Sunday, December 27, 2009

Inching Toward a New Year

I've got 1000 Inches in Loveland, in a colony called Plymouth--in Detroit.

Loveland is an experiment in micro-ownership of land. Want some?

Friday, August 14, 2009

Welcome, Lovelanders!

At last count, 75 inch-holders have inchvested in Loveland! Read all about it in this thoughtful post (including the Fermi paradox, coded communication with extraterrestrial life forms, humans in cages and shooting stars) by Loveland impresario Jerry Paffendorf.

1000 Inches in Loveland is a neighborhood in Loveland made up of eight zones named for the Eightfold Path. Read this to learn more about it and check out the map of the inches.

So far we've got Grady Booch, Stephen Burlingham (scroll to the bottom of the Tiffany family archives page to see him), the brilliant and hard-working Alexis Madrigal, nanotechno artist and IBMer Jack Mason and on Inch 502, Zone V: Livelihood, we have the mysterious proprietor of the Mystery Hole.

If you're incherested, get in touch.

Follow @ritajking, @makeloveland and @1000inches on Twitter.

Monday, August 3, 2009

The Eightfold Path as a model for 1000 Inches in Loveland

The eight main zones of 1000 Inches in Loveland are shown around the perimeter of LOVELAND in pink. Each zone is named for one of the aspects of the Eightfold Path: Zone I: View, Zone II: Intentions, Zone III: Speech, Zone IV: Actions, Zone V: Livelihood, Zone VI: Effort, Zone VII: Concentration, Zone VIII: Mindfulness.

Alexis Madrigal, shown left with Josh Fouts, is an inch-holder in Zone VI: Effort. Alexis Madrigal is one of the most illustrious journalists working today, and on top of that, he's spectacularly fun. I can't wait to see what he does with his inch!

Why the Eightfold Path was chosen as a model for the eight zones of 1000 Inches in Loveland: The Imagination Age:

I've been taken with the Eightfold Path for years, and the fact that there's a mundane and a transcendental way to approach the framework of its aspects. In other words, there's theory and then there's action. It's time for action.

In "The Noble Eightfold Path," Bahikkhu Bodhi says that following the path is more a matter of practice than intellectual knowledge, but to apply the path correctly it has to be properly understood. This is a process that people can undertake together, no matter what circumstances into which each individual person is born in the physical world, if we commit to a creative approach to imagination and technology.

The current economic and cultural crisis has created an opportunity for new understanding, just as the Eightfold Path is borne from suffering yet is a framework for a genuine spiritual search. Collaborative creativity can defeat the fear of transformation.

1000 Inches in Loveland: The Imagination Age is a cultural and economic development project, a neighborhood in the larger Loveland project.

1000 Inches in Loveland will be one of the world's most diverse creative communities.

How big can you make an inch with your imagination?

I've been working on Zone I: View: Inch 1: Transformation. The project will launch this week. I've been meeting with various inch-holders to discuss their massive plans for their tiny parcels. If you're interested in becoming an inch-holder, follow the project on Twitter at @1000Inches or email us here.

Friday, July 31, 2009

Inch 502 on Zone V: Livelihood: The Mystery Hole

Welcome the newest resident of 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND: The Imagination Age! The mysterious proprietor of the Mystery Hole (shown above around the time when she created me) is taking command of Inch 502 on Zone V: Livelihood. Right now, her art and curiosities shop is headquartered in a small town. She's ready to be connected to the rest of the world and she's starting from scratch--her high-speed internet access won't be connected until next week.

"This is going to be fun," she says, "Aggravating, but I think it will be worth the effort."

What will become of the Mystery Hole as it goes from a small town--to an inch?

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Want to become an Inchvestor?



LOVELAND is kickstarted! Get your inches!

LOVELAND is a million square inches in Detroit, and each of the one-square-inch parcels costs $1. There are tiers of membership, and already someone has inchvested in 1000 Inches in Loveland:

That someone is me.

I am creating a neighborhood out of the 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND. The neighborhood will be divided into eight zones, and open for mixed-media, mixed-reality development. I am documenting the development of 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND as it unfolds.

The first developed inch in 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND (the neighborhood is called The Imagination Age) will be launched next week, along with more information about how you can get your own inch and make it as big as your imagination. The development of the 1000 inches within The Imagination Age will also be a game. Inch-holders can opt in or out of the game, which will not start until all players have been assigned inches.

Click here to follow me or the project on Twitter.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Welcome to 1000 Inches in Loveland!

How big can you make an inch?

Several months ago, I was commissioned by PROBOSCIS to create an installation on 27 cubes: "Transformation: How We Become Who We Are." While working on the cubes (some of which are shown above) I first heard about the LOVELAND project in Detroit.

