Franz Nahrada / Franz Nahrada Interview Series / Episode 2 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Home Neues TestSeite DorfTratsch Suchen Teilnehmer Projekte GartenPlan DorfWiki Bildung+Begegnung DorfErneuerung Dörfer NeueArbeit VideoBridge VillageInnovationTalk AlleOrdner AlleSeiten Hilfe Einstellungen SeiteÄndern |
recorded on Saturday 17th of February 11:30 (Franz in Bad Radkersburg) ˧
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UynG_jIJNrs ˧ ˧
˧
0:01 okay let me just check if I have enough space on my computer uh because I should but uh who 0:08 what you never 0:13 know yeah I'm fine 0:21 okay I am Andrew kowas this is math for wisdom a meeting with France Narada 0:29 pioneer of the global Villages movement uh this is a continuation of his uh life story 0:36 as a Visionary of global Villages and where we left off was he had just founded uh give uh his laboratory in 0:46 Vienna Austria yeah so uh as I said the idea 0:51 was to create a new type of institution that would be an intermediary between 0:58 scientific research and uh and experiments practical development 1:03 you know that this uh the whole thing with with Douglas angelart was that uh 1:09 such an institution uh did not exist in Europe either you are in theory or you are in 1:16 practice and uh and I was very much opposed to this separation I said uh a 1:23 good theory is uh is always uh a result of uh practical activities and learning 1:32 and so uh I don't see a point where there should be a specialization between people who go for uh uh writing books 1:41 and and papers and and others who do practical developments and uh so that 1:48 very much had a a kind of relation to my to my political past you know so what I 1:55 what I was describing before um I saw it as a ation with different means I saw it 2:02 as um not just like a collection of wise people that are enlightened and they 2:10 they are uh kind of sort of spreading Truth uh but I I rather saw it as a as a 2:17 collector for uh for evolving uh truths 2:23 about our future so uh and The Collector should be multifaceted it should it should uh it should have 2:30 access to a lot of perspectives and it should be uh embedded in Practical 2:37 development ˧
so so well how do you do that how do you bring this out U 2:43 [Music] um I had uh uh as I said many speeches and 2:52 one of them was uh to a group of Architects and uh the the the the guy 2:59 who who organized that speech uh he was um um interested in getting the 3:10 uh winning the competition for a plan Institute on the Technological 3:16 University on the relation between um architecture and information technology so architecture spatial planning and information technology and of course he said it is weird 3:30 you know uh I feel we Architects are planning with geographic information 3:37 systems and computer aided design and whatever you you you see here but we're 3:42 planning for a future that is obsolete so why don't we organize a 3:48 conference um that uh that focuses on this future view of the age of 3:55 telecommunication as we we uh we we call Ed uh architecture and and and and City 4:03 Planning in the age of telecommunication and then he said um um 4:10 I would call it Global Village ... I said really are you daring enough to use that term I love it very much and so yes so 4:18 it came about you know uh so I said of course you know my dream is about 4:23 Villages and uh at the same time we organizing that conference in the heart of uh the Technical University the 4:30 um okay let's let's let's do it um let's call it Global Village and uh and that 4:39 was very interesting at that time there was there was like a um how you call a cartel of of uh 4:49 corporations that ran Austria telecommunication market so to say there 4:55 there were the the Four Sisters Sean Shar I catel and cap and they uh and 5:00 they had uh they had a kind of sort of close cooperation something unimaginable 5:06 today in a world of of prescribed competition you know but they they kind 5:11 of sort of uh they coordinated their action and they had they had also a 5:18 meeting of the of the public relations people and interestingly enough um they 5:24 liked my idea there was uh a person like Peter kraic from Ericson sh who said uh 5:32 um yeah I I feel this is a very powerful idea that we as the whole industry of 5:39 telecommunication we we are changing the world and he said I've been to Epcot uh 5:45 experimental community of tomorrow and and things like that and uh I would like to bring that out uh and and so and so 5:54 we we we had access to immediately to all the four major corporations and 6:00 although we created a a tinest conference at at the Technological 6:05 University they were willing to to see this as something important and uh I 6:11 said okay this is not just a conference this is a laboratory so uh we make a a 6:18 telecooperation laboratory uh and make it part of the conference we uh so people can walk in 6:25 there and see how people will live and work in the 21st century and U and so uh we really managed 6:34 especially to get Alcatel to do a lot of Investments uh in u u using uh the the 6:43 the wide area network that that was just that was 1993 you know that was just in 6:51 its infancy uh the the the fiber optics and things like that and we say okay we 6:56 have a lot of applications where people can uh locally work together like an 7:03 architect and a house technician so let's make a laboratory for telec 7:08 Corporation and let's have these people far apart in reality and let's show how 7:14 how things will be in the future that they can work better together than if they were sitting beside each other 7:20 because through the computer the interaction could be more professional more deep and uh and and and and more 7:28 precise so that that uh actually that was revolutionary at that 7:34 time you know we we we really really set up things that did not exist 7:40 yet so that was my idea of the laboratory and and and of course I could invite a lot of people also from America 7:48 with this uh uh with this idea that we get some some uh I should I say uh 7:54 funding from the tourist board and things like that and and also this was a paid conference and so uh and uh and uh 8:03 ˧
