Picture Time #2 - Ceramics and Foundry Demonstration

The staff at Arcosanti were kind enough to stop their workday and give in-depth demonstrations and explanations for the bell-making processes, both ceramic and bronze-cast. Here are the pictures that pretty much record that.





Demonstrating the silt-cast method (slip is poured into a mold made out of river silt, or very fine sand, to create a one-shot form without any handbuilding or wheel throwing).




The kiln. The ceramicists here actually fire their pieces straight from greenware to full bells, even if glaze is applied. I had never known this was even possible, much less it being done. They've certainly gotten their bell-making process down to a science.



Unfired bells.




Plaster molds.



Then, onto the Foundry. I think this is one of the coolest places at Arcosanti.



Jim showing us the aluminum molds.




Unassembled bronze bells.



Bronze tiles.



Molds awaiting the bronze. The molten bronze is poured into a very fine quartz dust, which takes the shape of the aluminum molds.




Compressing the quartz dust.



Before pouring designs are added to the interior of the molds, which leave relief impressions. We were actually allowed to create our own impressions in the bells. Here is Gen working on his variation.



Where the bronze melts.



Clearing out the sprues for the molds (the place where the metal flows in).



Finally, the bronze is ready.




Pouring.





The bells cool and then busted out of the molds. The sprues are cut off and recycled as scrap bronze for the next firing, and the bells eventually get assembled.

Picture Time #1 - General Site Shots

Picturetime—it's here!

So that people can get an idea of what Arcosanti actually looks like, here a small selection of photos of the major buildings on the site.

East Crescent—originally designed to be a marketplace, it now holds Archives, residencies, rec rooms, and an amphitheatre.




Arcosanti is very photogenic.



On top of the Vaults.




On top of the Vaults again, looking down below.



The eastern horizon.



On the Vaults looking down at the roofs of residencies and the Foundry Apse.





Crafts III.

Through a Glass Darkly

Today, we—I—met Paolo Soleri.

To give a just account of today would require me to start from the beginning, as there are so many momentous thoughts that need explaining, I can only do it from start to finish. So that's how I will describe it.

After the early morning construction work we went to Archives. Arcosanti houses a full archiving operation that seeks to catalog all of Soleri's works. This includes his drawings, his writing, his sketchbooks, his infamous "scroll drawings"—even ceramics and sculpture. The task is monumental, only equal to the body of his work. In terms of sheer mass in his body of work, the man is like Picasso.

But more than just mass, we got a taste of the quality of the work as well. We were ushered in by Sue, the Archive coordinator, into a temperature controlled room containing shelves and shelves of white notebooks with laminated printouts, long boxes holding drawings of massive structures Soleri had originally done on scrolls of butcher paper, and a small, lit area for photographing said works. After we were given a short description of the operation itself, which was a quiet, tedious affair—I was quite interested in their web-based push in Archives, seeking to make a Wiki of all of Soleri's terms and philosophies, as to understand it all would take nothing less than a Wiki-type system—we were seated at a long table while Sue went to retrieve one of Soleri's original sketchbooks.

What she brought out I would never have guessed to be a sketchbook. It was a 14"x17" block of cast aluminum, carved with undoubtablely Soleri-esque designs. When she set it on the table with white cloth gloves, it gave such a clunk that it felt like it could have taken a cannonball hit. On the side was a latch. She popped it open, and, while explaining that there were seven such sketchbooks, bound by Soleri himself, revealed fragile pages of drawings, most often drawn in ballpoint pen.

These were the original drawings that ultimately became the Arcology designs in The City in the Image of Man—the book that caused Paolo to explode onto the international scene of architecture. Sue, with white gloves, carefully leafed through the pages, which were intricate and complex, yet looked more like artwork than blueprints. She explained that these sketchbooks had all been catalogued and photographed, and that the originals themselves were never taken out except for workshoppers like us and special visitors.

Seeing these drawings is probably like having the original sketchbooks of Dali unfolded for you, personally, or maybe having an original Picasso revealed to you in the company of friends. The sheer weight of the physical sketchbooks, I think, was a telling metaphor about the weight of the drawings they contained, while penned on such fragile paper. These sketches had ignited a whole world of philosophy, sociology, and urban architecture in their time. They were the root, in many ways it seems, of Soleri's efforts and thinking.

