I’m interested in rocks and art made with rocks, stones or pebbles. See my other post about Rock Balancing.
Rocks are used as a way to mark the path of travelers, to tell others they had passed that way. It’s not just a romantic notion. There are good, practical reasons for wanting people to know where you have gone and where you might be found. Hikers get lost, have accidents and run ins with wildlife.
Flickr: Stones and rocks
Flickr: Inuksuit
Flickr: Inukshuk
Flickr: Mani Stone Towers
Flickr: Land Art
Flickr: Land Art
Flickr: Enviro Art
Flickr: Land Art Inspiration
Flickr: Natural Art
Flickr: Land Art Connections
Our world is shrinking. The Internet was predicted to save us paper, bring sweeping changes to the way we communicate and bring the world together, connecting us all as a community over distances.
I don’t see less paper use, maybe even more as people print things from the Internet, including their bills, statements and such which are sent via email from their paperless accounts with banks, insurance, utilities, etc. The corporations can show a savings in paper but, in reality, it has just been passed to the consumer.
“There are no future facts.” – Fred Polak
From the Association of Professional Futurists:
What is a Futurist?
A professional futurist is a person who studies the future in order to help people understand, anticipate, prepare for and gain advantage from coming changes. It is not the goal of a futurist to predict what will happen in the future. The futurist uses foresight to describe what could happen in the future and, in some cases, what should happen in the future.
Most people use some sort of foresight all the time – something as simple as listening to the weather forecast to prepare for the next day. A professional futurist uses formal methods to develop descriptions of possible futures. The output of a futures study may include the driving forces, assumptions, evidence or indicators of the futures. A futurist is more likely to say how or why a future could appear rather than to say what the future will be.
One of the founding principles of the field of futures studies is the idea of personal and organizational choice. Although the future is unknown, a person can identify possibilities, select the most favorable outcomes and attempt to influence events to create a desired future.
By considering systems and human agency, futurists help identify choices that affect the future, for ourselves and future generations.
What do futurists do?
Futurists work in large and small businesses, governments and non-profits, as teachers or researchers in education, and as consultants or as permanent staff. Many futurists focus on one topic such as a technology or an industry. Other futurists study broad social changes or global problems. All futurists take a very wide view of the world in both scope and time. Futurists tend to take a much broader perspective, consider longer time horizons, and include many more factors in a study than analysts such as economists, technology specialists, social critics or political commentators.
A futurist’s analytical process falls into five general areas:
Framing – understanding the current state of affairs
Visioning – opening the range of possibilities
Describing – explaining or reporting on possible futures
Scanning – looking for indications of the future
Planning – creating/implementing a future direction
About Future Studies:
Wikipedia: Futurology – Future studies (also called futurology) is the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. There is a debate as to whether this discipline is an art or science. In general, it can be considered as a branch under the more general scope of the field of history. Futures studies (colloquially called “futures” by many of the field’s practitioners) seeks to understand what is likely to continue, what is likely to change, and what is novel. Part of the discipline thus seeks a systematic and pattern-based understanding of past and present, and to determine the likelihood of future events and trends.[1] Unlike science where a narrower, more specified system is studied, future studies concerns a much bigger and more complex world system. The methodology and knowledge are much less proven as compared to natural science or even social science like sociology, economics, and political science.
While forecasting—i.e., attempts to predict future states from current trends—is a common methodology, professional scenarios often rely on “backcasting” — i.e., asking what changes in the present would be required to arrive at envisioned alternative future states. For example, the Policy Reform and Eco-Communalism scenarios developed by the Global Scenario Group rely on the backcasting method. Practitioners of futures studies classify themselves as futurists (or foresight practitioners).
Futurists use a diverse range of forecasting methods including:
Anticipatory thinking protocols:
Causal layered analysis (CLA)
Environmental scanning
Scenario method
Delphi method
Future history
Monitoring
Backcasting (eco-history)
Back-view mirror analysis
Cross-impact analysis
Futures workshops
Failure mode and effects analysis
Futures biographies
Futures wheel
Technology roadmapping
Relevance tree
Simulation and modelling
Social network analysis
Systems engineering
Trend analysis
Morphological analysis
Technology forecasting
Backcasting starts with defining a desirable future and then works backwards to identify policies and programs that will connect the future to the present.[1] The fundamental question of backcasting asks: “if we want to attain a certain goal, what actions must be taken to get there?”[2][3]Forecasting is the process of predicting the future based on current trend analysis. Backcasting approaches the challenge of discussing the future from the opposite direction.
Resources:
Wikipedia: List of futurology topics
World Future Studies Federation
Association of Professional Futurists
World Future Society
Future Timeline
Acceleration Watch: Futurist
From Romantic History: "WIFD" or Week in Feminine Dress. During this time, members who want to participate post pictures of what they wear from day-to-day, to encourage and inspire each other to dress in pretty, practical and feminine attire – something different from standard sweats, or jeans, or whatever.
Farm Girl History Project – It’s begun…. Questionnaires have been sent out to several dozen potential farmgirls from as far away as the state of Washington to across the pond in the Netherlands!
Would you try going without shampoo and other hair products? What if doing without modern shampoo was the real way to great, healthy (not just healthy looking) hair?
The Boston Phoenix: The No Poo Do
Natural Family Online: Why You Should Go No ‘Poo
The Carousing Classist: Taking the Hippy Dippy Plunge
The Daily Mail, UK: Could you Survive without Shampoo?
Simply Living Lightly on the Earth: The No Poo Movement
Steampunk Canada and the Steampunk Exhibition in Toronto.
I believe that Steampunk is more than just brass and watchparts. It’s finding a way to combine the past and the future in an aesthetic pleasing yet still punkish way. It’s living a life that looks old-fashioned, yet speaks to the future. It’s taking the detritus of our modern technological society and remaking it into useful things. Join me as I search for items for my house that combine the scientific romanticism of the Victorians with our real present and imagined future.
Live Journal: Steampunk Fashion
I really liked the header graphic for Vagrants Among Ruins. Looks like two people from the Victorian age out doing some rural exploring. I wonder if they invented a steampunk version of the digital camera. The cameras back then would have been quite a chore to cart around.
