This past year saw several prominent museums open their doors to public participation in ways they had never before, such as inviting visitors to submit works for exhibition or help determine curatorial selections. At the kickoff event for the Walker Art Center’s Open Field program on 3 June, Jon Ippolito contrasts three different models for the commons such institutions can choose from–a market, a zoo, or a tribe.
This past year saw several prominent museums open their doors to public participation in ways they had never before, such as inviting visitors to submit works for exhibition or help determine curatorial selections. At the kickoff event for the Walker Art Center’s Open Field program on 3 June, Jon Ippolito contrasts three different models for the commons such institutions can choose from–a market, a zoo, or a tribe.
Tags: art, commons, Facebook, LongHouse, museum, New Media, presentation, preservation, sharing, Still Water, The Pool, variable media, Wabanaki
Academics are taking their own sweet time adapting to a networked world, at least to judge from two reports that surfaced on the iDC discussion list last week. To judge from Neil Selwyn’s “The Educational Significance of Social Media” and to the UC Berkeley study “Assessing the Future Landscape of Scholarly Communication,” there are still plenty of professors happily justifying their obsession with inbred subdisciplinary journals while Fox and Facebook steamroll over public discourse.
Tags: defect, education, network, New Media, publication, sharing, software, Thoughtmesh, University of Maine
Still Water Co-Director Joline Blais plants the seeds of sustainable gardening at the Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage in midcoast Maine.
Tags: Belfast, GreenHouse, sharing, sustainability, Wabanaki
Still Water’s John Bell and Jon Ippolito presented good news for underdogs everywhere at the NetSci 2010 conference, held last May at Northeastern University. Bell and Ippolito argued that the dynamics of creative networks may work to lessen inequalities that first appear when leaders in social networks receive high ratings. The findings are based on a study of student use of The Pool, a collaborative network where success is an emergent property of feedback from one’s peers.
Tags: network, presentation, sharing, software, Still Water, The Pool
Forging the Future’s latest tool for rescuing digital art from the ravages of technical obsolescence will be demo’d to European audiences for the first time when Still Water Senior Researcher John Bell presents at ISEA 2010 in Germany this August.
Tags: art, europe, Forging the Future, network, presentation, preservation, sharing, software, Still Water, variable media
Internship 1:
Orono Transitional Landscape Internship
Live-in, low rent permaculture. $300/week rent
May 31-Aug 31
Contact: William Giordano on first class.
Faculty sponsor: Prof. Joline Blais
Orono Transitional Landscape Internship
Live-in, low rent permaculture. $300/week rent
May 31-Aug 31
Contact: William Giordano on first class.
Faculty sponsor: Prof. Joline Blais
This internship is a living/learning opportunity that focuses on training and experience. Live and work in your own garden in Orono, and assist in the development of a home-scale edible landscape, in exchange for reduced rent. food harvest and permaculture training in a shared household.
The home, on the south edge of campus, is a transitional edible landscape and includes fruit/berries/nuts, medicinal herbs, kitchen herbs, annual and perennial vegetables, a greenhouse, cold frames and an ebible plant/tree nursery. Interest for summer interns could include engaging any of these areas. Opportunities for permaculture design training and certification available via summer projects/classes. Internships involve 1 day per week in the garden and grounds.
- Live on site for $300/month, and work 8-10 hours/week.
- Laundry/dishwasher on-site. eat-in kitchen, dining room, finished basement, 2 bathrooms.
- 3 Rooms available. 1/8 mile from campus and 1/2 mile from downtown Orono.
