The attack of the flying Cars

My daughter Maya is a long term futures researcher and, since yesterday was the day that Mac Fly would arrive in his future she was interviewed on Canvas, the cultural channel of the Flemish speaking TV. So as a proud mother I give you all who understand Dutch the link to the interview on Canvas: She did great since she did explain about changes in how to interpret the reality around us. She is a realist and stated in answer to a question that world peace would be nice, but that it would already a big feat if we all learn to live together without bashing in  each others head.

http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/videozone/programmas/deafspraak/2.41492?video=1.2475135

Well done. She spoke to message, without superfluous stuff or superficially and she once again made me think about the concepts we hold dear and how the evolve or have to evolve to go on  in a good way for all.

Thank you Maya!

Academia and fun

On Wednesday the 16th of September a new Knowledge Center for long term Futures was launched. Maya Van Leemput had invited two colleagues from abroad both involved in applied futures research. The name of the project is Open Time. The Open Time team consists of Maya Van Leemput, Chris De Smedt and Annie Verhaeghen. After the presentation we got more than an inkling of what Open Time Futures research can bring to you.

The program was interesting with a warm and to the point welcome by Maya Van Leemput, coordinator of the knowledge center. After that Cornelia Daheim from Duisburg Germany spoke about using creative methods for foresight in practice. There were practical workshops and I must admit I had a lot of fun of role playing and trying to think out of the box, not always simple, since the items of the day, like the many refugees who need a welcome and a place, a legal status and such in foremost on peoples minds. The other workshops were: The thing from the future, a gaming technique to think up possibilities of futures, there was Futures Wheel, an exploratory workshop technique entailing to alway look at the consequences of a change, and what that changes causes 'down the time-line'. There also was a workshop called: The four quadrants scenario, a rather popular method.

Luc De Boever, the departmental director held a warm and funny speech which touched upon the normal layman's questions on how one can do research about what doesn't exist yet. As Maya had already stipulated that there are no future facts. Thus new ways of research have to be thought off and we got a bit of glance of the possibilities. It is great that Applied Futures Research has found a home at the Erasmus Highschool, in Brussels.

It was an enlightening and fun experience with a lot of food for though. Thanks to all who made this possible.

Maono-Vision

Maono, Swahili for vision, is an exchange project with Belgian young students and Congolese students and artists. The focus of the work is about visions and images of futures. A road book was developed by future researcher Maya Van Leemput. See/hear a radio interview at: http://vimeo.com/77329367. Seen the images are important in this project Bram Goots photographer is an essential part of the team. Six weeks this years, the first two week to conduct workshops for the African participants and to work with the artists. The Belgian students had their preparation in Brussels Belgium. The results of the last two years of Maono have been real good writings, paintings and two music clips and some really neat road books... The first year this was the clip. Internet in Congo is shaky, thus working isn't alway easy. This year they are there for the first time during the rainy season and thus Congo is really green. Rainy season also means it is 5°C or 41°F warmer than last year and that there are a lot more mosquitoes. Thus malaria pills, anti mosquito sticks and the impregnated net over the bed. When there is relevant news, I'll keep you informed.

World Futures Studies Federation Award

I am proud to share this message in which my daughter is given an award:

Dear WFSF Members and Friends,

I am very happy to bring you some wonderful news.

As you know we have just celebrated International Women's Day around the globe.

This day has been celebrated now for over 100 years and marks the incredible contribution of women to the end of political oppression, slavery, and inhumanities of all kinds, and in all parts of the world.

It is remarkable to consider that even in the United States of America, women did not have the right to vote 100 years ago (not until 1920).
And that in Saudi Arabia, women still do not have the right to vote today (it is mooted for 2015).

In order to mark the important contribution of women futurists to the development of futures studies,
I have decided to create a new annual award - to be called the "WFSF President's Outstanding Woman Futurist Award".
In future, this award will be announced on International Women's Day each year.