so I also tried to bring together the European and the American Spirit you 8:09 know that that to match these two ... before that I had an 8:17 encounter in in in in uh I met a lot of very very interesting 8:26 people in in in the USA and one of them was Joseph Smyth who was an architect uh 8:33 and he had a practice in Thousand Oaks in Los Angeles and he was drawing uh and 8:40 I hope we can we can put this picture in the video he was drawing uh a satellite map he he invited 8:46 me to his office uh and um he said uh here I am uh in Los Angeles which is the 8:54 most auto - focused city in the world and uh he he he he said I'm going to show 9:01 you the present and the future of Los Angeles and U and actually what he did 9:08 was to show me a satellite image of Los Angeles all gray and brown uh all sealed 9:14 parking lots and and and everything full with with cars so this is a City built 9:20 for the cars and it was of course uh um changed intentionally to that but we 9:25 we're suffering from that now and so he said now imagine a different future 9:31 where we have dense uh pedestrian oriented clustered communities all over 9:37 Los Angeles like like like a a valley of villages you 9:42 know so the Valley of the Angels becomes a valley of villages again connected by 9:49 public transportation and and of course telecommunication would really help a 9:54 lot so people don't have to commute that much so um that was that was the the 10:01 symbol I chose this as the as the uh how should I say as the representation it 10:06 was very important for me um I learned uh that imagination is is a is a key 10:13 factor in in uh changing the world or even in in in uh exploring it I I talked 10:20 about science fiction uh before but uh to have this this tangible imagery of 10:27 future uh possibilities uh I think it is is very powerful and 10:32 and I was always looking for the most uh radical and truthful expressions in 10:42 imagery I I also felt this was this was something that brought us into this trouble if there was not this uh 10:49 American movies uh featuring the single family home all the time uh which which 10:56 uh conveyed a certain kind of American Dre uh which which had to do with 11:01 Suburbia and and uh all the amenities that you have by having your big garage 11:08 and your big fridge and what you know this is this is this is also conveyed by 11:14 imagery so um I I I thought uh it is it 11:19 is very important to not just uh act in words but also in how should I say in 11:26 artistic visualization and and uh and again this 11:32 conference was uh very rich in people and uh uh we we even create a book out 11:39 of that um don't want to go into details but to ˧
11:44 cut the long story short when the conference had ended this companies came 11:50 to me and they said uh or they they invited me to their to their meeting and I said we will never do this again you 11:56 you you made us invest a lot of money for a few students you better care that 12:02 we get more public visibility I mean we still like the idea um uh but uh but uh 12:11 this was this was something that uh cost us a lot of money and and and and and 12:17 that did not that did not really uh pay well back you know so so U um after this 12:25 first conference uh and after this book um we had to look for a solution with my 12:32 organizers they had relations to the Vienna City Hall and uh we wrote a 12:38 letter to the mayor of Vienna which was really interesting Helmut Sil and he gave them this letter to his uh to his 12:46 planning department Han swoda uh and and uh and we yes we we we uh received a 12:54 positive uh uh response from the city of Vienna 13:00 we can do Global Village in the Vienna City Hall that was that was in 1995 and ˧
13:06 we even got the the the best room in the city hall large room and uh and the 13:12 second conference uh was uh how should I say uh it was a little 13:19 bit too small for this big room uh but uh but I think uh um we had uh we had a 13:28 lot of develop velopments which were very interesting we introduced electronic Cafe to Vienna with a with a 13:35 with a vienes cafe cfin they they put computers in their like a cyber cafe 13:43 cyber cafe yeah uh so uh and and and we also we also had this this public 13:50 presence and uh and what year was this this was um 1995 and and Jo Joseph smi's 13:57 Maps were the the were the logo then this was this was possibly the very 14:02 first year where the worldwide web became known actually that was the exact 14:08 timing yeah we we we had worldwide web just came out of its infancy had 14:15 developed for two years or so but at that time it was ready to be something to show be shown as where you could get 14:22 you know access from your home let's say yes yes yes and and uh and that was part 14:29 of the success so so uh that was uh uh 14:34 1995 and uh really I could I could elaborate what what happened in the meantime and and just to add that the 14:41 other one I think it was in 1993 you said was really um I think before mobile 14:48 phones had had much of a presence uh and and uh before like you saying people had 14:53 been connected to the internet so yeah but we did it so even then it was uh you know you were pursuing these ideas and 15:00 uh yeah yeah ˧
and then was uh in between um there was this interesting uh um 15:08 invitation so um after the conference I went with my coworker to the European 15:15 Community Tork Forum in mayorca in 1993 and we went there two days earlier 15:22 and uh um the the thing that we did not know at the time is that uh the Balearic 15:30 government so to say um they planned for 15:35 uh very ambitious uh futurist uh uh 15:40 project uh of course they were pretty rich from tourism and and they could 15:46 afford to do that um that was uh named Park bat so when we arrived uh we uh we 15:55 we talked to this to this Mastermind Andre font of the of the uh balar 16:01 government who organized the Tor conference and he he told us about his plans and of course I said very 16:09 interesting and um he said we have assigned uh uh University uh we we have 16:17 assigned so to say beside the existing um uh University of the balic islands 16:23 ueb we have assigned a two square kilometer area which is uh a thinker 16:29 owned by the government uh to become a a kind of 16:36 landscape canvas for designs and developments of the future and we 16:42 invited about 12 or 15 architectural practices from around the world and 16:47 among them very very famous uh Architects like Norman Foster Richard 16:54 Rogers Skidmore Maryland Owens and and and KN and and and and so on and so 17:00 on uh and uh and so after this Tork 17:06 conference which was interesting enough in itself uh I got the invitation to be part of the jury and come back to 17:13 mayorca uh on a on a paid base and uh and I was really 17:19 U for a moment I was so lucky yeah to be with these Minds Like Richard lenberg 17:27 and who started the T info Zone and so on so I was suddenly in this uh in this 17:34 uh top uh group of the world uh that that uh that really concern itself with 17:41 thinking about these questions and uh so that was also uh 17:48 material from which I could uh kind of sort of uh draw uh ideas and invitation 17:56 for the Vienna event and uh and uh of course 18:01 also um I did in the meantime also traveling new 18:07 travels through the United States and uh and I Got U I made ˧
