Our sixth lecture series, Beyond Appearances, will address the growing feeling in our society that we need to pay closer attention to the events that are shaping these times. Everything designed, built, created, used, and disused requires an infrastructure and a plan to get it from concept to reality. Understanding the origin and trajectories of these systems is key to understanding and coping with our future. A deeper understanding of what others are doing, both regularly and radically, is a step closer to making the world a better place.

Schedule

11.11.08

Gates open at 7:30, lectures begin at 8pm

Erik Knutzen is the co-author with Kelly Coyne of The Urban Homestead a guide to self-reliant living in the city. Infused with the DIY spirit and distrust of the pre-packaged and the spoon-fed, they believe that in this age, gardening and the home arts can be a revolutionary gesture towards richer lives and better communities. Erik discusses how the subject of home economics needs a revival and how it can positively influence our lives. Erik and Kelly also blog at homegrownevolution.com.

And the Echo Park Time Bank, a very interesting local solution to the hardships and injustices of global capitaliasm. The EPTB is a collective whose purpose is to facilitate the cooperative exchange of goods and services among it’s members. Autumn Rooney and Lisa Gerstein, co-founders of the Echo Park Time Bank, discuss the concept of complimentary currency as an alternative to the cash economy, and share their own experiences creating a time bank in their neighborhood.

COMMUNITY ACTIVATION

10.17.08

Landscape remixers Rebar come to Materials & Applications to discuss their work and rock a special event for us all. Rebar is best known for creating the open-source “holiday” ParkingDay. M&A participated in ParkingDay in 2007 which many of you came to help build and enjoy, but to us one of Rebar's most powerful pieces is their mapping of POPOS. The idea of mapping privately owned public opened spaces (POPOS) is a big component of what we see as obvious but under-appreciated keys to developing better communities in the future. Following the lecture will be a derive around the neighborhood as we explore some of the less known, perhaps never known corners of the Silver Lake psyche.