Why farmpunk?

A farmpunk could be described as a neo-agrarian who approaches [agri]culture, community development and/or design with an anarchistic hacker ethos. "Cyber-agrarian" could supplant neo-agrarian, indicating a back-to-the-land perspective that stands apart from past movements because it is heavily informed by conceptual integration in a post-industrial information society (thus "forward to the land" perhaps?) The art and science of modern ecological design—and ultimately, adapting to post-collapse contexts—will be best achieved through the combined arts of cybermancy and geomancy; an embrace of myth and ritual as eco-technologies. In other words: the old ways of bushcraft and woodlore can be combined with modern technoscience (merely another form of lore) in open and decentralized ways that go beyond pure anarcho-primitivism. This blog is an example of just that. Throughout, natural ecologies must be seen as the original cybernetic systems.

**What we call for at the farmpunk headquarters**
°Freedom of information
°Ground-up action + top-down perspectives
°Local agricultural systems (adhering to permaculture/biodynamic principles) as the nuclei of economies
°Bioregional autonomy
°Computers are optional but can be used for good—see peer to peer tech, social media for direct popular management of natural or political disasters (e.g. Arab Spring), or the mission of the hacker collective Anonymous
°You

Sunday, January 25, 2009

School for Designing a Society

This place would do Bucky proud. Let's all go here. K, see you there!

What it is, in brief:

"The School for Designing a Society, established in 1991, is a project of teachers, performers, artists, and activists. It is an ongoing experiment in making temporary living environments where the question "What would I consider a desirable society?" is given serious playful thought, and taken as an input to creative projects."


And why make a school for this? (I love this framing method -- rock on guys!)

To this they say:

A school can provide the necessary initial chaos to encourage the generation of new thoughts.

Anyone can learn anywhere at anytime, and does; in a school, one is more likely to find someone who will teach.

Teaching is one of the few professions to which the sharing of power is indispensable.

In a school people can meet with the shared purpose of questioning premises, questioning givens.

A school provides a temporary enclave against profit driven work.


www.designingasociety.net



Part of their curriculum includes a class on Cybernetics (farmpunk-style) that looks like brain-ecstasy. Yes, I will take a wafer, pleez.

As I've discovered, Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Vermont is also a harbinger of the innovation that can come from this type of pedagogy. You have to stop taking your own ideas so seriously and protecting them so much - that's SUCH A WASTE. Descartes, Protestantism and Neoliberalism can bite my shiny metal ass. Ideas must be POOLED and FERMENTED in a large couldron in the company of other warlocks.

Such emergence has intrinsic value! It's like BEYOND value! Emergence wipes its ass with value.

Thankfully, unlike so many other disciplines and fields, DESIGN is not about defending your opinion from other opinions that want to eat it fo' breakfast. And if it is, one is advised to consider the incredible benefit of the open design movement in all its various manifestations.

Check out the open architecture network. You can browse hundreds of ongoing projects.

"The slogan of the hacker class is not 'the workers of the world united', but 'the workings of the world untied.'"
-McKenzie Wark
Posted by the faun at 10:04 PM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)