Monday, April 20, 2009

Bruce Mau Lecture Highlights

I know many of you did not get the chance to make the 45 minute trek to Lawrence for the Bruce Mau lecture, but I took notes on some things that he said which I thought were particularly interesting.

"We don't say this is how we do it, we say these are the tools."
He was talking about design not being as solution that you come up with somewhere else in an office and then give to people, but something that you co-create with them in order for it to have more meaning for them.

"Imagine, we can make the world a teaching experience."

"Current education deadens our sense of wonder fro the creative world."
Once you learn how the trick is done, not only are you no longer impressed by that trick, but skeptical of all subsequent tricks.

"If everyone lived like Americans we would need 4 additional earths to accommodate the resources we consume."

"Most inventions fail because the context isn't ready."

"Design is matter and energy combined with intelligence, creating delight and leaving matter behind. what we have to do is create something out of what is left behind."
I thought that was a interesting definition for design, but entirely true. It is a lack of doing things with what is left behind that is one of the reasons Americans would need four additional Earths.

"Words fall down."