"WFSF President's Outstanding Woman Futurist Award"
This award will recognise achievements in such areas as:
Advancement of futures thinking in the least developed countries;
Advancement of humanitarian causes through the concepts and methods of futures studies;
Advancement of the rights of women through the concepts and methods of futures studies;
Advancement of the rights of young people through the concepts and methods of futures studies;
Advancement of the philosophies, theories, methods and practices that strengthen and enrich the field of futures studies.
Inaugural "WFSF President's Outstanding Woman Futurist: 2013" - Dr. Maya VAN LEEMPUT

I wish to name Maya VAN LEEMPUT, from Antwerp, Belgium, as my Inaugural "WFSF President's Outstanding Woman Futurist: 2013" in honour of her outstanding work in 2012 and 2013 with young people in Katanga, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

While I acknowledge that Maya has done a lot of incredible work over the last few years, particularly in her area of positive multi-media futures, I am particularly impressed by her involvement in this recent project with young people in the Congo.
I also want to honour both Maya's courage in undertaking this work, and her humility in not drawing attention to herself as she does her work.

As you may know, this project is part of the WFSF successful application for UNESCO Participation Project 2012-2013 funding. The successful WFSF-UNESCO project is called the World Futures Learning Lab (LEALA). The project aims to develop and deliver blended (live and on-line) courses in world futures thinking and practice. It is directed to a diverse global audience, focusing especially on the needs of Africa, youth and the needs of developing countries.

About Maya
Maya van Leemput is a professional futurist who combines research and consultancy with a creative multi-media practice. Her Ph.D. research at the University of Westminster “Visions of the Future on Television. A Content Analysis and Production Study of Representations of the Future on British Television in the Mid- Nineties.” was completed in 02001. Maya collaborates with visual artist Bram Goots on Agence Future (AF), a long-term independent project to explore images of the futures through conversation and experiment. With a project based practice she nurtures a collection of images of the futures. Past projects include Iris Futures (VUB-IRSIB) and O58 (MAS|Erfgoedcel Antwerpen). In 2010 Maya finished a documentary about Belgium entitled Toekomst(EN)-Avenir(S), broadcast on both the Flemish and French-language Belgian national channels. In 2011 she worked on a participative television series in the French cité la Villeneuve (Grenoble). Currently Maya is working on Maono, a project for exploring the futures of North-South relations during a field trip in Katanga with young adults from Belgium and the DRCongo. She is also producing a series of future oriented interviews for the Maisons des Cultures of Molenbeek. Further clients include the King Baudouin Foundation, Instituut Samenleving en Technologie, EPTA, EC DG Information Society & Media, the Museum of Conemporary Art of Antwerp (MhkA), Prospekta, CultuurNet and COST.

About Maya's futures work with young people in the Democratic Republic of Congo
The part of the WFSF-UNESCO project, LEALA, that Maya has co-designed and is responsible for will involve the following outcomes:
1.     Contribute to futures capacity in the South and in Africa in particular, with grass-roots futures work and education of the highest standard;
2.     Offer young adults future oriented education and an opening and direct connection to the world-wide futures community;
3.     Deploy a digital learning platform that does not exclude African participation (overcoming technical challenges and limited internet-access in some regions);
4.     Develop an internationally oriented (language, worldview, sources) collection of educational materials and opportunities for exchange that is relevant and of immediate use in Africa and the wider world.

Please see the attached Vimeo link to a short Video (edited by Maya) produced as an outcome of the Congo project last year:
http://vimeo.com/50851169

Congratulations, Maya, for being the first recipient of this new WFSF Award!
You are a great inspiration to other young women coming into the futures field.
Dear WFSF Members and Friends,

I am very happy to bring you some wonderful news.

As you know we have just celebrated International Women's Day around the globe.

This day has been celebrated now for over 100 years and marks the incredible contribution of women to the end of political oppression, slavery,
and inhumanities of all kinds, and in all parts of the world.

It is remarkable to consider that even in the United States of America, women did not have the right to vote 100 years ago (not until 1920).
And that in Saudi Arabia, women still do not have the right to vote today (it is mooted for 2015).

In order to mark the important contribution of women futurists to the development of futures studies,
I have decided to create a new annual award - to be called the "WFSF President's Outstanding Woman Futurist Award".
In future, this award will be announced on International Women's Day each year.

"WFSF President's Outstanding Woman Futurist Award"
This award will recognise achievements in such areas as:
Advancement of futures thinking in the least developed countries;
Advancement of humanitarian causes through the concepts and methods of futures studies;
Advancement of the rights of women through the concepts and methods of futures studies;
Advancement of the rights of young people through the concepts and methods of futures studies;
Advancement of the philosophies, theories, methods and practices that strengthen and enrich the field of futures studies.
Inaugural "WFSF President's Outstanding Woman Futurist: 2013" - Dr. Maya VAN LEEMPUT

I wish to name Maya VAN LEEMPUT, from Antwerp, Belgium, as my Inaugural "WFSF President's Outstanding Woman Futurist: 2013"
in honour of her outstanding work in 2012 and 2013 with young people in Katanga, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

While I acknowledge that Maya has done a lot of incredible work over the last few years, particularly in her area of positive multi-media futures,
I am particularly impressed by her involvement in this recent project with young people in the Congo.
I also want to honour both Maya's courage in undertaking this work, and her humility in not drawing attention to herself as she does her work.