18:13 another uh I made another uh how should I say 18:20 uh acquaint me with uh with a Visionary 18:26 architect somebody who is even who was even closer or or how should deeper in 18:33 in my view that was Tony William and uh 18:39 Tony was um sitting in a garden in ohigh and uh somebody pointed me to him I 18:46 don't know who it was and I I I I I I visited this old he was already white 18:53 bearded and looked like a wise monk you know and Tony also showed me his 19:01 drawings and uh they were not as spectacular uh bir I 19:07 view as as Joseph's and he was not dealing with uh villages but he was 19:15 dealing with uh like a global settlement and he was he was just analyzing its 19:21 structure he was a student of bmin Fuller and uh and he he had this uh he 19:28 had this idea that uh we have uh increasingly our our our habitat is in 19:36 in in bedded in fields of communication transportation and so on and and he 19:42 focused on the idea very in interesting of the House of 19:48 the later on an architect developed a concept called 19:54 unprivate house and and Tony's concept was not the unprivate house house but a 19:59 semi-private house so he had this idea that uh if we bring our mind home yeah 20:06 that the title of the book was bring your mind home we bring our mind home uh our our 20:14 houses uh can be anything they can be uh 20:20 a place of of many trades like the old home Industries yeah and uh and we would 20:28 have a new structure where each and every house would display the the 20:34 engagement of their inhabitants to a kind of public Greenway and so it would be the natural 20:41 state of of life would be the the Flur that that that that looks the at the at 20:47 the front side of the houses and what's going on there every house has a kind of sort of public uh uh I ˧
and yeah the next thing that that I have to say is that I wanted to use the fact 27:31 that we that we are in the Vienna City Hall uh where I brought I brought Tony 27:38 there I brought people from mayorca there uh the winners uh I I I brought 27:44 the people from Richard Rogers partnership there Michelle mosesian and 27:50 so on you know it was it was really it was really 27:56 the time of my life you know I could I could really manage to to to uh to to 28:02 get subsidies to to invite people um many many more names Charlie 28:09 Granton Jack Ms you name it um and and 28:15 uh then I had the idea maybe I should uh I 28:23 should emphasize a little bit on the fact that Vienna and as uh a 28:30 city it was once it was in the top 10 of the world in in in in size but it fell 28:36 down to rank 254 or what what what what what is it now I don't know but I began 28:45 to write articles for the for the Vienna City Planning magazine and I said cities 28:50 don't have to grow they can Network yeah and and um and I had the idea that it 28:57 this it is maybe a strategy for the uh for the future conscience City to become 29:05 a mother City actually the term mother City uh is for me we have this German 29:12 term fand yeah the oh I see right notorious Fatherland yes Fatherland yeah 29:19 and so for me this uh this idea was to confront the Fatherland with the mother 29:25 City and the mother city is a nurturing caring giving entity it is it 29:32 is generous it it has absorbed all the people from the countryside and now it's 29:38 spreading back into the countryside I always said we will not we will not 29:43 manage this change to the global Villages world without active 29:49 participation of the large cities themselves you they they they they are 29:55 like like nodes in the network you know they're like connect points so um why 30:01 not try to convince them to be part of a new game to be uh to be uh essentially a 30:09 Knowledge Center we had we had this wonderful uh British knowledge Economist Richard Knight who who talked about the 30:17 real strengths of a city is the inherent knowledge and the knowledge base so we 30:22 absorbed also this idea into the conference from the very beginning I think and uh and uh so uh the idea that 30:32 the knowledge base now can be shared this this this was this was very 30:37 important uh um the city becomes a hub for the decentralization of the world 30:45 that that that was my big hope at that time and yeah um then there was a kind 30:55 of sort of sharp shift in the in the business world and 31:04 uh what I said before about uh the cooperation that vanished you know the 31:11 the the every everybody was every company uh was uh who had arrangement 31:19 with other companies was considered evil no you must not talk to your competitors 31:24 you know this is like the the the the British col business code of honor we don't talk to 31:31 our competitors you know that this this and this uh this was with a with the austrians joining the European Union and 31:39 and and all this this was rapidly spreading and it was suddenly impossible 31:47 to get uh to get a strategic cooperation even then at that time uh and uh the 31:53 next Global Village was already a kind of sort of pure Marketplace yeah 32:01 ˧
