The Open_Sailing Project

Drifting villages, or what the Apocalypse has to do with your social life.

Here’s a little-thought-about fact: Oceans cover 71% of Earth’s surface, yet 6.7 billion of us cram into the other 29%, elbowing our way through pollution, overpopulation and various other delights of contemporary civilization.

Enter Open_Sailing, a visionary initiative pioneering an entirely new form of marine architecture.

The project aims to reinvent our habitat by designing a sustainable, technologically sound sea-based lifestyle, shielded from potential natural and man-induced disasters. An “International Ocean Station” to the International Space Station, if you will.

In practical terms, this translates into a drifting, inflatable “village” of modular shelters surrounded by ocean farming units and energy pods. All components are fully flexible — fluid, pre-broken, reconfigurable, pluggable and intuitive — and powered by innovative technologies that maximize energy efficiency and ensure a sustainable, self-sufficient model.

Initiated by Royal College of Art designer Cesar Harada, the project has drawn an international, multidisciplinary team of 15 designers and engineers working under the mentorship of various marine experts.

We want to live at sea. And we want to do it well: comfortably, sustainably and safely. We want delicious food, a great social life, space to work and play. We’ve come together; a diverse team from all walks of life to design our future on the ocean. With our combined skills, we’re pioneering innovative architecture, navigation and sea farming techniques.

The first Open_Sailing prototype is 50 meters in diameter and fits 4 people. An inaugural test will set sail from London to Rotterdam, and results will be available in July.

While the project is very conceptual, the vision behind it is firmly grounded in reality (we’re underutilizing our natural habitat and overexploiting the parts we are using), urgency (where do we go next?) and visionary problem-solving — and that we can appreciate. With the right tools, thinkers and technologies, we think Open_Sailing can change the world — literally.

Thanks, Jake

Exclusive Interview with Society6’s Justin Wills

Art in the era of commerce, or what crowdsourcing has to do with the risk of selling out.

Yesterday, we looked at Kickstarer, a bold effort to fund creative endeavors.

Today, we’re pickings the brains behind society6 — a revolutionary platform for empowering artists by connecting them with supporters and matching them with grants.

Co-founder Justin Wills dishes on everything that makes this movement brilliant, and then some.

Hey Justin, good to have you. Tell us a bit about your background and your relationship with the art world.

Thank you so much Maria, glad to be invited for a good ole’ brain picking. For a little background, society6 is a collaboration between Justin Cooper, Lucas Tirigall-Caste and myself. My partners and I are each an equal mix of artist, patron, entrepreneur and geek. We have collectively built many web sites & applications, led creative teams, started businesses and, above all expressed, our creativity through various forms of art and design. None of us are art world insiders by any means, in fact I would say we are definitely outsiders of the “art world”. That said, the recent movements in the arts and creativity have been trending away from this establishment, making society6 even more relevant.

What was the original inspiration, that first a-ha moment, behind society6?

Our good friend, who also happens to be my wife, had an opportunity to show her project during the prestigious Art Basel show in Miami. The project, titled HEROES & VILLAINS, includes photographic portraits of nearly 200 artists from all over the world.

At the time, she didn’t have the money or resources to pay for the show’s prints and framing. She tried to raise the money from sponsors directly, seeking funding from brands and grants, writing proposal after proposal. When this was unsuccessful, she simply wasn’t able to attend and show her project at that time.

HEROES & VILLAINS: Anders Nilsen

Photography by Tatiana Wills & Roman Cho

This is when we knew there was a problem.

HEROES & VILLAINS: Shepard Fairey

Photography by Tatiana Wills & Roman Cho

Artists with great talent and great work were not getting access to the resources and opportunities they needed and deserved. In fact, there was a huge number of both emerging and established artists being underserved all over the world. We felt that this also kept supporters of the arts from experiencing art they would otherwise enjoy.

HEROES & VILLAINS: Travis Millard

Photography by Tatiana Wills & Roman Cho

So we got together and decided to create an ecosystem for artists and supporters from all over the world. As we did this, we were very conscious of a few things: 1) involving peers and supporters in the process and 2) not requiring artists to create spec work to submit to these grants.

We wanted artists who are already doing great work to get the money and resources they need.

