 8pm
The Meteor, Hamilton
Bookings TicketDirect
Auckland:
July 31 – August 15 (no shows Sunday and Monday)
Lower NZI Theatre, Aotea Centre, The Edge, Auckland
Bookings TicketDirect

I love Bruce Sterling’s closing talk for Reboot “action” edition conference that took place in Copenhagen on June 26. Bruce lays out his vision for the next ten years of dark euphoria, favela-chic, gothic high tech and stuffed animal frontiers. (His talk references a photoset, studies in atemporality, (featuring examples from Wellington when he was here speaking at Webstock on What comes after Web 2.0). Here’s what really resonated:

Objects are printouts – not treasures, not things to stocpkpile.

Our posessions are frozen social relationships. Think of them as hours of time and volumes of space.

Reassess the objects in your space and time. What is most important?

1. What you use all the time. Get the best possible common everyday objects. Your bed! You’re spending a third of your life in the thing – you should go out and buy the best bed you can get. The sheets, the pillows, they’re pretty high up there too. And a chair.
2. Things that are beautiful
• Is it so beautiful you’re going to show it to your friends?
• Is it on display?
3. Things that have emotional meaning
• Are you going to tell anybody else about it?
• Does it have a narrative?
• Or are you its slave?
4. Tools
• Have high technical standards
• Be very demanding
• Don’t make do with broken stuff

And everything else? (probably 80% of your stuff)?

1. Virtualize it.
2. Store the data.
3. Get rid of it.

I did a big reset one year ago moving from New York to New Zealand, and was surprised by the euphoria of liberation from so much stuff I thought I loved. Below are a few tools and resources that were awesome for virtualizing, storing data and getting rid of my stuff – perhaps they may help when it’s your turn.

For virtualizing books and almost anything with a barcode then managing and visualizing the data, Delicious Library makes it easy and fun. You hold the item’s bar code up to your camera, then see all the data about it. You can even see what the item resells for on Amazon and post it for sale there in a couple of clicks. It’s amazing to see my old library visually on the screen as I once knew it physically and to often be able to access the sections I want to reference through either Google or Amazon book search even though I no longer have the book physically before me.

If you’re in NYC and don’t have time or desire for selling on Amazon, The Strand pays fairly for used books, and Housing Works accepts donations that are tax deductible and for a great cause.

For furniture, electronics, etc, I took photos and made a catalog document linked to a live Google Docs spreadsheet that had up-to-date pricing and availability. Cocktail evenings (needed to empty my liquor cabinet) helped move the goods. Most items sold to friends, friends of friends and then lovely random people through Craigslist who would likely have become dear friends had I stayed. (We have the same taste!)

Purchasers arranged their own pickup/delivery, often after getting quotes from multiple providers through CityMove.

For the bulk of the other stuff that’s not exactly marketable yet still usable, Freecycle connected the stuff with the people who want it. As a safety for moving day, I selected a couple of large furniture items to donate to Housing Works in advance and scheduled a free pickup through them so any last items that didn’t sell could be donated and removed at the same time.

All I knew about Max Gimblett when I learned he was leading a sumi ink workshop in Wellington was that I liked his “Low Tide” installations at the Asian Contemporary Art Fair and Asia Society in New York and his lustrous signature quatrefoils.

I arrived at Capital E for Max Gimblett’s sumi ink painting workshop to see the chairs arranged in a circle that resembled an ensō, which would be our first painting exercise.

Max introduced himself as a mad monk (affiliated with the San Francisco Zen Center) whose monk name means “Diamond Brush Awareness”, and stated we were now a group, a Gestalt, and to speak only to the whole group and the centre of the circle, not to each other. Furthermore, he stated he is very intuitive, and any resistance would not be helpful. Of course, that just made me resist like crazy. But it all dissolved the moment we picked up our brushes and began our wild ride.

We began with the ensō [Max's, mine], and made several attempts each. Max paints like Tibetan Buddhist monks debate, animated with kinetic punctuations. He describes it as automatism, “one stroke bone” and “all mind and no mind”. Think very clearly of what you want do before you start, and then let go and free your mind while doing, “a little like making love.”

We expressed koans in ink. What was your face before the face you were born with? Then we dove into Jungian typologies and cognitive processes: thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensing. Which one is the hardest for you to reach? That one’s your shadow. What is your dominant process? (I’m an ENFJ, in case you’re curious.)

Between each exercise we held up our paintings for each other to see and comment upon into the circle. By the end of the hour, we’d produced quite a body of work and harmonized into a group. Afterwards he walked around and discussed our work with us individually; above are some video clips from the conversations. We also discussed the edge vs the centre, an idea Brian Sweeney explores in depth at nzedge.com and one that captivates me as a recent migrant from NY to NZ. His last advice to me was if things weren’t working, to add a little red: “Red always makes things zing.”

Max is currently has exhibitions of new work at Paige Blackie Gallery, “White Stone Clear Water,” in Wellington (19 May – 20 June 2009) and at Gow Langsford Gallery, “Full Fathom Five” in Auckland (5 May – 29 May 2009). His work was included in the Guggenheim Museum’s exhibition The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia (recently completed, but interesting presentation online).

• Max Gimblett’s website
• Max Gimblett on YouTube
• Max Gimblett discusses life as he thinks
• Max Gimblett in Art World, February 2009 by John Yau

NB: Good source for Chinese calligraphy brushes and Chinese Traditional Medicine in Wellington: Wellcare Chinese Medicine Shop 215, Left Bank, Cuba Mall, Wellington, 04 382 9451.

