I'm starting this topic after deciding to take the Fuller Challenge (see announcement). On this website, July 18, 2008, there are 55 pages with reference to "fuller" as in R. Buckminster Fuller. Time for one of his own. I was going to put the page under Trips/Imagine in geometry, but Fuller is so much more than that, deserving of his own open space, so I created the fuller directory.
My Fuller History
I ran and run into Fuller at major intersections of my life. Brief highlights:
I
heard him speak in Minnesota, 1953, early in my college
career . It was a landmark event, opening my mind
in myriad ways. Proof of the depth of his influence
came home to me dramatically recently when I saw
the challenge
movie.
It starts with the helicopter-delivered building
like a tower plugged into earth that had fired my
imagination in 1953. How similar it is to my 2008 virtual
staff planted at the Two Thumbs.
- In 1966 when I was dropping out of the work world in San Francisco, I found "I Seem to be a Verb" and later I changed my name to Caroling. Reading Ideas and Integrities, I was fundamentally focused by his example and telling of looking for what can and needs to be done for the good of all, not just yourself.
- By 1968 I had begun to make a stained glass dome: Wholeo Dome. I needed a structure to hold up the panels. Studying Domebook II, I decided on a geodesic tube frame. Building it and another dome Bump (to live in) taught me lots about Fuller. One panel in the dome shows his vibes.
- Visiting Boulder, Colorado, I heard him speak
again at the university in a huge auditorium. Here's
what I wrote in my journal:
3/12/75 ... tonight my problem was Fuller. I can't follow the structure of his thoughts. It seems he said the same old things. He talked slow then increased in speed tremendously. He was funny. But I was aware of projection of energy patterns. Seems that is what is so alluring about (his) spell. Now is he aware of that? Is it real or is it just my own personal artwork? Is what I see valuable to others? ... At one point it was so complex (network of lines) that almost solid - a diagram of everything. Everything symmetrically disposed. He gestured that way with hands. First right gives, then left gives, then a both-handed, all-body embrace. Also various conductings and swoops. ... Fuller is coasting on past reputation. He should know it's time to stop. Younger people soon won't know what he was about. Holy man. It seems everything perfectly calculated to adjust you to become more highly developed, expanded. He raises you from brain to MIND.
- After I installed Wholeo Dome, I invited Fuller twice. See his letters to me: one (October 7, 1976) and two (October 26, 1977).
- Read Synergetics, I and II in 1987, but I'm not sure I read them when they first came out in the 1970s or when I started reading them. The Fuller connection helped me endure the narrowness of being a technical writer for the computer industry by continuing to engage my far out mystical geometrer.
- From 1997 on, I continued to refer to Fuller off and on in publishing wholeo.net (search on "Fuller").
- In 2008 I saw a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art called Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe. See my notes. See also my review of the catalogue.
Links Related to acceptance of the challenge
Here I'll collect links in preparation for my work in acceptance of the 2009 Buckminster Fuller Challenge.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_of_ten_tetrahedra
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Compound_of_ten_tetrahedra.png Wenninger model 25
- http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/CompoundsOf5And10Tetrahedra/ Wolfram demonstration project
Notes
- * 4D image from the Buckminster Fuller Challenge 2009 movie, used Courtesy of The Estate of Buckminster Fuller.
- It is a challenging time. Fuller, Gore (see Al Gore's Challenge), and Google (see 10x100 project) might focus challenge in certain ways, but on an individual level, can we meet the challenge successfully by making each and every right decision? Each decision should have the maximum potential to solve the crisis facing all of us.
- Ongoing work on the challenges is listed at the bottom of the challenge page.