Traditionally, both the artist’s creative process and the art consumer’s internal dialogue with a work of art have been private experiences. But Society6 seems to bridge the two in a social context, harnessing the power of crowdsourced art curation. What are the advantages and challenges of this approach?

Many people experience art as a final product. Generally the artist’s process is largely hidden from the viewer and, frankly, this is one of the reasons many people think creating art is simply a talent and not a labor or learned skill. We really wanted to bring art lovers and supporters into the process. That’s why we created the Studio feature of society6. Supporters and peers experience the virtual studio of the artist, where an artist can share their process as well as the end result. If they experience the development of the artist and their work, we believe that everyone will increase their appreciation for both.

Previously, we worked on an online platform that helped companies use crowdsourcing to improve their products and services. What we learned from this experience has been quite helpful in designing society6 and led us to take this approach to curation.

The benefits of involving everyone in the curation of the work is that it expands the audience and increases their emotional connection to the art and the artist. The challenge lies in keeping it merit-based and not just a popularity contest. The most popular stuff tends to stay popular and the things that appeal to the broadest audience dominate. We have worked to avoid this issue when building our system.

Our Charts are one example of how we have tried to solve this — they show Top Studios only show within the last 7 days, so there is decay to the promotions they receive. At the end of the day, you won’t stay on the Charts unless you are continuing to contribute good work.

Secondly, when it came to the grants system, we wanted to make sure we harnessed the community to help filter the grant applicants without this becoming the deciding factor in who is awarded the grant. Community nominations create the finalist list, but ultimately the grant-giver selects from this list to make the award. It’s about balancing the use of a system with an individual point of view in order to achieve a fair and manageable result.

Tell us a bit more about the “business model” behind society6 and how you envision the future of art in the context of the financial backing that sustains it. The future of creativity in the era of commerce, if you will.

We are working to create a marketplace of money and opportunity. We are always designing so that everyone who participates in society6 is both contributing and receiving something in return. We are focused on creating the most useful and mutually beneficial system we can. Keeping this focus will create numerous opportunities for us to sustain society6.

As people become more engaged in the arts and more in touch with the artists they enjoy, more artist will be able to sustain themselves through direct relationships with their supporters.

I am sure we will see a change in many of the organizations that are currently in place in the arts, whether they’re non profits, galleries, stores, or something else. As artists become more connected to their “customer” and more self-reliant, these entities will need to adapt.

Our hope is that society6 is both the driver for this change and the platform for everyone’s continued involvement and success.

Do you approach sponsors and prospective grant-givers, or do they approach you? Do you have any selection criteria, or can any company offer a grant?

The concept of anyone giving a grant by way of a simple online form is a novel one. So, today, we do approach many of the potential grant givers to introduce the concept. We have had a few grants given without soliciting them and we believe this will increase as we grow and eventually be the dominant behavior.

We have very little in terms of restrictions for who can give and what the grant can be. Any individual or organization can give a grant of either money or an opportunity. At the end of the day, if it is not a good grant, people won’t apply.

The only strong suggestion we have for grant givers is not to solicit submissions as part of the grant.

It’s not a contest and we want artists to be able to apply with their studio and feel that their existing work is what is being evaluated, not a submission created specifically for the grant.

It’s more of a rolling process that favors the way in which artists like to operate. We want the grants to be in the best interest of the artists. Let’s face it: As a grant giver, you are going to be doing good, but you are also getting some promotion out of this so be creative and generous in your grant.

It’s tricky to talk about creative output and commerce in the same breath. Even though society6 is community-driven, some would argue the mere knowledge of prospective funding may alter artists’ original work. How do you think society6 is walking the line between art supporters simply financing original art, and grant-givers being pegged as mere corporate sponsors “commissioning” creative work? The sell-out risk, in other words.

Because no work is being specifically produced for the grant, the artist can post and show work parallel to the grant and not just because of the grant. That said, it is certainly true that we hope the presence of the grants encourages people to post often and consider the quality and depth of their work.

So far, we ‘ve been pleased to see that people take advantage of society6 and use the full breadth of the platform, including things like our Twitter integration. The presence of money and opportunities has not disrupted the community and the positive interaction between the members.

