“29 Chains to the Moon” shows CMU visitors an interesting future

“29 Chains to the Moon”

Miller Gallery at CMU

5000 Forbes Ave.

Tuesday to Sunday, 12-6… “29 Chains to the Moon”

Miller Gallery at CMU

5000 Forbes Ave.

Tuesday to Sunday, 12-6 p.m.

Until Dec. 6, 2009

Free Admission

www.cmu.edu/millergallery

Designer and entrepreneur Stephanie Smith wants you to live in a commune. Actually, she wants everyone to live in a commune.

The exhibit “29 Chains to the Moon” at CMU’s Miller Gallery features Smith’s company, WeCommune, and its vision for the future.

This isn’t just an art gallery. The show examines the future functionality of our world and how we’ll survive as the population rapidly multiplies.

The exhibit’s title, “29 Chains,” references an essay written by R. Buckminster Fuller in 1938 titled “Nine Chains to the Moon.”

In 1938, the members of the world’s population could form nine chains to the moon and back when standing on one another’s shoulders, Fuller wrote about how to utilize the globe’s resources to support mankind.

Since then, the population has tripled. With 6.7 billion people on our planet, we can make 29 chains. That’s a whole lot of people.

In curator Andrea Grover’s letter about the exhibit, she references a Time magazine poll that said 30% of people polled believed the world would end in their lifetimes.

“The work in this exhibition corresponds to the other 70 percent of the population that is optimistic despite the massive challenges faced by civilization,” Grover said. “These artists seize technologies that provide unprecedented platforms for collaboration and new ways of visualizing and representing reality.”

These technologies include plans like Smith’s commune project.

Smith, an architect, studied yurts and small structures often used in commune infrastructures for her company.

“I started looking at communes from the 1960s and, even more than the architecture, I was fascinated by the lifestyle and the values they had,” she said.

Knowing the project would need to be accessible, Smith set out to make Cul-de-Sac Communes. She created portable kiosks where people could swap items and resources for communities.

“I started to work on these projects and brought them into the real world. I turned three cul-de-sacs in LA into communes,” she said.

Smith wants to alter people’s typical perceptions of communes.

“In the past, people thought [to make a commune] they had to start over, move to New Mexico, buy a big piece of land and have 10 people who have left everything they know and reinvent everything,” she said. “I think it’s a lot simpler than that. You can start a commune right where you are. Everyone can share resources and build community. My goal is to make this a natural part of our daily lives.”

One of Smith’s portable commune kiosks is set up in the exhibit, and visitors can leave behind a small item or pick something up.

There’s a bulletin board where people can post notes or flyers. Just a glimpse at the large wooden structure gives a sense of community.

On the other side of the gallery room is an entirely different approach to the fate of our world. The walls are covered with futuristic depictions of living and transportation methods. People bike past tree-like pods in one picture. In another, they’re shuttled around in something resembling a bottomless roller coaster.

Another wall holds two seemingly crudely sketched world maps. They may look elementary — they’re simply marker drawings on plain white paper — but a closer examination reveals something more insightful.

Scribbled stereotypes decorate each area of the world. The words “vodka” and “drunk people” hover over Russia, while “health insurance, snow, drugs” is written over Canada. Australia holds “bad fashion, best pools” and Japan “good fish, sexist men.” Regardless of whether these words are true, they’re an interesting glimpse at foreign perception.

In one corner of the exhibit, a model of an International Ocean Station sits on a pedestal. Constructed by Open_Sailing, a team specializing in innovative technologies for the future, the structure is meant to support human life by sea.

The floating ocean craft is intended to allow the world’s population to live at sea with sustainable practices.

A reading room rounds out the gallery, complete with a bookshelf stocked with recommendations from the artists and curator. Propped up with sandbag bookends, titles range from Fuller’s original “Nine Chains,” to scientific reports about the future of living on the moon.

“29 Chains” is a forward thinking experience. The contributors look past the problems of today in search of answers for tomorrow. Here’s to hoping the world doesn’t end in our lifetime.