The day went on. The sketchbook was put away and were then allowed to peruse laminated micro-versions of the scroll drawings. The longest scroll drawing Soleri had done was 176 feet. Width of these scroll drawings ranged from two to four feet. I recognized many of the drawings from the books I had read years ago when I first became interested in Soleri and his work. Sue also pulled out an original—a short one that, again, was more like art than architecture, and had been cut out along the impossible city's skyline. At first, it looked like parchment rather than butcher paper, but this was because it had been reinforced at the back. When she unrolled it, which was the size of the whole table (a conference-sized table, basically), it revealed the wax coloring on the inside. The whole thing had been colored in, unlike most of Soleri's drawings, which tended to be devoid of color.

Of course, this was barely the beginning. While we looked over the laminated versions, asking questions about the scale of the buildings and wondering whether any of it was even practical, there was a knock at the door. Sue opened it, and in stepped Matteo di Michelle, one of the workshop cooridinators. Right behind him, in tow, was Paolo Soleri himself.

At the sight of the number of us in the room (I've been told this is an unusually large workshop), Soleri's reaction was first of visible surprise, and a warm, generous smile to follow. There was a flurry of activity suddenly, as Sue and the other Archive employees, with Matteo, organized the room with chairs so all of us, most of all Paolo himself, could sit. It should be noted that this upcoming summer holds Soleri's ninetieth birthday. Time was written on his face and body, but he did not use a cane or any other sort of major help beyond a hearing aid. He was ten years senior of my step grandfather, who had died at eighty or so and was a military man, with a consistent regimen of morning exercises. As time was written on Soleri's body, so was a timeless sort of health that becomes those artists and other practicioners of life that have reached their full potential.

As we sat with Soleri, we asked him questions via a book, as directed by Matteo, that we had been recommended to read earlier in the week. This book was sort of a reader's digest of Soleri's terms, philosophies, and thoughts about Arcosanti, organized into two-paragraph chapters per topic. Before a question, we would read allowed the two paragraphs from the book, then ask a question based on our response to the chapter. Though conversation was allowed to meander from there, this was the basic format.

I cannot account fully what Soleri said to all of us, but I can bring up the question that I asked. I had made a list the night before, and picked one specifically about sacred space—the term sometimes used to describe the overwhelming presence of cathedrals. In my short time here, nevermind past times, sacred space was present at Arcosanti. But while cathedrals have a very defined sense of sacred space—namely, what within them that is "sacred"—Arcosanti's presence is mysterious, even dauntingly so. Paolo Soleri is a devote atheist, yet consistently refers to such things like the Omega Seed, Resurrection, and other eschatological singularities that occur at the end of time—an outgrowth of Teilhard de Chardin's philosophy regarding the Omega Point (also called Christogenesis). Thus my question: what is sacred at Arcosanti?

He smiled as I asked my question, especially when I mentioned the affect the architecture had on my personal mentality, in comparison to a cathedral. I know quite surely that Soleri entirely intended Arcosanti, all of his structures really, to be cathedrals, but cathedrals of a kind of god that can not be named—should not be named. It is probably confirmation that the architecture, which in his view, I think, is really a tool, and nothing more—but it shows that the tool is working.

His answer went to the origins of life, no less. Starting from the single-celled organism, which had the potential to grow and create more life, compounding itself along an evolutionary pathway into what eventually became humanity, he described that the sacred element—at least, that I believed he wished to capture, and that I think he has in fact done in architecture—is that impulse of the cell, the generation of life, as the sacred thing. He related this as being the trajectory of life—basically, the direction towards what Teilhard described as the Omega Point (he didn't say this outright, but I knew it was the trajectory he referenced)—or, a sort of coalescing of not just physical evolution, but social evolution. Probably what Buddhists would call the cultivation of right mind. The only reason why it was sacred—and this is the tricky thing with Soleri—is the fact that the point it reaches is sacred. He will never bestow the title on anything else, even the process itself. So, in a sort of convenient explanation, the trajectory itself retroactively takes on a sort of holiness, though he would refute practically any other thing being called "holy," even this notion of Becoming itself, as fictions or idolatry.

