The ExCITe Center at Drexel University, October 14, 2013

4:00-8:00pm

The Fuller in Phila Symposium at Drexel’s ExCITe Center, co-sponsored by the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, re-animates the ideas of pioneering inventor, designer and global thinker R. Buckminster Fuller.

As World Fellow in Residence here (1972-1983), Bucky advanced his life’s work in architecture and sustainable design, including his books Synergetics 1&2 and Critical Path, which envisions designs to survive planetary disasters. With keynote speakers Eva Diaz and Tim Wessels, plus a hands-on design workshop, we will explore the significance of Fuller’s thought today.

Speakers:

Eva Díaz is Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art at Pratt Institute in New York. Her book The Experimenters: Chance and Design at Black Mountain College will soon released by University of Chicago Press, coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the founding of the College. Her writing has appeared in magazines and journals such as The Art Bulletin, Art Journal, Art in America, Cabinet, Frieze, Grey Room, October, and Tate Etc., and she is a regular contributor to Artforum. She is currently working on a book about the legacy of Buckminster Fuller’s work titled The Fuller Effect: The Critique of Total Design in Postwar Art.

Tim Wessels was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and moved to Philadelphia in May of 1973 to work as a staff member in Bucky’s Philadelphia office. He managed part of Fuller’s archives, assisted in the fabrication and installation of museum exhibits, fulfilled orders for Bucky’s books and maps and provided personal service to Bucky when he was in town. At the end of 1979, Tim relocated to New Hampshire and worked for several solar energy research and pollution control businesses before discovering the joy of micro-computers. Having installed and supported hundreds of local computer networks throughout New England, he currently consults on the use of cloud computing services and plans to create a regional cloud storage service in New England.

Mimi Sheller is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She has published extensively in the fields of Caribbean Studies and Mobilities research, and recently completed a series of articles and a book on the cultural history of aluminum in the making of light modernity, inspired in part by the work of Bucky Fuller. She is the author of Democracy After Slavery (Macmillan, 2000); Consuming the Caribbean (Routledge, 2003); Citizenship from Below: Erotic Agency and Caribbean Freedom (Duke University Press, 2012); and Aluminum Dreams: The Making of Light Modernity (MIT Press, 2014). She is founding co-editor of the journal Mobilities, associate editor of Transfers, and co-editor with John Urry of Mobile Technologies of the City (Routledge, 2006) and Tourism Mobilities (Routledge, 2004).

Joseph D. Clinton is globally recognized for his association with R. Buckminster Fuller. This relationship began during his graduate studies at Southern Illinois University. Their collaboration resulted in a number of computer models for designing geodesic and kinetic structures. They have become the classic design basics for most modern day geodesic structures. Joseph has continued to investigate kinetic systems and minimal surface structures and applies them to design problems.

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