Visualising Data/Sustainability

Perusing the blogs, I found this recent live sculpture come data visualisation I thought was really cool. A thousand miniature people have slowly melted away in a Berlin square in an effort by the World Wildlife Fund to draw attention to melting ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica. Nice work.

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Sustainable Design Forum

This Friday the 27th, the DCA will host the Sustainable Design Forum. Unbox along with five other speakers will be contributing to the discussions. It would be really great to see as many of you there as possible, and it should be a very interesting night.

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The Age Of Stupid

The Age Of Stupid is a 90-minute film about climate change, set in the future. Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking back at Earth wondering why we didn't stop it whilst we had the chance.

I found this trailer for the film, to be released on March 20th 09, on Kate Andrews blog. The trailer looks like it could be a good film, but is it simply that, just a film? I totally agree that the issue of climate change must be brought to the attention of the public, but who today in the Westernised world, where this film will surely be targeting, does not know already. I applaud the director and Spanner Films for attempting to use such a popular, diverse media medium of the cinema to reach the public, but is this really the most effective way? Is this even the right content? I fear that the message in "The Age Of Stupid" could be shelved away in the viewers minds never to be seen again once they leave the cinema. Will it become another interesting, enjoyable film such as "The Day After Tomorrow" and the long list of TV programs along the same lines. Is it all too easy to separate what we see on TV and cinema as being a show or performance, people feel like these are just films like Star Wars or Batman and have no connotations in the real world.

I hope this is not the case, and I suppose even the making of the film shows Sustainability's transition into mainstream culture, but lets not think that telling people how bad things will be over and over will be an effective way of changing how we currently live.

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My 8 Sustainability Issues

Following Josh's attendance at the recent Sustainability forum, and his last post on the forum, Unbox had an extremely interesting meeting with Professor Seaton Baxtor, Hamid Von Koten and graphic design pupil Struan. Here we discussed what the next step would be to implementing some of the ideas, and tackling some of the problems that had been raised during the forum. To get a better understanding of the all of the issues felt to be important to those involved, Professor Baxtor suggested sending him a list of no more than 10 key issues which you felt needed to be addressed. The issues I feel need mentioning are below.

1. The language of sustainability needs to change to be more inclusive for all people, regardless of their depth of understanding of the subject. The language should be appropriate for the context.

2. we must learn FROM, not just ABOUT nature. (Bio Mimicry)

3. The education system should change so that sustainability is as integral as learning to read, write and add at primary school.

4. To live sustainably needs to be as easy as the non-sustainable way we are currently living (if not easier!)

5. The topic should be addressed on micro (bio mimicry) and macro (large global systems and cultures eg. production techniques) level systems.

6. A bottom up approach needs to be met with a top down approach. Leaders need to be working in conjunction and towards the same goals as the common people.

7. A larger emphasis should be put on Service Design to promote a "use not consume" culture. Where is the ISD (Innovative Service Design) course? Or else, could it be better incorporated into all disciplines?

8. Sustainability should be included in all projects, not just in the design school, to show its practical use and real world implications, rather than having "sustainable projects" just done by "arty people" as some people see it.

These of course are just my personal views. If you have an opinion on them, please comment, or if you have aset of your own, email: s.z.baxtor@dundee.ac.uk

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