We spent a good forty minutes talking with him. We had Frugal Soup with him(a sort of ritual where we all have a basic soup in silence to remember world hunger), during which I sat next to him, and I sat next to him again a few hours later at School of Thought. School of Thought had a much more rigid pattern than our discussion in the Archives. It was open to all residents and tourists, so there was a larger group, and everything was moderated, to an extent. In a way I am not surprised, both due to Soleri's age and the fact that he is, in a way, the greatest resource of the community here.

I will not be embarrassed to say that, initially, I had a bit of a hero-fan mentality, especially when he first stepped into the room. There are a lot of people that describe Arcosanti, mostly out of ignorance, as a cult—either a religious one, or a cult of personality. The latter may hold some water. But for me, being across the table from this man is comparable to being across the table from a Nietzche, or a Heidegger, or a Kierkegaard, with almost one-on-one access. I had read his, sometimes physically huge, books on Arcology, American hedonsim, and weird concepts like "the Lean Alternative" since I was sixteen. I feel then that I may be forgiven for having a bit of hero-worship for the man, and feeling that there may just be a heightened sensation of… something, I'm not quite sure what, of being in the presence of, in my opinion, an incredibly deep and prolific mind.

That said, especially after the School of Thought session, I realized that I am a bit late to the party, so to speak. Call me greedy, but I wish that he was a decade or two younger, where it might not be unusual to have a pancake with him or a cup of coffee, where I could ask him questions out of convenient passing as he strolls the Arcosanti site. I had no illusions about his age, nor about the fact that I am lucky to meet him as it is. It says something about his lifestyle and outlook that he would still come to meet us, at nearly ninety years old, to expound and defend writings that he had written forty years ago, when we ourselves are no older than twenty five tops and have had only three days to absorb it all. But there is a gap in eras now between his generation and mine—enough of a gap that even while being in his presence and having him answer my question, it is only like, as Paul says, "looking through a glass, darkly" into this person that produced this amazing body of work and thought. Again, I have no illusions regarding this place, its situation of sporadic growth and perhaps futile effort, and I have no illusions regarding Soleri's theories and writings as being those of a philosopher, and not a scientist. In fact, I am convinced now that the practicality of many of his architectural drawings are out of the question from an engineering perspective, and that half of it was probably being drawn for pure shock value. But it was a shock value with a purpose: to jar the navel-gazing culture, which I think he is now, in old age, only sad to say that has not improved much, in his view.

I may not have had the luxury of others who got to spend time with him and converse with him when he was able to walk on top of the apses of "the Project" as he refers to Arcosanti. But I count today as luxury enough. Artists, philosophers, and thinkers only embrace writing to be understood freely and without charge by others after they are gone. Thus I am content to have the rest of my questions answered over endless pages in books, rather than over a pancake and coffee. And as I have no illusions about this place and its idiosyncrasies (I would like to think), Soleri has no illusions about the body of his work, and the fact that much of it never came to physical fruition. It is the changing of hearts and minds that a thinker strives for, and I think that Soleri is content, even happy, with what he and those around him have achieved. The structures that we create around the ideal are never "the point"—in fact, and ironic for Arcosanti that its ideal is based around architecture—they may even get in the way. But it is the thought, the original spark of creativity that propels forward future efforts, from one who is 89 years old to one who is 21 years young, that is important. Like the trajectory of the original cell, it is the thing that is "sacred"—because it is all we will ever have. And we would be foolish to think that we would ever need more.

Aching Muscles, Balanced Life

This will be a short entry, partially because I am between meetings: namely, Frugal Soup and School of Thought, both of which are both with Soleri himself.

I will save the entry about my reactions to meeting and talking with Soleri personally for the following, as the day is not entirely done yet and it would take too much time at the moment. So instead, I will simply recount what's happened the past two days thus far.