As you may know, this project is part of the WFSF successful application for UNESCO Participation Project 2012-2013 funding. The successful WFSF-UNESCO project is called the World Futures Learning Lab (LEALA). The project aims to develop and deliver blended (live and on-line) courses in world futures thinking and practice. It is directed to a diverse global audience, focusing especially on the needs of Africa, youth and the needs of developing countries.

About Maya
Maya van Leemput is a professional futurist who combines research and consultancy with a creative multi-media practice. Her Ph.D. research at the University of Westminster “Visions of the Future on Television. A Content Analysis and Production Study of Representations of the Future on British Television in the Mid- Nineties.” was completed in 02001. Maya collaborates with visual artist Bram Goots on Agence Future (AF), a long-term independent project to explore images of the futures through conversation and experiment. With a project based practice she nurtures a collection of images of the futures. Past projects include Iris Futures (VUB-IRSIB) and O58 (MAS|Erfgoedcel Antwerpen). In 2010 Maya finished a documentary about Belgium entitled Toekomst(EN)-Avenir(S), broadcast on both the Flmish and French-language Belgian national channels. In 2011 she worked on a participative television series in the French cité la Villeneuve (Grenoble). Currently Maya is working on Maono, a project for exploring the futures of North-South relations during a field trip in Katanga with young adults from Belgium and the DRCongo. She is also producing a series of future oriented interviews for the Maisons des Cultures of Molenbeek. Further clients include the King Baudouin Foundation, Instituut Samenleving en Technologie, EPTA, EC DG Information Society & Media, the Museum of Conemporary Art of Antwerp (MhkA), Prospekta, CultuurNet and COST.

About Maya's futures work with young people in the Democratic Republic of Congo
The part of the WFSF-UNESCO project, LEALA, that Maya has co-designed and is responsible for will involve the following outcomes:
1.     Contribute to futures capacity in the South and in Africa in particular, with grass-roots futures work and education of the highest standard;
2.     Offer young adults future oriented education and an opening and direct connection to the world-wide futures community;
3.     Deploy a digital learning platform that does not exclude African participation (overcoming technical challenges and limited internet-access in some regions);
4.     Develop an internationally oriented (language, worldview, sources) collection of educational materials and opportunities for exchange that is relevant and of immediate use in Africa and the wider world.

Please see the attached Vimeo link to a short Video (edited by Maya) produced as an outcome of the Congo project last year:
http://vimeo.com/50851169

Congratulations, Maya, for being the first recipient of this new WFSF Award!
You are a great inspiration to other young women coming into the futures field.

Dr. Jennifer M. GIDLEY
President, World Futures Studies Federation (UNESCO Partner)

Reel Molenbeek Futures

'Reel' stands for being filmed and is not a spelling mistake, filmed by Bram Goots, professional camera man and the interviews are by Maya Van Leemput. Of course a professional sound and a real editing process. It is in the editing process that the story is told. Maya and Bram conducted this type of gathering images of the future already in 25 counties, listening, enticing, conducting workshops, what ever it took to make people think about a longer term future. The end result of this documentary is an interesting mix of the ideas of three men and two women, plus a few people interviewed on the canal in a boat. They tried to imagine where they would be at in their commune 'Molenbeek', one of the 19 districts of Brussels, in their private life, how it would be to age 18 years... The film was moving through the words and actions of the five interviewees: One young girl claimed the right to decide whom and if she would marry: I am not obliged to get married, I am not obliged to have children. I will decide. Beautiful to see a splendid young woman so unafraid of assuming responsibility over her own life. There was a cultural worker who likes to work in that field, and wants more responsibility. He let himself be aged by a make-up artist and thought he looked sixty years old. He pleaded, actually all participants in the documentary did, for more cooperation, more solidarity, more human contact. Technology didn't seem to be important 'If I have a flying car, then that still doesn't me me a superhero', he said. One man, the oldest, has done magnificent work with youngsters, having them look at the stain glass windows of John The Baptist church and then have them make something abstract which is mounted in a public space in one line with the original stain glass windows. The man himself paints beautiful abstract paintings. Upon retirement he'll go back to his small town in Morocco, because there are enough artists here, but there they lack artists. He explained that every year he takes a different class in one or other art technique, this year animation film and video... He paints abstract paintings since that doesn't offend any religion, encompasses all humans, refers to Klee, Kandinsky and Mondriaan. The second woman was kind and gentle, gave her words some thought before speaking. They are new to the quarter and love its mix of people and cultures. Warm hearted. She spoke about the communal gardens in the city and how those bring people together in social and ecological project. Then there was Gustavo, black Brazilian, the only one speaking Dutch really rather well. The whole film was subtitled either in Dutch or in French. A necessity in Brussels. The beauty of his movements with his head while thinking, the fervor with which he spoke about integration and that we are all somebody's racist... Yet hopeful, yes one of his hopes is that that in the future people will be less afraid of each other. 

