Difference between revisions of "Stewart Brand"
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Stewart Brand is best known as the creator of the [[Whole Earth Catalog]], which was an expression of hippy counter-culture and back-to-land communalism. Brand however went on to play a role in the digital revolution, and can be considered a member of the [[Hacker Generation]]. He thus personally exemplifies how the hacker movement can be seen as having grown out of the hippy counter-culture; see for example [[Fred Turner]]'s book [[From Counterculture to Cyberculture]]. | Stewart Brand is best known as the creator of the [[Whole Earth Catalog]], which was an expression of hippy counter-culture and back-to-land communalism. Brand however went on to play a role in the digital revolution, and can be considered a member of the [[Hacker Generation]]. He thus personally exemplifies how the hacker movement can be seen as having grown out of the hippy counter-culture; see for example [[Fred Turner]]'s book [[From Counterculture to Cyberculture]]. | ||
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Stewart Brand grew up in a technically oriented environment: his home town in Illinois specialized in making machine tools, his father was a ham radio operator and his college-educated mother a space buff. Stewart Brand obtained a degree in biology in 1960 from Stanford University, where he encountered systems theory in a biology class taught by Paul Ehrlich, a specialist in butterfly ecology (who later wrote The Population Bomb). American biology at that time was under the influence of [[Cybernetics]] and information theory. | Stewart Brand grew up in a technically oriented environment: his home town in Illinois specialized in making machine tools, his father was a ham radio operator and his college-educated mother a space buff. Stewart Brand obtained a degree in biology in 1960 from Stanford University, where he encountered systems theory in a biology class taught by Paul Ehrlich, a specialist in butterfly ecology (who later wrote The Population Bomb). American biology at that time was under the influence of [[Cybernetics]] and information theory. | ||
| − | Upon graduation from Stanford, Brand was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he began training infantry and ended as an army photographer. While stationed in New Jersey, Brand spent off-duty weekends visiting the lower-Manhattan loft of a young painter named Steve Durkee, thus coming in contact with the bohemian art world of Manhattan. Returning to civilian life in 1962, he studied design at the San Francisco Art Institute and photography at San Francisco State College. | + | Upon graduation from Stanford, Brand was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he began training infantry, and ended as an army photographer. While stationed in New Jersey, Brand spent off-duty weekends visiting the lower-Manhattan loft of a young painter named Steve Durkee, thus coming in contact with the bohemian art world of Manhattan. Returning to civilian life in 1962, he studied design at the San Francisco Art Institute and photography at San Francisco State College. |
Around 1962 Steve Durkee teamed up with San Francisco–based poet Gerd Stern and multimedia technician Michael Callahan to form an art troupe they called USCO, short for "The US Company." Brand collaborated periodically with USCO, for example contributing photographs to a 1963 event called "Verbal American Landscape," in which three slide projectors showed, in random sequence, photographs of individual words found on road signs and billboards. Over the next few years, USCO was to transformed the "happening" into a psychedelic celebration, using strobe lights, projectors, tape decks and stereo speakers to transform the audience's consciousness. | Around 1962 Steve Durkee teamed up with San Francisco–based poet Gerd Stern and multimedia technician Michael Callahan to form an art troupe they called USCO, short for "The US Company." Brand collaborated periodically with USCO, for example contributing photographs to a 1963 event called "Verbal American Landscape," in which three slide projectors showed, in random sequence, photographs of individual words found on road signs and billboards. Over the next few years, USCO was to transformed the "happening" into a psychedelic celebration, using strobe lights, projectors, tape decks and stereo speakers to transform the audience's consciousness. | ||
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Later in 1966, Brand initiated a public campaign to have NASA release a rumored satellite image of the entire Earth as seen from space, which he thought might be a powerful symbol. He conceived and sold buttons which read, “Why Haven’t We Seen A Photograph of the Whole Earth Yet?” During this Earth-photograph campaign Brand met Richard Buckminster Fuller, who offered to help him in his projects. | Later in 1966, Brand initiated a public campaign to have NASA release a rumored satellite image of the entire Earth as seen from space, which he thought might be a powerful symbol. He conceived and sold buttons which read, “Why Haven’t We Seen A Photograph of the Whole Earth Yet?” During this Earth-photograph campaign Brand met Richard Buckminster Fuller, who offered to help him in his projects. | ||