I had been seduced by a terroirist network known as New Zealand Artisan Honey, made up of passionate beekeepers producing honeys in small, quality batches from specific varietal sources among some of New Zealand’s most spectactular locations.

Sadly, most bees and beekeepers are not having such a romantic experience. I had noticed my previous honey brands losing their organic status as the varroa mite has spread south through New Zealand. There is evidence that CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) has arrived in New Zealand, and it’s likely due to the strong neonicotinoids, a class of systemic insecticides which France, Italy and Switzerland have banned because of its effects on bees.

I’m glad to see the government’s chosen to delay Section 92A of the Copyright Act until March 27 and suspend it entirely if no agreement can be reached. It needs to be repealed. Here are reports from Computerworld, InternetNZ and The NZ Herald.

A recent live talk with Peter Senge through Calliflower introduced me both to this great tool for conference calls and webinars and Senge’s compelling new book, The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals And Organizations Are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World.

Calliflower impressed me with sophisticated features for managing and participating in calls with an interface that’s elegant and easy to understand. (See below.) It can record calls as MP3 files to make available afterwards. And, it’s free.

I found it through Facebook and was able to participate fully from the event page in the browser without having to launch Skype or pick up a phone. Talkshoe offers a similar service but was not nearly as seamless in my last experience (a while ago, worth revisiting).

The only part I don’t understand is the business model. But it definitely shifted the quality of my listening, which dovetails perfectly into the the message in Peter Senge’s new book.

You can download the talk with Peter Senge in mp3 format. (It’s free, but registration required). My notes from his talk are below.

Ask yourself in your business or organization, what is the essence of this community? Making money is a necessary ingredient for successful business, but it doesn’t define what a successful business is. Developing high quality of relationships creates great organizations. Another way to define success is a learning organization, able to sense deep changes in its environment.

What is ending is the industrial age. What people don’t understand is that changes in dominant technologies has become defining factor of industrial age. The values of society became very different. People forgot the are a part of nature. Native people, Aboriginal people don’t have any problem knowing they’re part of nature.

We are coming up against all sorts of environmental limits. More and more of us are finding it difficult to ignore. It takes a ton of raw materials each day to support each American’s lifestyle — all of which ends up as waste. Why don’t we notice it?

Why does nobody notice that every living system operates on sunlight (except a few deep underwater)?

Why does nobody notice there is no waste in nature?

The idea of an “age” is a deeply held group of assumptions. These imbalances have been building for years by ways of living that contradict the natural world.

The challenges around climate change, water and food are all interrelated and products of an age, a pattern of thinking. Until we think differently, none of these will change. An age starts to change when people think differently.

There are so many doom & gloomers out there not really causing any change at all just making us more afraid. It doesn’t help any of us to go into denial about our current reality. The mainstream media doesn’t go into deeper changes because they’re gradual. The real story is slow steady changes have been occurring over the last decade or even longer.

The tragedy of the commons has become a metaphor for a whole host of issues. The commons is any common resource we depend upon. Historically, it meant a place where people graze their cattle together. If we just use it as a basis for individual gain, we’ll destroy the commons and we’ll all lose.

One example is the world fish stocks. 70% of the world fisheries are overfished — so much so that their recovery is in doubt. Everbody’s out getting as much fish as they can, leading to steady depletion and then collapse. Things get harder, so we work harder. At some point you have to stop and step back.

About 7 or 8 years ago, Coke got into difficulties in India over water usage. For the first time, they began looking at the whole supply chain for making code. They never before paid attention to the amount of water that goes into the sugar cane that goes into coke. Now they are becoming a world leader to promote watersheds.

It’s too simplistic to blame corporations. The problems we’re facing are not because of a few bad guys. You and I buy coke. We buy the tea. The corporation thinks it’s citizenry that’s the source of the problem. There’s a co-evolution.

The transcendent goal: we’re all going to have to hang together, or we’re going to hang separately.

Now we have the hard work of opening up mental models. None of us sees the whole system. We really do need each other to bring about deep change, learn how to see the bigger picture and collaborate. The Necessary Revolution is filled with diagrams, models and lists to give not just information but how some actually do this.

What’s the one thing that starts moving groups in the right direction? Things shift when the quality of listening shifts. When you listen to someone, do you hear what they say? Or do you hear what you want them to say? Do you develop inquiry into that question? 99 times out of a hundred, we end up in a debate and both parties usually feel like they one. But their views won’t change.

What if nobody knows the answer?
What if everyone sees a different part?
What if we really do need each other?
Then we really do need to listen to each other and learn to understand each other.

Moving beyond problem solving into creation, beyond reaction into proaction, the creativity.

We’re at the very beginning. The industrial age didn’t start overnight. No one was in charge of rolling it out. Despite the increasing concern about climate change, the amount of emissions exceeded all of the forecasts last year — our ship is stlil acceslerating in the wrong directon.

If we could start to get the ship turned and we all get involved, it will start to turn. Maybe it’s not just a monoculture of big global corporatons. Maybe we’ll have more diversity to organizations.

one principle – the regenerative society – based on the way nature works. Nature has a love affair with diversity. Nature just keeps producing different things. Different types of organizations. Everybody can do the job they really want to do and not need to fit some mold created by someone else.

The iconic imagery of the industrial age was the assembly line, exemplifying standardization and productivity.

Nature on the other hand tends toward uniqueness, interrelationships, fecundity, degenerativity — a world we’d much rather live in. What might that mean for how we live with other beings? What might that mean if we give up the idea that the boss is the top?

One final thing – at a basic level we have to return to a belief in trust. People want to do the right thing. We have to start believing that again. Lead or let them have the space they need to tell their part of the story and make their part of the conclusion.