It's been a whirlwind. The first half of the day yesterday was made of construction—literally working on-site with a pick and shovel, tearing away at dirt on the east side of the pool. It was quite a shock to me, as these are the hands of an artist, not a construction worker. I don't know exactly how much I weigh, but it is no more than the 120-130 pound range, likely. We were moving boulders that were easily twice my weight, probably more, out of the hillside so that we could excavate to bedrock and finally get them out by crane.

Even though the work was hard, I enjoyed it. It was good to have some physical exertion, and we made great progress. The excavation was for the main project of the community recently—the Heat Duct Tunnel, which is a heat channeling tunnel that runs along the entire East Crescent. In the future, a greenhouse will be built at the base of Arcosanti, and the excess will be channeled through the duct to heat the apartments in the Crescent, and maybe beyond.

After that, it was seminar time. Roger taught us for a good three hours about the geography and prehistory of the land around Arcosanti. He described himself as being one of the "last of the first," having been at Arcosanti since its inception. He is one of those people who has an encyclopediac knowledge, and has a tendency to go off on rabbit trails and then forget what the original question was that he was trying to answer. Still, he is an incredible resource, and we will have him again tomorrow on an extended hike through the grounds of Arcosanti. The area of Arizona I am in is prehistoric country. Mountains dating back to the Pre-Cambrian era are readily visible. The old fossilhunter in me, an interest long dormant and dating to my childhood, woke up and wanted to go fossil combing as he described the local finds, including a prehistoric sloth that was found almost completely intact, down to the very skin. It had in fact been mummified.

Human prehistory is here too. Roger has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to how the natives lived, and I steadily realized that there is truth behind the more sustainable lifestyle native peoples lived by—an area much romanticized by ignorant moderns that guts it of its factual truth, and instead ops for a childlike, but naive notion that "they lived better than us." Better oversimplifies it. While there are lessons to learn from them, it is obvious that Roger knows his facts, and I will be looking forward to hearing the truth on these matters.

To end, my muscles ache, but that is probably a good thing. Wednesday has been cold and windy here, some saying that it will hit freezing during the night. But the food is good, in terms of it being extremely healthy, and I am eating heartily and sleeping like a rock. The lifestyle is very balanced here. I had hoped that being here would kickstart my daily routine into something that was more… well, sustainable. But not just on an urban scale, but on a personal scale. I have had a salad almost every day, and am probably eating a much larger quantity of vegetables that meat. There is yoga three times a week, and I have attended it thus far (when I could). And there has been even time for leisure, the odd beer with Stephan, the French documentarian (who is a trip and a great fun to be around), editing my manuscript, and having deep conversations in budding friendships.

And it is only the third or fourth day. And what more, I have not even recounted my reactions to Soleri.

The Virtual Identity

I was thinking about something on the plane into Arizona, and my first evening here at Arcosanti only intensified my conviction of its truth.

The life I lived in Baltimore, and even in Silver Spring (as in, my parent's basement) was something of a virtual life. In a lifestyle that is dependent on constant (internet) connection, in a world of relationships that are defined by Facebook and text messages, and where the only way to stay sane is to have a constant inflow of information, no matter the quality or the content—"real" becomes a word, and not a definition. It's like not knowing what is up or down. My moods could be mapped by my music collection. My web of relationships delineated by my Facebook Friends list. My recent interests by the latest web pages I visited, and the projects that require my most attention, the most consistently opened files. I'm living in suburbia, and the economic downturn of this time necessitates that I not have a car, so I am landlocked unless I wish to take the bus downtown—but why would I do that? To shop at Borders to spend money I don't have?

So I stay put, in front of my terminal screen, moving onto the next task or train of thought without moving from my seat. I am an actuator at the keyboard—a mind surfing the infinite internet, defined by a biological clock based on necessity, and not the sun.

It is frightening to think about it. Virtual reality, originally a conduit for Real Reality, suddenly begins to define Real Reality, or at least mirror it such that the difference becomes moot. Who am I? Am I person, with dreams, hopes, visions, and fears? Or are these just binary recordings on a harddrive, and I am an agent that happens to exercise them via QWERTY at specific intervals of the clock? The idea that my brain is actually twin silicon disks, and that the gray matter in my head was nothing but a tool for inputting information into those disks, was a freakish idea, but one not at all a far-fetched one. My brain is the computer, and my identity being exercised, like an application, in the cloud.