I was impressed by warmth and positivity of the stories shown. Yes!!! Good people, good thoughts, a great documentary.

Futures (yes, plural!)

Maya Van Leemput is a futures researcher who got her PhD 10 years ago and since then has been collecting with her partner Bram Goots (Camera and DoP) images of the future people hold. Their latest project is in Molenbeek in Brussels commissioned by ‘The House of Cultures’ of St Johns-Molenbeek. They interviewed and filmed about 30 people. Next Friday, December 21, the day the world is predicted to end, she is showing the film ‘Reel Molenbeek Futures’, starting at  8pm. Why plural? Well there are no future facts, are there? So there is not only one possible future, but many possible futures that we co-create by our action, non-action, by what we can imagine, by how we would like those futures to be. For that you need clear images, maybe even universal values... As one of her futurist friends said: With fuzzy images of the future, you get a fuzzy future. Think about it, if you see clearly what you would like in let’s say 18 years, then you can do things to make it happen. If you have never thought about it, the film might just help you realize it is a fun and useful exercise in our life to think and dream and discover our expectations about our different possible futures.

Address & time:
8 PM

House of Cultures and Social Cohesion:

Chaussee de/Steenweg op Merchtem 67

1080- Sint –Jans- Molenbeek- Saint-Jean

Brussels-Belgium

You're all invited... French or Dutch subtitles...

Four more years: elections matter!

Being female, mixed background, pro-choice, for GLBT equal rights, convinced that climate change is a danger to the world and worrying about the wars that are still raging, I am glad Barack Obama carried this election. Most people don't vote their interest but their values, which include for me caring, accepting diversity (race, gender, age, migrant groups...), the environment, including energy issues, and social justice, healthcare. So I count myself as part of the democratic coalition which has better visions for our possible futures and did vote my values. I look forward to the President bringing home the troops from Afghanistan so that thee are no more foreign wars to be fought and that we can concentrate on rebuilding what is broken in the USA and be peacemakers and bridge builders in the world. That is my dream and hope for the country: freedom and dignity for all, generous and tolerant, the most diverse nation of the world. Let's all keep reaching.

Futures envisioned in song and dance: Hola!

Agencefuture got it's start years ago in London. After a doctorate about the images of the future on the BBC, Maya wondered how the future was imagined in the real world. She and photographer - camera man and fervent cyclist Bram set out in the world on recumbent bikes to go in search of the images other people hold. Their latest venture was the Maono project for which they made a wonderful road book for each of the participants to fill out or to be inspired by.
A wonderful result of the cooperation between development aid, research into the future and working together with artists in the Democratic Republic of Congo is the song 'Hola' which has been written and composed and performed as part of the project. Joy and peace, creativity, understanding and a good dose of perfectionism and respect are the ingredients of this heartwarming song.

Occupy in Utrecht The Netherlands and Kingman, Arizona

During a trip to Utrecht we talked to the people from Occupy Utrecht. Well organized, fun and committed.Lots of music and fun, but also discussions and planning for the next events was the fare of the day. 

 But then there is also Kingman, in extremely republican Arizona. The 99% supporters gather each Saturday at the train in the Park along the historic Route 66.


