Hope & Envy: Inspiration and motivation in the final decade of the 20th Century

Description

At the beginning of the decade of 1991-2000, science progressed and developed technologies which gave me hope through advances in cybernetics. Alongside this, scientists made a doomsday prediction. Technology inspired me. Imminent doom motivates me. I made hope and envy the title of the sixth volume of my autobiography. The years 1991-2000 were years of profound changes in technologies - which was a good thing for me. However, there was also a growing realization that Earth’s finite resources that human life depends on (as well as multitudes of other living things) are being diminished and climate change meant imminent extinction. Books by environmentalists, scientists, politicians and visionaries inspired me to respond. Particularly jolting was the Union of Concerned Scientist’s 1992 Warning to Humanity, a doomsday prediction by 1,500 scientists that mankind had three decades to change course or die, taking many other living things into extinction. Their warning suggested that, if as many artists joined the scientists in using their creative, innovative, discovering and inventive minds, it might lead the way to active responses to the scientists’ call. As artists, crafts people and designers, we could help to save Earth’s human life sustainability. This decade began my 30-year strategy to develop creative ways to help.