1996 we we we decentralized Global Village into uh into 24 little 32:09 conferences about different subjects and and uh I I in 1997 I tried for the last 32:17 time to to draw together a Visionary group but uh but it 32:26 was it was very hard in the meantime we organized the European Community 32:32 telework Forum in Vienna that was happened also in 1996 uh and uh and 32:40 uh I saw that uh the whole Tork issue was not 32:47 really um was not really something that that would would get people emotional you 32:54 know and we we also see it now uh that in the moment you lose the contact to 33:00 your colleagues at work you are isolated and this this is a frustration that that 33:05 this that is uh kind of sort of underlying um feeling emotion in this 33:13 whole field uh so so uh Tork is uh is is 33:19 is we had Eric Britton who is also an English guy who was uh who 33:28 was saying a lot of uh uh unpleasant truths about Tork as a harbinger of the 33:36 dissolution of the of the work environment you know um and 33:42 uh so when 33:48 things happened once again in in in in 33:53 1997 um we had we had this where we were interested in architecture and and and gal where 34:01 this phase where we were interested in Tork and then uh something new happened ˧
34:08 uh at the at the at the at the third Global Village in 1997 um I think the most important uh 34:16 thing and most impactful thing there was a a guy from seens who said we have to do a a session about culture museums and 34:25 things like that and uh I had this old acquaintance uh from 1991 34:31 European training technology event uh a Dutch guy named Kim 34:36 feltman uh and uh um I had had several encounters with him 34:44 uh and he he he he tried to build up in Europe uh he was he was a student of 34:51 mclan in Toronto and he tried to build up a European uh mclan Institute and he also 34:58 came to Vienna back and forth and uh and uh we had we had some talks especially 35:07 after his appearance in the conference you know I invited him to give a speech and he had this uh he had this 35:15 uh vision of he was an art historian basically he studied the warbook 35:21 Institute he was an encyclopedia he was a renaissance man who knew everything 35:26 about uh about the the history of art and culture no he he had his 35:32 back his view backwards but he told me or he taught me that uh the the the the 35:40 he he was very interested in technology but from the point of view that the technology had the capacity to absorb 35:48 the qualities of the past and bring it into the future and that was like a that 35:55 was like an eye opener for me that uh that uh the real uh the real uh 36:02 strength of of of of of Technology would be to to get the best out of the of the 36:10 past and and give it a new uh body yeah 36:16 and so he had this system of universal media searching and uh and uh when uh we had 36:25 this uh we had this conference in 1997 um there was 36:31 already this uh how should you say gold digger mentality of the corporations 36:37 which were now in Fierce competition you know and they had look for new fields of business and so on and so on about uh 36:44 cultural assets you know so that uh suddenly the subject was the pro 36:51 priorization the intellectual property uh of pieces of Art and and the that you 36:58 that you can uh license it and you are you own the rights and things like that 37:03 a very a very uh weird development that that exploded in this time and Kim was 37:12 uh to my surprise he was uh against this 37:19 development you know he was uh was very much rooted in in the idea that uh every 37:26 good artist is stealing ideas from other artists and and so to say we are all 37:32 connected with standard the shoulders of giants and and uh what really really uh 37:38 fascinated me was how the heat in the conference room 37:45 suddenly Rose you know it it it it was it was the most it was the most uh 37:53 Lively session of of all this of all this uh Village 37:58 97 sessions workshops about about culture art and education 38:05 so um I suddenly saw that there might be a new Artic point for Global Villages 38:13 and uh and together with Kim um I I thought thought a lot about how can we 38:21 how can we create a different Vision to this fragmentation and propriate Iz 38:27 ation of knowledge and U and so he had this idea of a universal uh system of um 38:37 how should I say connecting everything to everything in a meaningful way like uh he he had 38:44 developed this this uh this interface which was starting with very simple 38:50 questions like a journalist who when uh where why and how something like 38:57 that you know and uh and uh and bringing this on 10 different levels from 39:02 kindergarten to University and things like that and um so suddenly this became 39:10 for me obvious that we I I have to think about this uh how should I say um this 39:19 uh nucleus that that contains the information a global village is a global 39:26 village because there is a strong strong access point to Global 39:31 Information ˧
um in 1995 after the after 39:38 the second conference um I went with three of my speakers for a two week Retreat we were 39:45 invited by a guy named Gerhard Burger in in in in V FAL who had a very very uh strong 39:53 Vision in Austria there is a there is a uh a remainder of the of the of the of 40:01 the Nazi German past which is a military uh training ground of enormous size for 40:09 Austria it is 100 square kilometers in the heart of lower Austria it is the 40:16 trat and uh and this and this guy whom I met uh uh in 93 already and and with 40:25 whom I became friend um he he was very interested in my work and he said uh you 40:31 know that U that uh I'm working there to 40:36 transform half of this of this military training ground into a peace Village and 40:43 and uh and so uh we had a lot of talks and he he described this peace 40:49 Village um and uh and he gave me again 40:55 uh he gave me a kind of imagery that was very compelling you know he in the 41:01 center of the village there is a a lake and in the lake there is a there is a 41:06 building which is like a dome a round building but half of it is underneath the water so uh um and what is this 41:16 building all about this building is a place where you where you get an answer 41:22 like where you have any you can bring any stupid questions you get the best answers in the world because it is 41:29 inhabited by Specialists who retrieve information from all over the world and 41:35 uh and in his vision you know it was so was so interesting he said but you have 41:41 to under enter underneath the water because the whole structure of the 41:47 knowledge of the world it's a globe actually uh the the the the lower part 41:52 building underneath the water is that you go from unconscious conscious to uh metac 41:59 conscious to to it was very interesting so you have to know yourself yeah so 42:06 when you enter this thing then uh you go through like a like a purification and confrontation with 42:14 your with your desires wishes and so on and so on so and then you come to the to 42:20 the horizontal plane when there where there is all fields of knowledge and 42:26 then you become you go up like in the double helix and down um and and on the 42:32 upper levels there are these Visions this uh spiritual aspirations and 42:38 everything give meaning to the whole thing you know and so you know this this 42:43 ˧