- Mature highbush blueberries in July/August
- Pick salad greens from outside the front door daily
- Learn/assist in caring for edible tree crops (plums, pears, apples, butternuts, hazelnuts etc)
- Learn/assist in growing herbal medicines
- Make far less trips to the grocery store
- Help establish a lively evening bonfire/music scene for summer fun
- Connect with Lucerne Lakeside permaculture side for exchanges, swimming, boating, camping
Seeking:
- Garden skills of any kind, or willingness to learn quickly
- Ability to make clear observations and record findings
- Research skills for connecting available models to actual gardens
- Ability to work well on team and on own
- Holistic/Systems thinking an asset, seeing patterns and whole picture as well as local details
- Design & digital skills helpful for documenting (photography, video, web skills)
Internship 2:
Native/PermaCulture
Lakeside forest permaculture
One day/week, $50/week stipend
May 31-Aug 31
Contact/Faculty sponsor: Prof. Joline Blais
This internship is for a Native American student interested in learning more about your own culture’s gardening methods and permaculture gardening and how to weave the two together. The Internship will involve one day gardening in Dedham, Maine (4-5 hours in the garden, 1-2 hours on the lake–swimming, canoeing, etc), as well as researching your own garden traditions and finding out how to integrate the two together. When Europeans came to this continent they often clear cut forest and planted their own crops. This form of gardening is about making peace in the plant kingdom–learning about polycultures that integrate European and Native types of edible and medicinal plants.
You will also learn about local native plants, especially weeds (which are highly nutritious and healing to earth and body), mushroom, insects, local fauna, medicine and ceremony. The intent is for you to act as an ambassador between cultures, brining the best from both worlds across the cultural divide and into the earth where we all are related. We will document and catalogue this research using digital photography, video, and web skills, as well as writing about our experiences. Our goal is to create enough interest to apply for grants for future funding for ongoing research. Must be motivated, hard-working, enjoy outdoors, enjoy talking to elders, and willing to learn and integrate skills in digital culture, permaculture and Native Culture. Child care possible for young parents interested in this opportunity.
- Lucern, Maine, on the edge of Phillips lake
- One day/week, $50/day
Seeking:
- Eagerness to conduct research in field and in culture
- Keen observation skills of natural and cultural phenomena
- Interest in digital skills
- Connect with LongGreenHouse site in Orono for more urban permaculture options
Fall 2010-Spring 2011 Internships
Fall internships will pick up on the work of both internships, and involve students in UMaine degree/for credit courses. All Students living at LongGreenHouse are required to link at least one of their courses with LongGreenHouse work, whether as a capstone project, a course research project, or an independent study project.
On 2 May 2010, Joline Blais gives a Permaculture walkthrough and workshop for University of Maine students at the Belfast CoHousing & Ecovillage, Belfast, Maine. Students in Emily Markides PAX class see a real ecovillage under construction and find out how its members balance practicality and idealism from BCHE member Blais and Radical Simplicity author Jim Merkal, who also attended the event.
Shown: BCHE’s zero-energy prototype house, built by G●OLogic.
Tags: Belfast, class, education, GreenHouse, sustainability, University of Maine
Waterfall Arts presents Still Water Co-Director Joline Blais talking about her work in ecology, the New Commons, and cross-cultural networking on Monday 26 April at 7pm.
Tags: art, Belfast, GreenHouse, LongHouse, network, New Media, presentation, sharing, Still Water, sustainability
This year’s crop of New Media Majors from the graduating class have created more than just a couple dozen outstanding capstone projects. By inventing startup companies based on cradle-to-cradle design and other local economies, many have envisioned a future for themselves in which earning a living is compatible with living sustainably. And some have businesses that are already taking off.
Tags: capstone, education, New Media, orono, presentation, University of Maine
Still Water Senior Researchers John Bell and Craig Dietrich join Nicole Starosielski, Vanessa Vobis, and Jon Ippolito in the online presentation “Avoiding a Cultural Bottleneck: Networked, Distributed, and Agile Collaborations” as part of the HASTAC 2010: Grand Challenges and Global Innovations Conference. The projects presented include the Metaserver and other projects of Forging the Future.
Tags: Forging the Future, network, New Media, presentation, preservation, sharing, software, Still Water, variable media