And it's not just about being locked in one certain place and "not getting out." It's the urban identity—maybe a term Soleri would coin. The human identity that has become so dependent on machines—whether they run on gasoline, are powered by lithium-ion batteries, store data on a server, or transmit information via cell phone towers—that, if the machine were taken away, the entire organism would collapse (I think that's the definition of a cyborg; an organism that is as dependent on its machine parts as it is its mechanical parts). Or, and I think this is even better—if the machine was just programmed to do all the things the organic agent was doing, and the organic agent disappeared overnight—the world would continue running as if nothing had ever happened. It's encouraged by our lifestyle, by our urban sprawl, by our business models, and by advertising. We are becoming the passive agents of a technological civilization that would run itself, if we just gave it the code.

Obviously, we're all Cylons. I miss you, Battlestar Galactica.

Seriously though. If there was ever an antithesis to this "Urban Identity," it might be fostered at Arcosanti. Even though I've only been here a single night, I can already feel it. The organic structure of this microcosm of city forces humans to notice and interact with other humans. The nearly tee-total recycling programs reminds one constantly that nothing needs to be wasted. Moving from one place to another requires a bit of walking and fresh air, and the human presence integrates with presence of nature beyond, with either side being little disturbed (I doubt you will ever, ever find this in a place like Phoenix or Baltimore).

For me, this workshop is a bit of an experiment in combating the urban cyborg. I was fully aware of my virtual identity, and on most days I did not stop it. I dared it, wishing to see how far it would go. At this point, with everything from the car to Twitter—I see no reason to believe that my body could just be—that I myself could be—nothing more than a passive ghost in the machine, with odd bodily requirements that are little more than an annoyance to my 24/7 operating schedule. I am not interested in seeing Twitter be wiped away in favor of a monkish life without computers. We will all end up being Cyborgs—the thing is, we have to learn how to be healthy Cyborgs—Cyborgs that affirm the human side, and tend to its holistic, and not just bodily nature, just as we do our remotely wired technological selves. And this means changing everything, not just our technology. It means changing our educational institutions, the products we consume (I always thought the marketing term "consumer," which is now a cultural one, to be horribly betraying of the wastefulness of our society), the foods we eat, the programs we create. It means a shift in the American Dream, which never saw past its own white picket fence, to a shift in popular religion.

Humanity can be eaten by Twitter and Facebook. It's a shame they're so addictive, and so useful.

But again, it's all about unity and harmony. I'm not for the abolition of technology, and not from any ideological perspective—simply from a pragmatic one. The internet was invented, and there was never an off button. What we've started will continue, whether we like it or not, and whether it is healthy for us or not. I believe it can be healthy, but that depends on how we use it. And it may not be the internet that's the problem. It may, in fact, be the city itself, and how we build it. At least, that's what Soleri would say.

And I don't think he's too far off.

Introductions

So… I'm here.

I got into Arcosanti today, and was greeted by springtime in Arizona—which is not that different than springtime in Maryland. But I hear that in the space of few days that will change quickly and radically.

I will not waste your time with pictures. I would not have known I was in Arizona—it was more like Seattle. The skies were overcast towards the evening and it was drizzly. Of course, this is quite unusual for Arizona, but for the international visitors who are in the Arcosanti workshop, they were expecting hot desert, and despite the fact that all the locals are saying it will get hot, they're shivering and wondering if they hadn't been duped and were instead in Alaska (it did get quite chilly during the night).

I got to meet a few of the workshop participants, and to say that it is international is an understatement, really. There are seventeen total, but only around eight or so have arrived. Of those eight, there are:

• Me (US/Canadian)
• Marco (Italian, from Sardinia)
• Gen (Japan)
• Elia and Gigure (unconfirmed on the name spelling—a young couple from Kazhakstan)
• A Frenchman whose name escapes me that just happens to be doing a documentary on Arcosanti and specifically the Arcosanti workshop—it just happened to be this one that he's filming. So I'll probably end up on French TV.
• A Swiss, who is my roommate, but I have not met yet (he skipped dinner and went straight to bed).
• Two guys from Korea (I think it's Korea), who are being referred to by their last names, Park and Song—mostly because that's easier.