this this idea that a village has a center which is like a 42:48 church but it is basically functional Library a multimedia library or a a kind 42:56 of sort of information room uh reference room if you wish yeah uh that resonated 43:02 with Kim Veltman and uh and uh uh 43:08 suddenly my whole attention shifted to this idea how can we how can we uh not 43:16 only uh give Villages a gal or how can we do work from the village but how can 43:21 we create this this sphere of knowledge that would really uh that would really 43:26 create a knowledge base to solve all problems locally so uh and uh the first thing I 43:35 asked who is going to to write this uh this whole who is going to author this 43:42 this system of universal media search in and and Kim who who had a lot of 43:48 political discussions with me he said didn't you tell me that uh 80% of people 43:55 uh will lose their jobs in the future because of automation so 44:01 um yes on one side people lose their jobs but on the other side there is an 44:07 undone labor of connecting bits and pieces of information in a meaningful way and that is in a 44:14 way uh a monastic occupation uh it's it's a parallel to 44:20 the old monasteries that that transported the books from and they copied the books manually 44:27 and they they they they condensed knowledge and things like that they wrote 44:33 Sumas condensations of of of things like and they they gave culture to Regions so 44:41 why don't we reimagine monies of the 21st century like Hesse did in his GL Beed 44:48 game and uh and uh and try to 44:53 uh to uh 44:59 have them unite the world in a decentralized way no that that that means uh care for 45:07 the for the for the knowledge base that makes it possible for each Community to 45:15 really be self-reliant I love that you know and 45:20 ˧
then at the same time comes a call from uh uh dubnik where I spent all my 45:28 summers at my auntie's house in in my childhood and there is an island South 45:34 of du brnik no north of dnik sorry an island which is a natural 45:40 National Park and there is an old Monastery and it is contested and the 45:46 the the the the the regional planning officer uh issued a call for for help to 45:54 Austria's uh friends of Croatia and one of them 46:00 was a member of Parliament and a friend of mine sits in his office as his secretary and this friend uh is very 46:08 familiar with the global village idea has an island in the Philippines brother Island his name is Alfred H and so 46:15 Alfred says Franz we should do something about this Monastery in 46:21 Croatia and U and Kim says yes uh um it 46:28 it still belongs to the church and I think it is just fair that that we don't 46:34 contest the church but on the other side um I have a I have a friend who is uh 46:40 who is a a member a high member of the church with very revolutionary ideas 46:47 that was Father John ory Mills um uh 46:53 Dominican and Mystic you know he was he was uh he was uh in the in the board of 47:00 editors of the ma eart society and uh teim just said this is 47:05 the right man for the job let's let's think about creating a a monastery of 47:10 the 21st century uh and uh the the the Member of Parliament said okay I will 47:16 take care of the of the money I will ask the bank of Austria to give a donation 47:21 and we had this high level diplomacy and we traveled to to Du brnik and we 47:26 traveled to yet and uh I talked to the to the bishop of D and I laid out the 47:33 idea we made a film about it and uh and that was like the most beautiful dream I 47:39 ever had in my life you know this area is like you are a thousand years in the past this is a this the monaster is on 47:46 an island in a lake a green brilliant Green Lake uh in internally enclosed by 47:53 the by the shores of the of the of the island and on the outside there is this 47:58 blue sea and uh and everything although the whole uh the 48:06 whole area of dalmia is is is very very 48:11 uh poor in trees everything's full with trees you know so it is it's like a like 48:16 a treasure there and it's like a like a dream landscape and uh so we really went 48:23 there and that was uh that was one thing that strengthened this idea that uh 48:30 Global Villages need this also this new types of of supportive institutions 48:37 monasteries and so on to be able to to to deal with the with a complexity of 48:43 the knowledge that they have to 48:50 digest uh and U in the meantime we uh we 48:55 had this problem that uh my aspirations were not in line were 49:02 not aligned with uh the purpose of the city of Vienna anymore I was like a I 49:07 was like a [Music] yeah I was like a a person that that 49:15 that had outdated Visions you know I was like a relict of of of something that we 49:20 had taught five years ago but which was not up to date anymore so uh they tried 49:26 to to get rid of me and um and U in 1998 49:33 the Global Village 49:38 Conference did not happen anymore and uh and also I had no role in in there so I 49:46 looked for a new a new environment ˧
and there was this Museum of Modern Art in 49:52 Palais Liechtenstein and there was this director or director he was I think a marketing 49:57 person uh who who invited me to do a kind of global village in this beautiful 50:03 beautiful fantastic Liechtenstein with its 20 50:10 Metter High Barack rooms with full with uh with 50:16 paintings and so on and so on and he he said we can bring a European Union 50:22 presidency event and we called it cultural heritage in the global village and and of course Kim was The Mastermind 50:29 and I I I was one of the of the organizers and uh so we had this we had 50:37 really shifted again to this culture education 50:42 Paradigm uh publicly and and uh and uh of course uh all these things um kind of 50:52 sort of uh they they they went different ways 50:59 because everybody was wanting to dig in the Gold Mine four years later I I 51:05 created the second cult cult age conference contesting the idea that uh 51:12 that knowledge becomes intellectual property or that art becomes intellectual property and U again in 51:19 2002 te helped me to to uh develop a theory of digital media that was based 51:25 on the fact that digital media inherently cooperative and uh and uh you 51:32 are crippling them if you if you if you impose intellectual property on them you 51:38 know but uh okay anyway this uh this whole thing we 51:45 had uh we had bad luck uh that father Mills had a stroke in my hotel and the 51:52 the the whole project broke down and also our later attempts to revive it were not very 51:59 fruitful ˧
