1997 Event Program
Paradox Touchstones
About the Paradox Project
About Paolo Soleri & Arcosanti
About Verbum & the Cosanti Foundation
Conversation with Paolo
Arcosanti Home Page
Michael Gosney
PLANNING PARADOX
As a longtime follower and supporter of Paolo Soleri's work, I was invited to join the Cosanti Foundation Board of Trustees in 1995. Since that time I have been encouraging the development of a "knowledge worker" focus for an expanded Arcosanti community, and have been supporting efforts for a rich web presence and the development of the Virtual Arcosanti Model (VAM). During this period Paolo's philosophical work was beginning to deal with the evolutionary dimensions of cyberspace, and the further reaches of artificial life. His proposal for a "Paradox Program" at Arcosanti to start in 1998 with the initial goal of building and populating the Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Center, was presented at a Cosanti Foundation board meeting in early 1997. I proposed a conference that would combine the Arcosanti experience and Paolo's work with the ideas and works of leaders from the cyberspace field as an appropriate forum to announce the program. The idea of a cutting edge conference had been germinating at Verbum, the digital media publishing group I formed in San Diego in the mid-1980s. Our annual exhibition/concert/happening, San Francisco's Digital Be-In played a key role in shaping the early cyberculture circles, and our publications have been instrumental in catalyzing creative applications of digital media. As a voice for artists and philosophers in the digital media age, Verbum's role as producer of a non-commercial cyberspace conference emphasizing philosophical discourse seemed appropo. I considered the sources of inspiration for such a conference (Thomas Aquinas, Gregory Bateson, David Bohm, Henri Bergson, Joseph Campbell, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Arthur C. Clarke, Albert Einstein, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Galileo, Carl Jung, Timothy Leary, John Lennon, Marshall McLuhan, Margaret Mead, John Muir, Pablo Picasso, and, of course, Paolo Soleri), began to query my associates in the industry, and put down some key ideas, or touchstones.
As I discussed Arcosanti and Paradox with prospective panelists and attendees, I was struck by an emerging pattern. Time and again I was surprised to learn that these leaders in the digital media field were almost all familiar with Soleri's work, and a good number credited him as one of their key influences. Paolo refuses to touch computers, his hand nearly recoils from the mouse. Yet his evolutionary ideas have greatly influenced the architects of our new mind, predicted by Pierre and Paolo as a new sphere of mind, our "noosphere."
With a very small budget and limited staff resources at Arcosanti and Verbum's South-of-Market offices in San Francisco, the conference came together with amazing grace. All of us involved in its genesis were rewarded for our efforts on many levels.
We can't wait for next year.