Here the group was rather small on the hot Saturday morning, yet it was a pleasant crowd talking about topical issues and the upcoming presidential elections. So On Sundays they have a peace vigil on a different location and on Wednesdays they have a gathering to suppport women's reproductive rights which are under thread because of republican inititatives.
A lot of work needs to be done, the grass roots in America are waking up and growing. We are the 99% working for better futures.

Route 66- continued

The route is all about the road, the place longed for, dreamed of, imagined in one's soul. The state of the road doesn't matter.
Neither does the means of transportation. being on the move, desire, solitude and beauty are the guiding lights.  

Restaurants I didn't stop at. And forlorn places where time was framed in old signs: Roadrunner Restaurant.
One  almost hears the jazz of those days in the purring motor.


Waterside property advertised in the enormous and beautiful Mojave Desert... No, no, not a sedentary life, near a moist air river.



It is all about the road, the encounters, the sharing of long vistas which heal your eyes. There is a road to where you're going.
May traveling the Route 66 help each of us find our road, straight or winding, up and down with left curves and straight ahead: a metaphor for life, a road with many futures.

 

 From the glamor of Hollywood to the Old Historic Route 66. At first still maintained but then fallen to the wayside.


Present Past and Future is the slogan of Route 66...

 The Best Western in Bartsow with a view of the trucks going by on the I 40. Imagine the joy of a road all to oneself... In Ludlow there is a new coffee shop, its fate uncertain.

House -garage - gas station -
Ludlow café -
all derelict
publictés fanées
faded billboards
fallen by the wayside

a good life
with a real house across
at the east direction
nobody took
all went west

and needed shelter
repairs
gas
sustenance
courage for the crossing
but NO CHECKS CASHED


neither is anybody responsible
for fire or theft
of ones dreams
on Route 66.
How long before new Ludlow resembles the old
before the desert has taken back its space
before a new generation builds
a fresh watering hole for the thirsty and weary

Anti-War-Day, September 1st, 2011

Freedom and peace for all – No more war!

European trade unions called for freedom and peace for the whole world in May 1961. This appeal, this summons is today more topical than ever.

It’s been ten years now since the war in Afghanistan began. News about victims of battles, attacks and war actions reaches us almost on a daily basis. What the population needs is work and stability instead of instability and violence. We demand the retreat of all troops out of Afghanistan and strong support for civilian society.

Troops in Afghanistan, planes in Libya are signs of the willingness of the West to deploy troops in any place in the world. We do not want intervention armies, but a strong basis democratic control of all military decisions.

This years spring saw the massive protests in the Arab world. A wave of democratic protest rolled from country to country over North Africa and the Arab Peninsula. The regimes of Tunisia and Egypt were toppled. Especially the young generations hold high hopes that in these societies the democratic process will unfold peacefully, in solidarity and progressively. These processes need to be supported financially, with medical aid, assistance of suffering civilians.

Lessons from the past spell it out clearly that the weapons the ruling governments used against their own population for the major part had been sold to them by the European armament industry: Germany, Belgium, Spain, France ...  The selling of arms to regions in crisis should be classified under crimes against humanity. Defense spending has to be curbed in a a sustainable way.

The farewell to nuclear energy should also entail the end of all nuclear weapons! After the end of the cold war today there are still 23.000 nuclear weapons ready to be deployed. Our wish is a nuclear free world!

Every form of contempt for people, glorification of war and chauvinism is an affront to human dignity and unworthy in a democracy. The extreme right, hate mongering groups instigating violence and racism shall not find a foothold in our society.

Fred Schywek

Annmarie Sauer organizers of the 2010 and 2011 European Poetry Festival

Text on the basis of a position paper of the DGB (German umbrella organization of trade unions)

September Days of Peace (Campaign of world internet books)

September 1: Salon 12b: Worldwide Anti-War-Day: 8 PM

Participating September 11: NINE ELEVEN TEN Performance, Organizer Frank De Vos, Casa Louisa

September 17, 2011, European Poetry Festival Antwerp

8 PM with the city poet laureate Peter Holvoet-Hanssen and the support of the Permeke Library

devorah major

devorah major is one of the featured poets who will perform and read at the 2nd festival of European poetry. She will travel from San Francisco to Antwerp. She has been invited to read and perform poems from the upcoming anthology Harbors of the West and some powerful anti war poems. You can read a poignant poem about her ancestry.