| − | As youth from all over America converged on San Francisco for the 1967 "Summer of Love," many of the original hippies fled to get "back to the land." | + | As youth from all over America converged on San Francisco for the 1967 "Summer of Love," many of the original hippies fled to get "back to the land." Brand came up with the notion of a mobile "truck store," which he drove around northern California with the intent of distributing goods and information to the back-to-the-land communalists. In July of 1968, the [[Whole Earth Catalog]] began to take shape, initially as a six-page mimeographed list of books. Later that year in Menlo Park, with a small staff and the help of his wife, Lois Jennings, he put together the first expanded version of the [[Whole Earth Catalog]], which was published in January 1969. It was a pioneering effort in desktop publishing, using basic typesetting (an electric typewriter with variable fonts) and page-layout tools (a polaroid camera made it possible to copy graphics directly from books). Printed on unfinished paper, it ressembled an underground newspaper rather than a glossy mail-order catalog. |
The first oversize Catalog and its successors considered many sorts of things as "tools." In addition to actual tools for gardening, carpentry, masonry, and welding, it included equipment for camping, specialized clothing, and early synthesizers and personal computers. It also included less material "tools" such as books, maps and professional journals. Brand invited "reviews" of the best of these items from experts in specific fields, and information was also provided on where these things could be bought. The Catalog was also a major vector of early environmentalism, and introduced many readers to the potential of alternative energy production through solar, wind, small-hydro and geothermal power. | The first oversize Catalog and its successors considered many sorts of things as "tools." In addition to actual tools for gardening, carpentry, masonry, and welding, it included equipment for camping, specialized clothing, and early synthesizers and personal computers. It also included less material "tools" such as books, maps and professional journals. Brand invited "reviews" of the best of these items from experts in specific fields, and information was also provided on where these things could be bought. The Catalog was also a major vector of early environmentalism, and introduced many readers to the potential of alternative energy production through solar, wind, small-hydro and geothermal power. | ||
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The first editions of the Whole Earth Catalog were heavily influenced by the ideas of [[Buckminster Fuller]], which fit well with the independent spirit of the back-to-the-land movement. In the 1972 edition, however, Stewart Brand promoted the thinking of [[Gregory Bateson]], which better reflected the reality of needing to work within the system to move society as whole towards more cooperative forms. In 1973 Brand interviewed Bateson for an article published in Harpers, entitled “Unbinding—Conversations with Meta-naturalist Gregory Bateson.” This article and the one mentioned above about computer hackers were combined and expanded in Brand's 1974 book Two Cybernetic Frontiers, which had the first use of the term “personal computer” in print. | The first editions of the Whole Earth Catalog were heavily influenced by the ideas of [[Buckminster Fuller]], which fit well with the independent spirit of the back-to-the-land movement. In the 1972 edition, however, Stewart Brand promoted the thinking of [[Gregory Bateson]], which better reflected the reality of needing to work within the system to move society as whole towards more cooperative forms. In 1973 Brand interviewed Bateson for an article published in Harpers, entitled “Unbinding—Conversations with Meta-naturalist Gregory Bateson.” This article and the one mentioned above about computer hackers were combined and expanded in Brand's 1974 book Two Cybernetic Frontiers, which had the first use of the term “personal computer” in print. | ||
| − | In 1974, to carry on the work begun with the Whole Earth Catalog, Brand founded the [[ | + | In 1974, to carry on the work begun with the Whole Earth Catalog, Brand founded the [[Coevolution Quarterly]] (CEQ). This quarterly journal published full-length articles on specific topics in natural sciences, invention, arts and social sciences, and on the contemporary scene in general. The term "coevolution" in the name was inspired by the ideas of [[Gregory Bateson]]. The journal continued to 2001 after a change of name to Whole Earth Magazine. |
==Brand's further Participation in the Digital Revolution== | ==Brand's further Participation in the Digital Revolution== | ||
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*http://sb.longnow.org/Bio.html | *http://sb.longnow.org/Bio.html | ||
*Excerpts from Fred Turner's 2006 book "From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism": [http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/turner06/turner06_index.html chapter 2] and [http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/817415_chap4.html part of chapter 4] | *Excerpts from Fred Turner's 2006 book "From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism": [http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/turner06/turner06_index.html chapter 2] and [http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/817415_chap4.html part of chapter 4] | ||
| + | *An excerpt from John Markoff's "What the Dormouse Said": http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/06.01.05/dormouse-0522.html | ||
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[[Category:Whole Earth]] | [[Category:Whole Earth]] | ||
