art/design/environment + past/present/future

on thursday night, the hammer museum @ucla had a fascinating conversation between chip lord & fritz haeg.

chip lord was a member of 1970s counterculture group ant farm, who famously constructed cadillac ranch in amarillo, tx. fritz haeg is currently working on edible estates, a local food project (see nytimes), and he frequently hosts sundown schoolhouse in his los angeles home.

chip & fritz had a casual talk about their work and inspirations, and they got me excited with talk about:
+ the whole earth catalogue (seriously, i must find a copy of this)
+ dear Buckminster Fuller & his geodesic dome (exhibition @ the whitney)
+ mail art (kinda like this, which i love)
+ local food & local living (could you live within a one-mile radius of home?)
+ time capsules (an oldsmobile-turned-capsule buried in lewiston, ny in 1975)
+ parallels between social/political/environmental issues of 1970s & today
+ the state of counterculture in the information age
+ our world on the brink of change & what to do

they issued a challenge to designers (and architects and artists) to use their skills to help solve the growing eco/energy crisis (cheers, al gore!).


:: image of cadillac ranch from inkycircus; buckminster fuller from dwell; lawn garden from nytimes