I am a California born granddaughter of West Indian documented and undocumented immigrants, and Eastern-European immigrants (all documented I believe but I am not as aware of this side of my family line.) As a second generation writer I have found the universe of words, where one can create other worlds, other times, or freeze time or place as it is, to be a place of power, comfort, terror. Poetry found me first, later it was fiction and still later creative nonfiction found a way to carve a place in my writing soul. Words stuck, cut through my tongue, healed, confronted, questioned, demanded, flowed. I wrote while single, while in and out of love, as a new mother, and then as a poet in residence at a cultural center while my second child grew in my womb. I wrote through the painful dissolution of a difficult marriage and through biting poverty as a singe parent. And I still write- as woman black and proud, born in a family which has for generations struggled to make a better way , a more just world. And my writing has borne fruit. Thus far four books of poetry, two poetry chapbooks, two novels, and myriad single poems, short stories and non-fiction essays have been published.

   I have written of family, of the streets, of struggle in both poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction. I have performed my poems on war and peace, love and survival in England and Wales, in Bosnia, in Northern and Southern Italy, and at innumerable cultural and political gatherings in the US. I have served as Poet Laureate of San Francisco 2002-2006. Poet, novelist, internationally touring performer my books include street smarts, where river meets ocean, and with more than tongue, An Open Weave and Brown Glass Windows. For over twenty years I performed and recorder with Opal Palmer Adisa as a part of the poetry jazz performance group “Daughters of Yam.” I am featured on two Daughters of yam CDs as well as four other music and poetry compilations. Completed forthcoming collections are teardrops in the mouth of the moon and treasure hunting. I write as witness and as questioner. I write as one who loves. I cobble together my living as a writer, performance poet, poet in residence in community and/or institutional settings, and part time lecturer at an art college.

DEVORAH MAJOR

Knowledge is power- The Monty-Antwerp

A fun evening in The Monty in Antwerp was conceived as a training, an encounter and a series of conversations after the internet has collapsed, the libraries have burned. 60 experts who have kissed the blarney stone, have the gift to simply explain what they are about or ask questions that make one look  with a fresh eye to what one thought a bygone conclusion.  60 experts from all walks of life could be 'bought for a date': that was a 25 minute private conversation: Karel De Gucht, commissioner of the European commision, Patrick Jansen, the mayor of Antwerp, Patsy Sörensen fighting human trafficking, a fisherman from Ostend, a cosmologist explaining the string theory, a future researcher Maya Van Leemput, Bo Coolsaeet, the love doctor and a lady who came collared and runs a SM café... a soldier who had fought in Afganistan, an evolutionary linguist, a philosopher.... As stated before: 60 experts.

One could listen in to each time 8 conversations, chosen by the organisers.  Interesting, yet one could not listen to the 22 other conversations which thus became private, yet public because they were held on a stage. Interesting yet one  left  the evening still hungry... because one could not meet them all.

Nuclear energy, no thanks

In several countries in Europe, among others Germany and Belgium they are breaking the promise that nuclear plants would be closed. In Germany 'Bibis' 30 years old and the oldest plant in the country will be open for another 8 years. A new report surfaced that there are 80 issues with the plant and About them about seventy are security issues. The protest in Germany is strong. The current government is a right wing disrespecting the poor in their own country and uncaring towards their young citizens. This nuclear plant and its fumes I can see from my apartment.
My contribution is a poem:
The long now

the long now
10.000 years
who can then
read this
understand
the symbol

who knows then
looking
for the cause
of double timing halftime
short selling
of what how log
then still
has to come
now
10.000
years from now
the late burden
of moot mushrooms
and fantasies of fission

we all live
in the halftime
of the long
now -

Nuclear energy no thanks

Farewel party

To do things right I need a ritual. So the friendship among colleagues had to celebrated now that I stopped working. There were the sweet and personal words by the chef, and my reply. My friends liked it, yet I can't remember what I said. People laughed, talked, had a good time, with none of the awkwardness of official do's.
I always considered myself an outsider, or at least looking in from the sideline, yet that evening I was carried by the warmth of those I shared my work life with and travels in the service of making communication easier. These friends shared some of my life-load. I now shared some of my joys with them. The house is full of flowers, books sought out after careful consideration, things they wanted me to know, thought I might like. Pleasant silly surprises and empty books to write in. I may have been looking in, but I was watched by those I worked with and they got my number. I was touched be the sincerity of their warmth.
By the way, someone counted: 17 languages were present, several of them spoken: German, English, French, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Russian, Finnish, Polish, Turkish, Estonian, Hungarian, Maltese and Scottish.
Thank you all for closure and the good start into other realms into which I might just lure you to follow...