And, as they say, "we're just getting started." I always feel guilty when I meet foreigners who speak perfect English. It always makes me think that we Americans should at least learn French, or Spanish, or Italian—anything really—fluently, so we don't always have to force others to speak or language—even our version of it (hurrah Britons!). But I'm thankful that there are no grudges held on their side.

That said, Gigure (pronounced Jee—as if the J was French—Gair) speaks English very well, but Elia, his wife, barely does any. Marco also has great English, but Gen doesn't. The Koreans, so far, haven't said much, and Edward (the Swiss) is asleep, so we don't know about them. But everyone gets along quite well. Dinnertime is a lovely mix of languages, and while playing cards I couldn't help but laugh at a Gen at a loss for English words being coaxed along by Marco, I, and Gigure, with Gigure translating whatever we could make out of Gen into Russian for his wife Elia—all just to explain the Eastern equivalent of Slapjack.

Card games and socializing aside, the built Arcosanti landscape is a familiar one for me. It seems almost like I am home, if that makes any sense. In a way, it does—as even from the age of twelve I was so taken with the architecture it would force me to come back a good nine years later. And once I had the ability to understand the theories behind it even more—well, I was probably hooked for life. The theory of Arcosanti was not simply to make beautiful buildings, or even ones that were on the cutting edge of being ecologically efficient (for the sixties at least)—it was to create a constructed environment that purposefully encouraged human interaction and community.

That, it does. Muti-tiered structures allow one to peer over gallery balconies into cafeteria dining rooms. Archway plazas that make for a temporary basketball court spill into Cyprus gardens on the Arizona bluffs, making for great reading spots. Whatever is a floor or a sidewalk here is not surprisingly the ceiling to someone's living room over there.

Of course… there is the rustic aspect. The shower curtain in my dorm-style apartment is held up by a piece of two-by-four. Un-drywalled walls show their plywood foundations, and cracks in concrete ceilings slowly drip with rainwater. Arcosanti is forty years old, and it is something of a sad story of what happens to great ideas that are consistently underfunded—they never reach their potential. The residents are acutely aware of this, I'm sure, as it is their home. But I realized very quickly that they will never abandon the place because of the amount of time and effort already invested in it. There is an innate optimism about the place that is part of its lifeblood. And while the buildings may be old, most of the people living in them are not. The place has a young, hip feeling about it, and all age groups are represented—least of all the founder himself, Soleri, who will be 90 in a month or two.

Being here, compared to where I was… feels something like having the blood running back into your fingers after being constricted for a long time. I am not the same person I was when I was twelve, fifteen, sixteen, or even nineteen. Religiously, I would probably be categorized now as an agnostic or even atheist, yet philosophically I am deeply interested in this distinctly Utopian dream of human communities that forge a new future under the vision of a sustainable, life giving environment. Arcosanti is not a religious place by any means. Soleri himself is a declared atheist. Yet his theories, and his architecture, do not just beg for the coming of something sacred—they exude it.

I look forward to soaking that in.

8 Days and Counting

It is about 8 days until I leave the state of Maryland for Arizona—and thus, Arcosanti. I will be staying with relatives in the Phoenix area for the first day of my desert-tracked adventure (Friday the 10th), and then head to Arcosanti for the Saturday thereafter. It is not uncommon for workshop participants to stay a day or two at the complex ahead of the beginning of the workshop's actual beginning. Cheaper plane tickets made this a frugal decision—and spending one day to simply get acquainted with Arcosanti again will not be a bad thing.

The reality of my trip is dawning on me more steadily as I get closer to it. It feels a bit like moving. This is due in part because I may be staying there beyond the duration of the 5-week workshop. There are possible Graphic Design and Web Design positions at Arcosanti—if not paid, then volunteer based (which offers free lodging as compensation). I am never good at planning in advance—things sort of come over my brain like what to bring, what to expect, slowly. So I've steadily considered more and more what I would choose to bring should I end up, in the possible case, of staying beyond the duration of the workshop—perhaps a great deal longer.

