"CELEBRATE OCTOBER 10, 2005
THE SIXTH INTERNATIONAL POWERS OF 10 DAY
This year for Powers of Ten Day (10/10/05) we will explore Chairs. It's always a remarkable experience to look at our lives from the next largest and next smallest perspective and to ponder Charles Eames' words, "Eventually, everything connects." For those visitors new to Powers of 10, learn more by reading the history of the event, below.
Why a Powers of Ten Day?
In 1977, Charles and Ray Eames made a nine-minute film called Powers of Ten that still has the capacity today to expand the way we think and view our world. Over ten million people have since seen the film and it continues to be shown in classrooms, business meetings, festivals and retreats everywhere. Starting with a sleeping man at a picnic, the film takes the viewer on a journey out to the edge of space and then back into a carbon atom in the hand of the man picnic, all in a single shot. It is an unforgettable experience.
After pondering the impact and influence this short piece still generates, we thought it might be valuable to create a special forum for thinking in terms of scale and applying this cross-disciplinary approach to all subjects. Each October 10th, the Eames Office now celebrates Powers of Ten Day to promote and share this method of viewing ideas from an infinitesimal to a cosmic perspective. Much like a knowledge of geography which allows us to place locations near or far in our mind's maps, an understanding of scale allows us to organize our thinking and experience in terms of size. On October 10, 2000, we addressed the environment with Powers of Ten thinking and began understand ecology, botany, geology, etc. from a new perspective. This year on 10/10/05, we will use Chairs as a springboard for such study. Our hope is to create a community of awareness that we believe can help stretch our understanding and even tolerance. After all, at 10-4, our physical differences become invisible to the human eye."
(http://powersof10.com/events/tenday.php)
oh, i am in a state of disbelief and vindication all at once. rejoice, there are others who celebrate 10.10 as well. and so properly, utterly perfectly.
yesterday, i walked into the physics geolgy building for the first time. to make my way to the 5th floor for a moonrise viewing, with fresh kettle corn in hand, i entered the elevator. there, was a chair. on a spring. attached to a post. upon which are hatch marks and ordered numbers. glee, my companion and me, scrambling on to the chair before lift off to floor five. baaruuuM. immediate laugher, this is physics simplified exemplified. the chair is on wheels - perhaps we should take it to the roof. so we started to move it into the hallway, but it quickly came clear that this chair absolutely belonged with the elevator. although we left it there in the hallway, upon my return after nightfall, the chair had been replaced in the elevator, and so again i joyfully partook of obvious relativity.
in a flash it was clear that the chair was destined for my final video project. from there rolled the idea that this final one would be a science one. a satisfying moment of assuredness after just saying that afternoon how the final project is so wide open, where should my lens go? the final project is meant to be an imaginary collaboration. after choosing an artist(s), researching and writing a (too) brief paper on he/she/them, the student will make a video in imaginary collaboration. no boundaries there.
later, bike riding home, where good clean thoughts are wont to transpire, while ruminating on the nascent science video... that bouncing chair... the cosmology posters in the hallways...
i thought of the powers of 10.
and yes, ray and charles eames shall be my collaborators. oh, how exciting to work with them.
and now, for the first time this quarter, i'm reading feverishly in academic pursuit. oh ray and charles, partners and see-ers and workers and designers and lovers and collaborators two. i am looking forward to learning from you. and i am jubilant in celebrating the powers of 10.