TEDx – From Passion to Fashion

Posted on by Thor

Ben Hoyer got on stage at the TEDx event held at the Winter Garden Theatre. He is the founder and director of Downtown Credo, a non-profit focused on improving the quality of lives in our nations cities. He works with people to cultivate networks of meaning, impact and community. Ben’s credo is that individuals who want to improve their city can make a difference. He began, “Life is worth living. I refuse to merely exist. I pursue a life of meaning and purpose, fulfillment and joy. The world is not yet as it ought to be. Neither is my city. Neither am I. Yet, I reject apathy and despair. I engage the world, my city, and myself to make an impact for good. I am not alone. I press through narcissism, isolation and self-sufficiency striving to live in authentic community.” He spoke of one act of community activism that challenged him. He was picking up trash in an empty lot with some people. One person said, “This lot will be full of trash again tonight, why bother?” Ben stressed that at least they did what they could. At one trash site the refuge was wet sticky and gross. In the back of his mind he thought, “Maybe I’ll let this one slip by.” The volunteer with him noticed the mess and then Ben worked up the courage to tackle the messy task. Alone he might have lacked the will, but together they accomplished what needed to be done.

The Power Point on the screen is actually from a presentation by Jessi Arrington. Jessi is a co-founder of Workshop, a Brooklyn based studio that merges design and social responsibility. In a fun presentation she outlined how she keeps her creative spark alive. She LOVES color! Her favorite color is rainbow. She stressed that it is physiologically impossible to be in a bad mood wearing bright red pants. To hammer her point home, Jessi placed bags full of colorful clothing on the stage. People from the audience were invited up to take part in a rainbow celebration. Some people already wore a bright color so they were sent to the bag containing more items in that color. Soon the stage was a riot of color. Feather boas, hats, shawls, skirts were all in solid colors of the rainbow. If your color was green, you were ALL green. The parade of people marched off the stage and into the audience to a lively march. If your going to live a creative life, live loud! I realized I was dressed in drab neutral earth tones. Perhaps I could use more color in my life, but that would involve an awful lot of shopping. I also refuse to loose my brown hiking boots. Function over fashion is my credo. What an amazing day spent with people who are each making the world a better, more colorful place, each in their own way.

TEDx – Cesar Harada

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Cesar Harada gave an inspiring talk about how he and his team are helping use technology to help clean oil spills. He coordinates Open_Sailing which is a group developing open-source International Ocean Station. They have developed a remote controlled sail boat which will help clean oil spills in the oceans more efficiently. The remote controlled sailing robot is called Protei. The boats entire hull flexes making it resemble a fish as it maneuvers. This sinuous motion makes the robot more efficient as it tacks, or changes course, going up wind. All of the technology being developed is open sourced making it easy for anyone to modify or improve designs from anywhere in the world.

Team members wanted to document the existing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico but authorities didn’t grant them open access to view or chart the spill. In order to get detailed maps of the spill, they decided to simply float a digital camera high into the sky using a weather balloon. Thousands of digital pictures were then composited to create a detailed view of the area.

In his closing statements, Cesar pointed out that technology needs to be used to protect the earth from civilizations often destructive search for fuel. Everyone in the Winter Garden Theater stood and applauded his efforts with thunderous applause.

One of the next speakers was neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki. She has been researching how aerobic exercise improves learning, memory and cognition. She took an aerobics class and found she was fired up and felt sharp and inspired as she learned new things. She was offered to teach a class called “Can Exercise Change your Brain?”, at NYU and she used the students in her research. The class exercised while shouting out positive affirming statements. There was some nervousness and giggling at first but then the students embraced the motivational exercise program. She found that a semester of increased aerobic exercise improved performance on a recognition memory task compared to a control class that did not participate in the same exercise regime during the semester. In another study, she found that an hour of aerobic exercise improved cognitive performance in college students on a number of tasks dependent on the frontal lobe. She decided to get the audience involved. She had us all pump our hands in the air to some fast energetic music while we shouted strong affirmations. Actually, I was a slug, my hands stayed on task, finishing a sketch. Even so, I was fired up and ready to learn more. Sweat then study! Keep creating, make mistakes, learn from them and grow.

TEDx The Creative Spark

Posted on by Thor

I was invited to the TEDx event held at the Winter Garden Theatre by Jenny Zoe Casey. I had seen several TED videos on YouTube so I had some idea of what to expect. I sat in the back row of the theater because I love to watch camera men at work. Tiny lights sparkled like stars on the ceiling as the house lights dimmed. I found out during the introduction that TED stood for Technology, Entertainment and Design. The Theater was jam packed with creative people from all over Central Florida. Upstairs between sessions everyone was encouraged to socialize and discuss the talks. Mark Baratelli of thedailycity.com was there along with Scottie Campbell from the Orlando Opera. Anna McCambridge and her husband Marabou Thomas said hello as we shuffled off to the next session. As I was considering a sketch, a young female artist introduced herself. She used to work at Universal as a caricature artist. We talked about art and how caricatures are often watered down in the parks so people can accept it as a likeness. She loved being able to truly exaggerate features but if a costumer said, “My nose isn’t that large!” She would be in trouble. She had to walk a fine line to “nail” each sketch. It was thrilling to discuss my own sketches to an artist that shared the same challenges.

After the introductions a video was shown which I had seen before. The video featured Eric Whitachre who orchestrated a virtual choir, 2000 voices strong. What was astounding was that voices from around the globe were brought together. People have an innate need to reach out to each other. People from truly isolated places found connection to the project as well as urban dwellers. The internet is truly a new creative frontier. I was equally inspired by the way creatives from all over Central Florida gathered to share stories of their creative spark. People were connecting, sharing and inspiring each other. Creativity isn’t something only found in the isolation of an artists studio. It is found in conversation and the simple human desire to share. One persons creative spark can inspire others.