The pandemic

The flu is getting public attention in Belgium. This weekend one of the leading newspapers had a rather dismissive article about the flu: the measures taken by the communal authorities were ridiculed as over the top, the tone was ironic and the advise was not to make such a fuss about a little flu. They don't seem to be aware that it might be a mild strain now, but in Sweden the first case of the novel flu has been diagnosed and it does not react to Tamiflu. Also at the birthday party of a poet ( the one listing to the reading of his friends) the flu was a subject. Our host had made a poem titled 'The kiss', for those who dind't want to kiss or hug or shake hands, so that they would have a kiss anyway. Monday, in the same newspaper an oped was published stating that the stack of Tamiflu wouldn't help because it would be kept at the wrong temperature by most people and thus become inefficient. Last year the flu claimed 2000 lives in Belgium. Even at the 7 casualties per day with a period of lets say three month it means 600 people would die and then the regular seasonal flu still has to come. Moreover the virus can get 'evil' any day. Check facts at Coralcross and do join and play the game set up by a group of futurists. Be prepared!

Respect

The structures and statues in the park are a sign of respect. The half round building is dedicated to Galileo. It is a small observatory. 5Did you know that already in 600 BC people knew the earth was round and was circling around the sun?)


Here is Dante, with the Divina Comedia open on his lap on a page against the then rulers of Firenze who banished him forever from his beloved city.


Of course I read the Bell on top of the Pantheon as the bell of freedom.

Here you see a prime example of trompe oeil in the Pantheon. and the declaration of intent: no immages of tyrants.... only of those who brought hope for futere lives.

Open Futures

Open Futures was the title of the lecture given by Maya Van Leemput in the emptied Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, the MuHKA. It made me think, seen that since modernity we have been used to deal with hard facts, it is high time for the re-enchantment through creativity as an organizing principle. The practice of art and futures studies is very similar because possibilities are explored, dissident visions and imagination are encouraged. We have to be aware that all human actions shape the future. Art is important in this thought process and practice because all possibilities are open in the non linear possibilities that are offered here. We can have sudden shifts, spirals, layers of complexity and possibilities are not a priori excluded. Transhumanism were there is no interface between humans and machines touches the definition of what it means to be human in the psychological, social, mythical and cultural aspects of being human. That kind of technology is seen as disruptive technology because there is break in the normal path of evolution and this leads to new interpretations and new subjectivities about what it means to be a posthuman human. The so called Cyborgs lead to an unstable human identity. Then new definitions become possible. What happens if norms are questioned, when boundaries are transgressed. Remember that the power to create Cyborgs is in the hands of the military industrial complex... If we want peace we have to stop them from claiming that field of creating universal soldiers
So we all have to work to keep our critical openness and to fill it with images of desirable futures. So change will be fed by human emotion and thoughtful creativity, so we will make one of the different possible futures by our daily actions and questions. Thanks to Maya for making me think.

Meet and greet

Walking the dog, I noticed on the publicity panels at the tram stop, that on several posters, one for a sneaker from Footwear, another for photographic material, stickers were added in the by me despised combination of black and yellow which stands for extreme Flemish nationalism. Their gripe was with the English in the ads. It bothers me because it is just another sign of the refolding, retreating into the 'comfort zone' of their own culture and people. This city and many others in Europe Sarajevo (the first were I really felt the meaning of cosmopolitanism, which was bombed to smithereens and is now mono-ethnic and mono-religious), Triest (with the Lega Nationale and their racist and anti-Islam points of view) and also my city. In the sixties/seventies, when I was out and about a bit more I would always meet, musicians, painters, draftdodgers, conscientious objectors, writers who would stay a while and enrich, fertilize the provincial attitudes that were. They were poor and powerless but were the leven in the dough of society. Then this city was magnificent and it still is because enough people care. So there was a meet and greet your neighbors were cultural exchange once again happened and were deep discussions among total strangers were conducted in a lively fashion about the past and the future. Our futures will be our choice and we need to go the non-violent, peaceful way, taking care of our environment, granting the personal freedoms we all need, tolerance, working towards social justice and livable cities, where all the keys to understanding the world resound in song and languages spoken. A left wing progressive cosmopolitan. By the way the Goulash soup was great and the fruit salad just different and enough to be grand...