so again there was a paradigm shift I became also very sick uh and I I 52:06 had to take over the hotel and I said okay so I need uh now to to to 52:14 partner with people who are really uh in the business of of changing Villages and 52:20 uh and uh the the next thing was that we worked closer with the lower Austrian 52:27 Village renewal and uh and that uh brought us eventually into several EU 52:35 projects and one the first big one was ERDE and that was exactly after we met 52:44 so uh um we we had this Grundtvig uh European rural development by means 52:53 of Education that was the acronym and uh and that that is the reason why 52:59 all these things FL flow together in this uh in this uh New Concept of uh 53:06 studying especially the the the the information and and uh and learning part 53:12 of global Villages what does stand for I forget European Rural Dvelopment by 53:19 means of education and uh we met at 2003 ˧
I had was was with ar spigler who is uh who was the founder or ref founder I 57:39 should say of East Austria and eoas was a European Council of villages and small towns it's a it's 57:46 a it's an organization which has a 40 years history of really caring for Rural 57:53 environments and and it is organization which is not academic but which is an 58:00 amateure institution you know people care about I don't know old churches or things like that like uh we had we had 58:10 a a Scottish person in Germany uh who who who was especially interested in Old 58:17 churches in The Villages and things like that so uh and arur was brilliant 58:23 because he wrote a book on cultural landscapes in Austria and I said this is a person that I have 58:30 to uh to work with because uh because he is very very much aware of the realities 58:37 of of of of rural areas knows everything from the Wilderness to the small town 58:44 you know uh the whole Spectrum uh and rural areas are not just Villages they 58:50 are they are like a network of of smaller settlements of farms and and and 58:56 and even small towns or medium towns and uh we did uh we did a conference on the 59:02 small towns on a small town in in in in white Hoven and I was again uh bringing 59:10 in the subject of uh the how should I say the the new 59:15 potential of a small town as a a regional uh portal to the world as kind 59:23 of sort of uh The Entity that is able to interface with the mother City and things like that so the the the the 59:30 whole uh image became more and more concrete ˧
right on the other side there 59:35 was a political development at that time which was also very interesting um that 59:41 was eono uh there was a group in Germany uh that 59:48 uh was uh half involved in in in Information Technology half in in 59:54 politics and they said we have no clear idea and this this is this is relating back to the to the 1:00:00 issue of Marxism and communism we have no clear idea or we have no clear idea 1:00:06 how how our future will look like oh the only thing we know is that uh it will 1:00:14 not be as as a traditional Communists uh assumed it will not be a centralized 1:00:21 planning economy and it will not be a dictatorship of the work class which is in fact a dictatorship on 1:00:28 the working class um by Elite but uh we 1:00:34 need to to to look at living and working examples of a different kind of 1:00:42 economy and why not find it in the example of free software yeah this this this this whole 1:00:49 idea of uh free software as a social system with its role is maintaining 1:00:56 contributors and things like that U which also Bridges to the commercial world but it it's in its core it's 1:01:03 non-commercial which is a very interesting new phenomenon communitybased software development 1:01:09 Hardware development things like that so that all emerged at the same time and it 1:01:15 it it also contributed to the to the to 1:01:21 the the fine-tuning to the to the differentiation and to the to the complexity of the global religious 1:01:27 Vision you know so um here we had this this lead idea that we had to bring 1:01:33 together with the other ideas that uh that we we we need to to study and apply 1:01:40 uh the the the the culture of free software and create an economy that 1:01:47 works around giving everything away and I I remember that you wrote an article 1:01:53 with that with that title at that uh at that point in time and that was also 1:01:59 something that that BW us together maybe you say a little bit 1:02:04 about that well maybe just in the spirit of 1:02:10 networking so Jesus uh said you know give everything away and uh I was living 1:02:16 at the home of my brother uh David Ellison Bay um in one of the most distraught neighborhoods in Chicago he 1:02:22 was a former uh Grand Sheik the mo Science Temple of America so it was very 1:02:29 exciting uh staying at his home living with him and um I had the opportunity to 1:02:34 apply for um a conference in uh India Bangalore organized by these uh young um 1:02:43 graduate students um they had created this think cycle in MIT media lab where 1:02:50 the idea was uh and the conference was called development by Design so that how 1:02:55 could people people around the world be contributing their design ideas uh to help the developing world and so I uh 1:03:03 wrote a uh essay and David uh co-authored it with me uh an economy for 1:03:08 giving everything away and so I want a travel Grant to this conference in India 1:03:13 uh but then the remarkable thing what and so I also looked at the open source movement and Etc but I gave a 1:03:18 philosophical argument like you know what happens practically when you start to give everything away and how that 1:03:25 gives different principles uh that um instead of trying to maximize