Netdiver Magazine
#ISSN 1911-866X
Carole Guevin eye candy editor curator creative activist geek songwriter showcases the design digital culture.
No hype just beautiful
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On being a world citizen
Quite often I am asked “where are you located?” My answer is always the same: “The workstations are in Montreal but for the past 25 years I gladden myself to be a world citizen”.
Now why would I say that?
I was first hooked up on the network to the university mainframe via a 760 bauds terminal while very pregnant with daughter Emanuelle and working from home for a scientific research group. I was editorial assistant to a new scientific magazine called Typologie structurale which applied maths to architectural problems.
The magazine mission was to circulate international abstracts, information and news on how to build inexpensive structures as the solution to the world's housing needs as per R. Buckminster Fuller's theory and vision (this geodesic dome was built for the International World Fair in '67) as well as Moshe Safdie's ideas: Habitat '67 built for the same event.
Not only were the people I was working with a fascinating bunch of first rate intellectuals but overall the early 70s was an exciting time of exponential advances; the introduction via technology, to a new way of communication was pure science-fiction... come true!
It was the highest of the Cold war and I had the privilege to work not only with ground breaking scientists but international humanitarian activists as well - who to a certain degree put their lives on the line to help dissidents the world around. The lessons I learned in world diplomacy, the value of public pressure as a mean to impact socio-political situations, the exposure to survivors' stories (some of whom were tortured) shaped and changed me.
Little did I know that these became an integral part of my vision of the net(work) as a world wide communication platform whereas changing the world is not an utopian dream. It took Tcharanksy 2.5 years of mobilized efforts to set him free. Within minutes after 9/11 - the power of the net was set ablaze. In matter of hours, there were solidarity networks. I became part of a chain reaction that swept the world without ever leaving my desk in Montreal. That's the power of the net!
My constant determination in contributing to make this world a better home for everyone... one person at a time... makes me a world citizen.
Now imagine what can happen if the world citizens teamed up together in a day to day agenda?
Bibliography
Home Sweet Dome: Predictions from the past that haven't come true ... yet by Sidney C. Schaer
Great Buildings: US Pavilion at Expo '67 by Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao
Great Buildings: Habitat '67 by Moshe Safdie
The future independent web: Visions of what's to come: Before + Now = Next!