Thanks for letting us pick your brains, Justin. Any parting thoughts left unpicked?

You’re welcome, it’s a pleasure to have our brains picked.

A few parting thoughts: At its core, society6 is a simple and powerful platform for artists to share their work and for their supporters to interact with them. Many people are enjoying it without participating in the grants, which are only part of the overall platform.

But it’s also important to note that we are not a non-profit and have made this choice in order to work outside of the constraints of this traditional system. That is not to say that we don’t feel non-profits are necessary and useful, we do. It’s just that we believe we’ll be more nimble and offer greater opportunities if we can continue to operate with fewer restrictions.

Our only stakeholders are the artists and creative people around the world. We listen closely to them and do what we think will best serve their interests.

Into Post-Digital Creative Culture: OFFF 2009

What Lisbon and spaghetti have in common, or why failure is the key to creative success.

Since 2001, the OFFF festival has been showcasing the best of post-digital creative culture — interactive design, motion graphics, new music ventures, and other explorations of all media platforms.

OFFF is spreading the work of a generation of creators that are breaking all kinds of limits. Those separating the commercial arena from the worlds of art and design; music from illustration, or ink and chalk from pixels. Artists that have grown with the web and receive inspiration from digital tools, even when their canvas is not the screen.

The 3-day event is part design conference, part multimedia trade show, part digital animation festival, celebrating our new relationship with visual media.

OFFF dreams about the future, and then writes the code for it.

This year’s event, titled Fail Gracefully, wrapped earlier this month and was a cultural gem from start to finish — literally: Even the opening sequence for the festival, directed by Ilya Abulhanov and produced by Prologue Films, is a hypnotic piece of neo-digital genius.

The panel roster was equally impressive — including our favorite data visualization artist, Aaron Koblin, the iconic Paula Scher, and revolutionary film director and animator PES. (Remember Western Spaghetti? Yep, that guy.)

The discussion revolved around the notion of “graceful failure” as an essential strategy for creating in the digital space — we wouldn’t do it any justice by summarizing, but you can read the transcript from the Fail Gracefully panel here.

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What NASA Can Learn from X Prize (And Vise Versa)

A human story worth $10 million, or why imagination will always remain the next frontier of technology.

NASA, a longtime flag-bearer for America, is in trouble. A struggle that began with the tragic 2003 Columbia disaster now extends to an expensive and disappointing space shuttle program (due to retire in 2010) and the likely postponement of a scheduled 2020 moon landing due to problems with the Ares 1 rocket. Meanwhile, it suffers the absence of a new permanent chief and a shrinking budget yet to be addressed by President Obama.

NASA needs superior technical vision, which is where the Ansari X Prize has triumphed. By enlisting private sector competition in the service of technical expertise, the Ansari X Prize inspired the world’s best thinkers and doers to successfully launch the first-ever commercial spacecraft. Twenty-six teams from seven nations competed for the $10 million jackpot, and like the Orteig Prize before it that ignited to $300 billion commercial aviation industry, the competition went on to generate more than $1.5 billion dollars — solid funding for the private spacecraft industry, spearheaded by Virgin Galactic.

Still, NASA has something that X Prize is yet to master: The ability to capture the world’s imagination.

Its amazing astronauts inspired generations, filled a nation with pride, and had entire countries holding their breath. X Prize, by contrast, is little-known or misunderstood as elitist. While a $10-million jackpot is certainly stride-stopping, what truly captures the imagination is the flight of the human spirit. It was the cultural and emotional journey of Charles Lindbergh, Neil Armstrong and the crew of Apollo 13 that people followed, even as they vanished across the Atlantic or behind the moon.

The stories of the unique men and women participating in today’s X Prize are yet to be told. These competitors possess the same willingness to put their hearts, minds and bodies into a seemingly impossible idea. The X-factor they have in common is not the pursuit of a technological breakthrough — it’s the very character trait of those willing to try.

As both NASA and X Prize move forward, their future and success depend on the ability to rally the world around the stories of these men and women, around the technological feat wrapped in the relatable, riveting human element.

Simon Mainwaring is a former Nike creative, worldwide creative director for Ogilvy, author, speaker and general idea junkie. For more of and about him, check out his blog and follow him on Twitter.

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