happiness 1:03:31 as in classical economics you minimize anxiety and so uh you say well and how 1:03:37 can you fit in to the I think like this is a theme of years you know how can you uh not destroy the existing world but 1:03:42 fit in with the existing world so the existing world is has a market economy so for the middle things in life that 1:03:48 maybe works fine but for the little things in life why should I be fighting over every little thing you give it away 1:03:56 I don't want to fight right and then why should I let the market decide about the big things in my life I'm not going to 1:04:02 make the big you know let the market decide where I eat lunch I don't care where I eat lunch but the big things and little things you minimize anxiety you 1:04:10 know and you decide I will make my decisions about those things and so you can fit into the world with that 1:04:15 different mindset so this paper um had the effect in Silicon Valley that this 1:04:21 uh high school student chrisina read it he liked it he remembered it and then he 1:04:26 started u with his friends the bar Camp movement and um they said this was 1:04:33 influenced by this paper so the barcamp mov was a movement of unconferences but even maybe more remarkable um just as 1:04:40 Twitter was starting he started the hashtag which has been the source of many social movements you know from me 1:04:47 too to stop the steel to it goes on and on the Arab Spring and so he said that 1:04:53 this paper the idea that you should not trademark you know Twitter was trying to trademark the hashtag And he as the 1:05:00 originator he fought against that and he said no this is something that uh uh should belong to everybody and so kind 1:05:08 of in your spirit like if you have a conceptual argument that can participate in the 1:05:14 public debate it can maybe swing things in a certain direction and so we could have lived in a world without a hashtag 1:05:20 you know and so uh you and me and all like this is one example uh where 1:05:26 that gave some fruit that people don't know about but also just emphasize like this really is coming from Jesus so when 1:05:32 Donald Trump uses the hashtag let's say uh he can give thanks to Jesus um who uh 1:05:38 helped to make that possible ˧
1:05:44 yeah okay I think uh we have managed to do a little bit more than an hour I think uh so there's probably will be 1:05:52 time for part three or part four thank you uh France and um maybe 1:05:58 just to say uh I'm working already uh we had 20 or 30 more ways of figuring 1:06:04 things out today I might not list them all but I'll um diagram them um starting 1:06:11 to fit them together into a system I think though uh what I'm suspecting um 1:06:16 uh in listening to you is that the start of it probably comes from your desire uh 1:06:22 not to overlook any perspective you know so this idea that really like there's 1:06:27 this Comm over not to overlook any meaningful perspective this is this is 1:06:32 the problem you know that you you you are confronted with a million perspectives and then 1:06:39 there are 10 20 40 really important uh 1:06:45 fruitful perspectives so that that you should not Overlook and so then you have 1:06:52 this uh very interesting split I think um you know this is all very preliminary 1:06:57 tentative but on the one hand um you really appreciate like you said the 1:07:02 meaningful ones so you really appreciate like Elite thinkers inspiring thinkers you really gravitate toward like you'll 1:07:09 come and you'll you'll do these U pilgrimages you know to D ELO part or you know that you mention many people 1:07:15 who you really appreciate and love on the other hand uh you'll talk to anybody you know so and you'll make friends with 1:07:22 anybody and you'll uh you'll find meaning in anybody know you'll look for that meaning everywhere so that's uh so 1:07:29 one of the ways I like just bumbling around like you know you came to some of 1:07:34 the things many of the things that you uh came up with um came from just bumbling around and accidentally being 1:07:41 somewhere so like if you think of Life as a biology where there these chemical 1:07:46 processes part of it is that you're going down some gradient you know you know where you want to go sometimes but 1:07:52 part of it is you're just bumbling around and things are happening to you because you're in oce so maybe to say 1:07:57 like just like a global village is supposed to be a center for some particular meaning but you're also we 1:08:04 talked about these learning paths you know where you're traveling around maybe maybe purposefully maybe aimlessly or 1:08:09 maybe just uh coincidentally or you're meeting other fellow Travelers so those 1:08:14 would be like the two pre-systemic ways like before you even have a global village you have these um uh 1:08:23 attitudes and they should be linked with a uh three cycle like a learning 1:08:28 cycle and I suspect what I'm hearing from you like this learning cycle partly 1:08:33 you're very sensitive to intellectual atmosphere so whether it's uh Missing like you know it's depressing in the 1:08:40 city or you know there's something unhuman right or it could be um the 1:08:46 excitement of the conference in Vienna you know where like things are just or or it could be like a technological 1:08:51 place like Silicon Valley like or it could be the beauty of nature but you have this uh Attunement to the 1:08:57 atmosphere and then um somehow you tried to um pull up maybe some kind of 1:09:04 conceptual Vision you know like this gives you a vision of how things could be maybe maybe it's because those 1:09:10 atmospheres are so fleeing but you would like to structure things in a more permanent tangible 1:09:16 way and then you kind of like see the reality like well where that uh you know 1:09:22 maybe you just see where that leads you like you know then that gives you a mission to go somewhere I think so then you go travel you have this concrete 1:09:29 Vision you go off traveling networking you you basically Network and then the 1:09:35 the ending up of the network is either you pull together a conference or you uh end up invited to a conference or you in 1:09:41 you go to some you find that special place where you have that atmosphere again you have something new to inspire 1:09:47 to further your vision so you have this cycle that's connecting uh the bumbling around and 1:09:54 