the-fu.com: I'm With Bucky

I'm With Bucky

This past month I went on two outings. The first one was to the movie theater to see the Pixar flick Wall•E, and the second was to the Buckminster Fuller exhibit "Starting with the Universe" at the Whitney Museum. Both presented visions of a future fueled by technology- but in one version that future was inspiring, and in the other it was, well, simply scary.

Wall-E takes place circa 2800, several hundred years after humanity has fled the polluted and trash-covered earth for the comfort of a luxury space ship. Too much comfort, as it turns out. In the name of luxury, every need is taken care of by robot helpers, and humans pass their lives slouched in hovercraft Lazy-Boy loungers with screens in front of their faces that plug them into a virtual world 24/7. Over many generations in such a setting, human beings have become so morbidly obese that they can no longer even sit up, much less walk on their own. In one scene a man falls out of his lounger and he is doomed to flop around on the ground like a beached whale until helper robots come to push him back on. In another, a woman's screen is accidentally turned off as she is on her daily journey from home to pool-side, causing her to exclaim in wonder "I didn't know we had a pool!" Basically, technology in this future world exists to entertain, distract and pacify, turning humans into little more than inanimate blobs with credit cards.

Buckminster Fuller, on the other hand, saw technology as a tool for action. Fuller came of age during the 1930s and 40s, an era when technology for mass consumption was still new on the scene (think the Model-T Ford), and still exiting. Fuller saw technology as the key to solving most of humanity's mess - from eradicating poverty to providing sustainable energy. In order to prove his point, he created the dymaxion emergency shelter, a light, portable and affordable structure for people who had lost their homes to disasters. Think of it as the architecture student’s answer to the eyesore of FEMA vans. Only this was before FEMA vans. His dymaxion car was able to turn on a dime (literally) and got 30 miles to the gallon when tested in 1937. In essence, Fuller used technology as a tool for encouraging human imagination, instead of disenfranchising it. He envisioned technology as a way to set us free.

Thinking about these two scenarios begs the question, where did we go wrong? When did the popular concept of technology as savior morph into the image of technology as our path to drinking liquefied "cupcake in a cup"? (Don’t blame me for the gross image, that one’s lifted directly from Wall-E)

My theory is that with the appearance of technological gadgets for home use (and mass consumption), consumers swiftly became kids in a candy store and filled their brick and wooden abodes with silicon and microwaves. Not to harp on the cupcake in a cup idea, but as a society we have… um... overindulged. And now, much like those afore-mentioned kids, we’ve made ourselves sick.

What we’ve found out is that freedom comes with a price. For example, the invention of the automobile gave us the freedom to travel far from home, but it also gave us gridlock and long commutes. The invention of the cellphone gave us the freedom to leave our desks, but it brought the expectation that we would be available to answer work calls at any time. It is not that we drive that is the problem, but that we drive too much; it is not that we talk on the phone, but that we don’t reserve time to NOT talk on the phone.

This over-exposure to technology, however, is not the case for everyone. 'Design for the other 90%', a webpage dedicated to the now closed exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, presents us with a reality as far from ours in the First World as Fuller’s imaginary future is from Wall-E’s. The “90%” in the exhibit’s title refers to the percentage of the world’s population that lives without bluetooth and laptops, or for that matter clean water. In other words, these are the people who need technology the most, and who also have the least access to it.

For Bucky Fuller, overcoming inequality was his inspiration. It was for the poorest and the most hit by hardship that Fuller intended the dymaxion emergency shelter in the 1940s. It was also for them that Torben Vestergaard Frandsen invented the Lifestraw in the early 21st century. Inspiring inventions are still being designed, they’re just hidden behind the glamour of the next new gadget. Ironically, it’s the inventions that meet real human needs that lack funding.

I know it’s too much to ask that folks not buy ipods, or new cellphones, or gadgets that connect your cell phone and ipod to your ear without having to physically touch anything. Do you need them? No. Is every bit of design and advertising out there trying to convince you that you do? Yes. So what if instead of rebelling against technology we spread it around? Every time you buy a new computer, for example, put your old one on freecycle, and donate a computer-sized amount of money to One Laptop per Child. This means that two people get computers for your one. It also means that you might consider your new purchase a bit more carefully with the added price tag. Some companies are even picking up this model, but it’s up to us to change the way we buy. As Bucky said, “we are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.”

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