Hazel Larsen Archer, Buckminster Fuller in His Dome, Summer 1949.
An Invisible Revolution:
A Conversation with David McConville and Glenn English
August 27th, 2020 1 PM EDT
This event will be simulcast live to our Youtube Page
Twenty years after teaching at Black Mountain College, Buckminster Fuller published his provocative Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. A manifesto for a design revolution, it radically influenced a generation’s thinking about the purpose and potential of humanity. Fifty years later, however, Fuller’s vision of a regenerative civilization seems like a distant memory that is more relevant than ever. An Invisible Revolution illuminates this original vision, its relationship to his time at BMC, and its contemporary significance for 21st century understanding of humanity’s relation to its home planet.
Tune in Live
Join David McConville and Glenn English for an in-depth conversation on the life and work of R. Buckminster Fuller. We recommend that everyone watch An Invisible Revolution in preparation for this discussion. Doing so will ensure that you get the most from the event.
David McConville explores the potential of art and media to enact new perspectives on humanity’s place in the cosmos. He is co-founder and resident cosmographer of Spherical, an integrative research and design studio in Oakland, CA. A long-time BMCM+AC board member and advisor, he currently serves as senior researcher and board member for the Center of the Study of the Force Majeure, bringing together artists and scientists to design ecosystem regeneration projects in critical regions around the world. Previously, David co-founded The Elumenati, a design and engineering firm that creates custom displays installations for clients from art festivals to space agencies. He also served as chairman of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, a non-profit organization facilitating convergences across design, art, science, and technology to identify and cultivate whole systems strategies for addressing complex global challenges. David has a PhD in Art and Media from the Planetary Collegium at the University of Plymouth.
Glenn English, MFA, University of Pennsylvania, is an artist, independent academic, recipe developer, and color consultant, based in the mountains of western NC with his wife, author Ashley English, and two sons. Together they have written numerous books and magazine articles on homesteading, entertaining, and food-related topics.
Going to an experimental high school led to a lifelong interest in experimental education, and a profound interest in Black Mountain College. Undergraduate, I went Antioch and then Goddard College, which was strongly influenced by BMC, particularly one of my advisors there, Will Hamlin, a BMC alum. At a residency at the Contemporary Artists Center in Massachusetts, I met a student of Josef Albers’s Robert Koenig, who persuaded me to study with another Albers student, Robert Slutzky, at the University of Pennsylvania. At UPenn, Slutzky tapped me to beta test an electronic version of the Interaction of Color for the Albers Foundation at Yale.