then that uh home or that nucleus that Center and this is this learning cycle 1:09:59 and so then where does that lead you and I it would it has to lead you to 1:10:05 the most important thing uh and I probably don't know what that is but something about these Global Villages 1:10:10 and then you have the systemic uh notion like to say okay well what's the algebra 1:10:16 of putting a global village together and so it could be arguing uh publicly 1:10:22 participating in these debates you know figuring out what we need a concept so a lot of the arguments conceptual it could 1:10:27 be like an image like you know that we need to uh have an image that will convey things so there should be like 1:10:34 six different ways uh there should be like four levels and six ways of connecting those levels and that's the whole system and so Global villages in a 1:10:41 certain sense um is this um it's really just a tangible shadow of this 1:10:48 conceptual ideal uh uh world of Concepts 1:10:53 that people live in that kind of help to connect them and then finally somehow 1:10:58 it's yielding some kind of U maybe just a shared um shared vision of integration 1:11:05 you know shared appreciation for people something like that so this is like the overall mental sketch I don't know if 1:11:10 you have thoughts on that yeah yeah the the how should I say the actual World 1:11:17 situation is the biggest challenge that I ever faced you know because we are now in an age where geopolitics is finally 1:11:25 laying out to the very last consequence which is war MH and uh and 1:11:32 uh actually nobody could can still 1:11:37 imagine how we can work without uh these entities that that Force us to take part 1:11:44 in Wars you know so recently I had this radio program and 1:11:50 I quoted some in my in my mail to the math for wisdom list um that uh that the 1:11:58 there is the the bottom line which our age 1:12:08 uh how should I say uh opens to the to the to the viewer of the 1:12:15 future is that again we have not manag to create a 1:12:20 world in which you can freely decide uh about your own future you are 1:12:26 an an instrument of uh of the power that uh if you are young and strong enough if 1:12:34 you're able to fight that draws you and and here you go you you have to die for 1:12:41 somebody else's purpose so this this this is this is something that is the 1:12:48 challenge you know uh how can we imagine a world where this is absolutely 1:12:53 impossible where a world where there is no big Powers uh 1:13:00 that can that can subjugate individuals where the individual is free 1:13:05 to move and there is a kind of minimum Global consensus that makes it work so 1:13:12 this this minimum Global consensus is everybody has a share of this planet or 1:13:17 these Villages are like uh like the cells of a body and uh each each cell uh 1:13:25 manages its own Survival and and shape and yet they they strive to become an 1:13:33 ecosystem uh of mutual support and cooperation and that is that is that is 1:13:39 something that I think it's the biggest idea worldwide to to pursue I just 1:13:45 received a incredible message that I I I published in stri magazine an article 1:13:51 about global Villages and just received a message some says that's the most 1:13:57 meaningful article in this whole thick uh issue and I want to translate it to 1:14:02 Italian language oh wonderful uh so that is B that is giving me some kind of hope 1:14:09 but and so it's great to uh I'm just fascinated to be back U connecting with 1:14:15 you I hope that will continue through math for wisdom I hope our viewers and listeners appreciate you uh and all the 1:14:22 possibilities uh in Your Vision in your person um I think of the two minds uh the three 1:14:29 Minds let's say but uh just like we talked in the other session but you really have this 1:14:36 um emphasis about the physical presence you know that like that there's a physical world where you physically 1:14:43 experience that atmosphere let's say that intellectual atmosphere whether it's walking through cafes or whether 1:14:48 it's uh being in a conference or whether it's uh walking down a Village Street let's say but um or but 1:14:56 so that you have this physical presence but then you have this whole conceptual world and somehow uh the global Villages 1:15:04 is uh in parallel with both of these you know that the that they're supporting each other in some very uh human way 1:15:12 yeah um and and then there's a third mind I would think is like the Consciousness 1:15:17 that somehow that somehow lines them up and then chooses which one to go with at at whatever 1:15:23 opportunity so we have that um uh we have the like you say uh maybe this is 1:15:30 where your system leads to like this whole challenge of taking responsibility for our world uh you know in a in a 1:15:36 Federated uh I mean in a well in a decentralized way let's say in a in a common a human um way and the stakes are 1:15:45 very high with um just the development of artificial intelligence uh and the 1:15:51 the weakness of humanity you know that hum Humanity by Nature is just so uh weak that um uh spiritually that people 1:16:00 are um they cater to systems uh they don't 1:16:06 uh they allow themselves to be used by systems uh We've created this world where so much of everything is digitized 1:16:13 and available for uh abuse let's say and um we've created all this system of 1:16:20 interests that can work against us um so it's wonderful to realize how vibrant uh 1:16:28 and uh enticing uh is the visions that you have been developing your whole life 1:16:33 and I think the point being that as evident by the Cornucopia of 1:16:39 ideas you have that your whole life you've been bringing together uh these fruits from various people and the Deep 1:16:45 appreciation what for what people are contributing whether they're Elite thinkers or whether they're you know uh 1:16:52 typical uh people uh ordinary people but that you're able to absolutely find 1:16:57 meaningful things everywhere bring them together and say this is how we could be living let's keep uh developing this 1:17:03 Vision so that's my prayer to thank God for you uh to ask for your health your 1:17:09 uh good spirits and your strength to and that we can work together thank you thank you very much 1:17:16 Andreas enjoyed it very much thank you ˧ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||