Dealing with the Passed/Past

I read today that futurists are never historians, and few historians are futurists. I disagree, and note an opportunity. ID is all about being “both”.

In the first class, I showed examples of how artists, designers and businesses are thinking and rethinking how we deal with the dead. Those who have passed. I began with this problem because I love the contemporary projects on the dead that keep popping up, like Mission Eternity, the AfterLife Fuel Cell project, and Nadine Jarvis’s carbon pencils. But also because conceptually the past is like the dead body that we ultimately have to come to terms with. What should we do with the past? Use it as a power source? a writing tool? an adornment? a monument we erect in a place we never go?

Here are the links I would like to keep as references. Please note that each solution was based on a consideration of material, even though this was understood in quite different ways.

Mission Eternity:
www.etoy.com and www.missioneternity.org/videos

Joe Scanlon's DIY Coffin from an Ikea Bookcase:
www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/3257/diy-ikea-coffin-by-joe-scanlan.html

Ecopod:
www.naturalburialcompany.com

www.ecopod.co.uk

Nadine Jarvis's recycled carbon pencils from ashes:
www.core77.com/bullitts/2006/11/Nadine-Jarvis-Bird-Feeder-&-Carbon-Copies.asp?page_no=5&context_id=2&current_bullitt_id=509&current_bullitt_number=8

www.triptychresearch.typepad.com/thinking_about_things/2006/06/drawing_leaps_o.html

The AfterLife Fuel Cell Project and other work by James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau:
www.auger-loizeau.com

www.environmentdebate.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/the-afterlife-project-feeding-power-of-the-dead-into-your-electronic-gadgets/

www.core77.com/blog/featured_items/love_objects_a_review_of_momas_design_and_the_elastic_mind_by_alex_terzich_9172.asp

Diamonds from Ashes:
www.Lifegem.com

The Process of Modern Day Cremation:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-ynU6aTzac