fyi ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: <[email protected]> Date: Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 11:59 PM Subject: Observers Room: John Thackara: April 2011 Newsletter To: [email protected] To view this email in your browser, click here<http://designobserver.com/emailview.html?email=1928> . [image: The Design Observer Group]<http://designobserver.com/?utm_source=Observers+Room_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_04_01_2011> [image: Observers Room: John Thackara]<http://observersroomdesignobserver.com?utm_source=Observers+Room_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_04_01_2011> MONTHLY EMAIL NEWSLETTER: APRIL 2011 March was a febrile month. Fukushima was an existential threat posed by an energy utopia gone wrong; Joseph Giacomo's book 'Thermal' rendered our energy addiction visible; and the collapse of civilization became an experimental dance piece in New York. I visited Bilbao to talk about bioregions only to encounter a disused nuclear plant that I said could be their next cultural icon. My talk at Norway's Design Day<http://www.norskdesign.no/video/fagseminar-paa-designdagen-2011-article18464-636.html>also begins in somber terms but ends on a positive note. You can also follow me by *visiting my blog*<http://observersroom.designobserver.com/johnthackara/>, * subscribing to my RSS feed*<http://feeds.feedburner.com/designobserver/observersroom/johnthackara>, or following me on Twitter *@johnthackara* <http://twitter.com/johnthackara>. (Or you can *unsubscribe* <http://designobserver.com/emailunsubscribe.html> .) NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE

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JOHN THACKARA Utopia is Here<http://observersroom.designobserver.com/entry.html?utm_source=Observers+Room_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_04_01_2011&entry=25988>Ridley Scott's film *Blade Runner*, made in 1982, portrays a dystopian Los Angeles as it might be in 2019. In just eight years from now we are due to discover and find out whether or not the film was an accurate prediction. READ MORE<http://observersroom.designobserver.com/entry.html?utm_source=Observers+Room_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_04_01_2011&entry=25988> JOHN THACKARA Collapse of Civilization Tango<http://observersroom.designobserver.com/entry.html?utm_source=Observers+Room_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_04_01_2011&entry=25818>Choreographer Valerie Green and Dance Entropy, a New York City-based experimental dance troupe, will shortly premier a new work, "Rise and Fall," that's about collapsing civilizations, the raw ugliness of industrialization and gross consumption. READ MORE<http://observersroom.designobserver.com/entry.html?utm_source=Observers+Room_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_04_01_2011&entry=25818> JOHN THACKARA From Bankster HQ to Start-up Central in Iceland<http://observersroom.designobserver.com/entry.html?utm_source=Observers+Room_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_04_01_2011&entry=25808> *Made by two young Icelandic women, The Start-Up Kids* is a documentary about young entrepreneurs who have founded web and media startups in the US and Europe. READ MORE<http://observersroom.designobserver.com/entry.html?utm_source=Observers+Room_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_04_01_2011&entry=25808> JOHN THACKARA Can Thermal Perception Change Behavior? <http://observersroom.designobserver.com/entry.html?utm_source=Observers+Room_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_04_01_2011&entry=25598>A premise of Joseph Giacomin's new book *Thermal<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1901092844/designobserver-20/> *is that global warming is hard to ignore when you view the world through thermal eyes. Hard, but not impossible, to ignore. We humans are skilful evaders of uncomfortable truths. READ MORE<http://observersroom.designobserver.com/entry.html?utm_source=Observers+Room_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_04_01_2011&entry=25598> JOHN THACKARA Images de Pensée<http://observersroom.designobserver.com/entry.html?utm_source=Observers+Room_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_04_01_2011&entry=25498>Darwin, Freud, Descartes, Goethe, Klee, Beuys, Marinetti, Nabokov, among others, left behind these "images of thought." They have been found in notebooks, on the pages of manuscripts, in the margins of letters, on paper napkins. READ MORE<http://observersroom.designobserver.com/entry.html?utm_source=Observers+Room_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_04_01_2011&entry=25498> JOHN THACKARA: RECENT ESSAY [image: Does Bilbao Need Another Guggenheim?] Does Bilbao Need Another Guggenheim?<http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=25978>Ideas for remaking Basque country that go far beyond fancy architecture. READ MORE <http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=25978> More essays by John Thackara

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FOLLOW JOHN THACKARA Blog on Design Observer<http://observersroom.designobserver.com/johnthackara/> RSS Feed<http://feeds.feedburner.com/designobserver/observersroom/johnthackara> Twitter @johnthackara <http://twitter.com/johnthackara> [image: SVA] <http://www.dcrit.sva.edu> Present Tense: 2011 D-Crit Conference at SVA in NYC, May 4

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