Perhaps because I was working daily with cubes and my imagination, the idea of a city of a million square inches that fits in a warehouse in Detroit and yet relies on technology and creativity to amplify the size of each inch made perfect sense.

The installation was immediately influenced by the LOVELAND project. "Transformation" (which will launch soon) expanded first into virtual and augmented realities and then evolved into the first developed parcel in a project called 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND.

What is 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND?

Stories have a tendency to get lost if they aren't shared right away, so here's how the 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND deal went down:

CHELSEA (on a rainy night during the height of NYC's new monsoon season)---

My collaborator, Joshua Fouts, wears round black glasses. We’d been invited to the event by David Green and Liz Dreyer with a pink lotus and two shining orange fish inked on her calf. We’d met at White Oak Plantation near Jacksonville, Florida, where we drove past rhinos and zebras on the way to the lodge to meet in groups and discuss the consequences of the economic downturn on the arts and how this might be overcome through meaningful participation in the digital culture. We promised we’d meet again in New York. I invited GG, who now stands in front of me, having run late from Brooklyn but committed to keeping his word.

There he is, all six-feet-six-and change of him, wearing a shirt that says, “I’ve got twelve inches in Detroit,” in neat capital letters that could only have been ironed in place by the man himself. He goes by Jerry because he’s not crazy about George Gerald Paffendorf III, but he doesn't seem like a Jerry to me, so I call him GG.

“What’s going on in Detroit?” I ask. GG lifts his eyebrows because the answer to that question is going to take some time, but he's excited for the chance to tell, and I can't wait to hear.

The room has been set up as a bar for the night, so people come and go. Josh, GG and I sequester ourselves in a corner overlooking the amber rectangles of light spangling the wet slate street-scape. Josh had met GG in Singapore in 2007. I met them both on the same day in San Jose a few months later.

GG won Josh's undying affection when, less than 24 hours after they met in Singapore, this GG-magic image with (GG, left and Josh right) appeared among Josh's copious electronic correspondence.

GG is 27 years old and he’s already an admired futurist, which may explain why he has an air of time travel about him, as if you could set the dial to any time or place in which humans have interacted and he would find a way to improve life through his imagination and capacity for catalyzing collaboration. For over two years I’ve been waiting for his Big Idea, but I had no idea it would end up being so tiny.

“Detroit,” he says. “Okay. Loveland, is what the project is called--a million square inches that I’m going to sell for $1 each. Anyone from around the world can buy one, or more than one, and be a part of the community. The inches are just a jumping point for people, and they can be as big as the minds of the community. Loveland is a platform to connect people. People will come together to build this new land. Every inch will exist in the physical world and in the digital realm at the same time. What’s going to happen? There’s no way to know in advance, and that’s the fun of it. But you know something will happen. Reality will...be...augmented!”

He stopped to eat a cheese cracker and a few grapes and then went on to explain why he’d chosen to tie a virtual project with the physical world by placing it in Detroit, a story I know all too well from my work in the Gulf Coast: economic decline, mass exodus of the jobless population, widespread systemic change and the absence of a clear path for transformation.

“Detroit was the most futuristic city that existed for a time,” he says, “an engineer’s dream of tinkering coming together with a possible vision of reality, like the automobile moving at sixty miles in an hour move a person to another place. The universe is like a seed. So it’s just how big can you make your inches? What can you do with an inch if the only thing stopping you from making it as big as you can imagine is your ability to imagine it? Think about all the things people can do with it.”

To GG, confusion isn’t an obstacle. If some people don’t get it, that won’t stop him from reaching those who do. Around us, people listen and gather, and someone asks for more information on the Loveland project. What can people do with an inch, really? Is this a real inch, or an imaginary inch that some guy from New Jersey will sell you for $1 because he has a million of them?

“The inch markers are just something that give a human feeling,” GG said. “They act as a connector for the sense of ownership. An inch sounds stupid until suddenly you have something that can be connected to other people, and then you see how big and important that is. I know it’s funny. I know it makes people smile. It’s game-like, but it’s a city that will fit into a warehouse.”

The population of Loveland, if all million inches are sold, might end up being higher than the current population of Detroit: 800,000.

Dancing Ink Productions will take 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND,” I say. “For economic and cultural development. Loveland is a new city and I'm going to create a neighborhood and document its development. The neighborhood will be known as the Imagination Age.”

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” said GG. “Right on.”

I grab a stack of paper and start to sketch out the grid.

“You already know where you want your inches to be?” he asks. “Look at that! It’s real!”

It *is* real. Starting next week, space within 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND: The Imagination Age," will be available.

Follow on Twitter: @1000Inches.