Bucky Takes Montreal
Artists, programmers, designers and innovator came together in Montreal to participate in the first ever “Buckython” from May 15-17. Inspired by the iconic Expo ’67 dome, the hackathon-styled event was organized by the Notman House, the Society for Arts and Technology [SAT] and the Buckminster Fuller Institute as part of the Montreal’s Digital Spring. It was held at the Notman House, a technology hub and incubator, housed in an historic mansion.
“Le Buckython" was kicked off on Friday night by a presentation about Bucky’s life and works by Kurt Przybilla, an inventor, educator and long time BFI member, followed by a hands-on workshop entitled Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking to introduce participants to key concepts and structures of synergetics. Organized on the idea of a hackathon, multidisciplinary teams were formed through random selection and then tasked with collaborating to co-design and develop projects, artworks and prototypes inspired by Bucky’s ideas and works. Teams worked together all day Saturday (9 am – 10 pm ) and Sunday (9am – 5pm) and then presented their projects on Sunday evening.
The result was a wide range of projects and prototypes, from interactive bus shelters based on synergetic designs to "the Dymaxion Library", a community developed and built open source knowledge space, to “Buckyasanas", a series of collaborative yoga poses that engage participants to experience principles of tensegrity and synergetics first hand. The projects were on display the following weekend at the closing of the iX Symposium at the Society of Art and Technology. Allegra Fuller Synder, Bucky’s daughter, who opened the symposium with an inspirational speech at the Expo ’67 dome, visited with each of the Buckython teams and discussed their projects.
Le Buckython was covered in the Metro here (French) and a translated English version is available here. See images (by photographer Eva Blue) here from the event May 15th-17th at the Notman House. A set of images from the IX closing at Society for Arts and Technology, where projects were presented to Allegra Fuller Snyder, are viewable here. Also see this quick video from the event, and here is the article about the opening from SAT’s web site, complete with Allegra’s talk.