I am of course excited. I mentioned in a previous blog post that I'd first gone to Arcosanti before I was in high school. I've also admired Paolo Soleri sort of in the way that one would admire a well-known intellectual—an Albert Einstein or Jacques Derrida. I've read many of his books—or, at least, tried to, and have delved into some of the deeper aspects of his theories, such as the effect on the arcological theory of the city on the advancement of human evolution (in short: the city, built as an organism rather than a construct, can accelerate the development of humanity, if not physically, then consciously and spiritually).

I, in the meantime, am concerned with more mundane things, such as what kind of clothing I'll need to bring and the fact that I'll have to watch out for things like scorpions and rattlesnakes in the desert. Which, after you get over the initial anxiety, seems romantic. I'm eager to see how my insulated, air-conditioned self will do when put to work in a rustic environment that is ecologically on-par with its desert surroundings. It's one thing to say you're going to live in harmony with the desert; it's quite another to actually do it.

I'm fully expecting the experience to be a shock to my system. In fact, that's partially why I'm going. There are a number of reasons for me going to Arcosanti, all at once educational, economic, and personal. In the wake of my year off from school and MICA (the fine arts institution I attended for two years), I've been left with, to be honest, what I think is a half-baked freelance career in a shoddy economy, with no degree to speak of. I am lucky that I am able to attend the University of Maryland in College Park, which I will enter into after my period at Arcosanti (which I'm expecting to be another shock all to itself).

But I am in something of a bubble, and this is a bubble I want to break. I am going to Arcosanti not just because it will be extremely educational, but because I want to gain back some aspects of my self that, I feel, I've lost over the past year, maybe two or three years. This may be in part due to my family's falling out with the Church finally coming to developmental head in my own life. Readers close to me personally will know the story behind that—for new ones who don't, it would take another blog to tell the story entirely. The short of it is, for the purpose of this blog post: when you've dedicated yourself to the development and life of a human community built around a certain set ideals—and then you come to feel that the entire structure was a sham—well, it's not unfair to say that a bit of purpose may be drawn out of your own life in the process. Arcosanti is an idealistic place. It is ultimately optimistic, daresay even utopian, in an age of information and virtualized reality that sees personal identity as ever more shattered, web-like, and lacking of any consistent pattern or purpose. This phenomenon of shattered identity is not due to any specific reason, but a number of various ones, which culminates in a sort of "it's just the way things are" feeling—and most people go on thinking none the wiser.

I would like to think that I've experienced some of the deeper aspects, good and bad, of my generation—the internet generation, the shattered identity being only one of many things. For instance, there is little that I do that does not involve an LCD screen. If I'm not carrying my laptop, it is like I'm missing half of my brain. I get my entertainment, my information, my work, my communication, my finances, all through a screen. Anything that does not utilize some base bodily function is somehow done through pixels and a hard drive. Which I don't think is uncommon—I may be an especially potent case, but my generation's society is completely affected by the internet age, for better or worse. I remembered an instructor of mine at MICA who was consistently floored by the fact that I listened to my iPod every moment I was making artwork. He had been teaching there for 40 years and had seen the evolution of music go from the invention of the Boombox to the iPod. To him, my compulsive addiction to music was just that—an addiction. For me, music was a focusing lens that was a consistent source of inspiration, and allowed me to remain in my introverted "artist space" wherever I went. We had a great many "discussions" about this difference in perspective—all good natured of course. But I can only wonder what he would think if he knew that I listen to music almost 24/7, even when I'm sleeping.

And to his credit, I don't think he was wrong. There is something to be gained from silence, from stillness. But our world is one of noise, both seen and heard. The information age is not interested in the economy of senses, but the overloading of them.

Baltimore, is not a quiet city, for example. Not in any sense of the term. Arcosanti however… with its sienna-colored apses and tanned structures—that place has a quietness about it that is almost monastic. Something is to be said about good architecture—architecture with a soul, even. Even if you don't believe in such a thing as a "soul."

In short, I'm looking forward to being in a different world, and absorbing it as much as I can. And, of course, I will let you know what happens.