So many ways to effect change, which to choose?

Now how did the Post It get invented? It was a dorky staffer at 3M who was futzing with test tubes and made something that kind of sticked and then didn’t stick at the same time and so he attached it to some paper and stuck it onto the fridge door. BINGO! That happy accident revolutionized analog memory. Massive change? Not really, bumbly change, sorry-I-didn’t-mean-to-disturb-you-change, but change nevertheless. Of course it probably didn’t happen that way, but a good story substitutes for facts more often than we care to admit, or as Oscar Wilde remarked "Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art."

Cara Ellis’ remarks on the credibility of sustainability probably wouldn’t meet Oscar’s criteria too well. The way sustainability is practiced in the US and Europe seems worse than lying, its more akin to feel good religion: green roofs on one hand and then a nice drive across the landscape in the summer Hummer on weekends. Incidentally, I’m convinced that the super-stretch Hummer is a green vehicle: twenty passengers in a single hot tub with one V-8 powering the whole shebang, that’s got to be better than twenty nasty little Priuses jamming up the freeways going home for twenty twenty minute showers. They say that the proliferation of gas-misers in England has only made the situation worse because there’s scads more cars, and the roads are hopelessly jammed up, which is very true. SHARING cars is bahavior change. Its our behavior that will change things, not some awful new engine that does the same thing for less. And don’t get me started: I cant stand that horrible green foam insulation thing: wear a woolly hat and a big sweater and turn the stupid thermostat to zero!

I remember going out for dinner with Ken Dunn, the most authentic sustainability advocate in town: when he was asked what kind of drink he wanted, he replied: “I don’t care what the brand is, just give me something in a clear glass bottle. Way to go Ken! If anybody deserves a McCarthur Genius grant its got to be Ken Dunn.

Talking of cameras in corridors, how about hooking one up in the fridge or mount one on the kitchen sink faucet: ever washed dishes with a constant stream of hot water running? You betcha! No more fresh hot water for you my friend! You want to suck oil out of the earth to heat water so that you can flush it down the sink without using it? Behavior change first, then we will see if you deserve the new technology.

My major pet peeve is green roofs. I really cant stand them. Here we go in Chicago, hauling dirt up 30 stories or more and planting prarie prairie ( I can never spell that stupid word) flowers? Meanwhile, the same City Hall is permitting the complete destruction of back yards of houses to make way for lot line to lot line Mega Mansions? Gimme a break! I saw it happen to our balloon frame home in Chicago: we sold it and then some idiot whacked it and maxed out the lot with a concrete block house with bricks veneered onto the front. The years of my espaliering fruit trees along the fence-line, smushed by a creepy-crawly Caterpillar tractor in a Chicago minute.

Another thing that I cant stand is raised beds! What the hell is wrong with the goddam ground for Chrissake! When I burn thirty gallons of gas to drive 600 miles through the P-r-a-i-r-e just to get to class each week, I wonder why the hell don’t people grow stuff in the fields where they are supposed to? You cant believe how much land is out there, TONS OF IT! I think I am going to build some fancy $5k raised beds in the middle of a Midwest ern corn field, just to see what happens.

The real question is not about sustainability, it is something quite different: it is this. How do we cope with hypocrisy? How do we make things fit together in a way that does not make you feel like a total idiot, but on the other hand not a slave to overarching candor. That’s what I like about Francis Whitehead’s article in the NYT: she came clean and said that all the green roof shit she has hooked up costs an arm and a leg and there’s no way she could recoup the expense of it all (assuming that it doesn’t go wrong, which it is sure to do). Yuppie urban farming is religion, its not ecology- its good for the soul, we make pleasure gardens and its wonderful and worthwhile, but please don’t confuse it with sustainability! Spiritual architecture might be a better moniker.

Remember its behavior change that will change the world, not getting all excited over new inventions that permit you to lead the same crazy consumptive life for less money, that is until the barrel of oil goes up to $117, oops, it just did that!

Phew! That feels better! Thank you students for letting me get that off my chest! Attaboy Poster boy!

OK, now let’s get serious. The new AIADO is a barrel of fun to be in, because it’s such a risky proposition. Everything is new, no one has the slightest idea what will happen next, save a foggy roadmap, we are traveling by the seats of our pants. Scratchy discussion has not really happened yet where real issues are involved, we have all pitter-pattered around the edges, so no wonder someone throws a hussy fit! I guess it had to happen. Actually I don’t think BMD has much to do with it, it could have been a dripping air conditioner that was the straw that broke the camels back, so no one should feel warm and fuzzy self righteousness for being the one who started the change. Certainly it was not much fun that it happened, and there are definitely some hurt feelings and bruised friendships, I’m smarting too. But this is a place of education, and EVERYTHING we do in our ivory-white round-tower is an opportunity for growth and should be taken as such: let’s get pedagogical rather that putative.

I don’t believe in anonymous remarks, as its much more fun to get a pointed response and then have the opportunity to grow the idea back and forth. There’s a big difference between opinion and discussion. Hogging the floor is something else I don’t believe in, making opportunities for quieter voices to have their say is the responsibility of inveterate loudmouths. I do believe that there are all sorts of ways to talk about some things, but talk we must! Remember the 1987 AIDS activists mantra: Silence = Death?

Look, don’t think for one minute that AIADO is the only place that has an mousy voice problem: there are complaints from every quarter in the US that academic discussion is atrophying: perhaps what is distinguishing AIADO from the other places is that we are actual interested (dare I say prepared) to do something about it; change yes, mousey not massive, and probably more effective.

And one more thing, I’m just going to post this, and not think about its consequences, as I see blogs as vapid ether, not as anything very factual. I’ve lost my blogger virginity tonight, it was wonderful. As my mother used to say: Sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt me.) (One more, more thing: when this poster thingy happened last Thursday I drove 300 miles home to New Harmony and was woken up by that 5.2?4? earthquake, a mere 20 miles from the epicenter. I have never been so scared in all my life! It went on for 48 seconds and the earth literally moaned. Stuff like that quickly puts stuff like this in 4D perspective: so lets all get a life boys and girls, and work double time on the real issues, then we will have the school that is destined to be!

Ben Nicholson
Associate Professor
Architecture, Interior Architecture and Designed Objects
School of the Art Institute of Chicago