design lineages are an important part of the recollection of the work i have done over the past decade. i have had many projects which continued on for many years and gained a design legacy of their own which still continues to this day. my work with the legendary delvin solkinson, began as a partnership of poetic exploration and quickly became a whole cultural movement.
crystal and spore was an early proto-experiment in applied immersive multimedia. the C&S structure was built on the principle of modularity, whereby the client could interact with C&S in a number of ways, from indiividial speaking engagements, to full on multimedia conferences. crystal and spore at the time, was advancing a heavily permaculture based agenda with the embracing of emergent new media and technological formats. essentially C&S was a hybrid dynamic dialogue between the natural world and the the emerging technological mind. early crystal and spore presentations often involved a writing exercise on a media tool handed out at the beginning of the workshop. these were to create a special deck of workshop “cards” which we remain in play in each of the subsequent workshops, thus creating an interesting source point for many intentional new cultural neologisms.
of all that crystal and spore espoused from 2001-2008, it was a deep sense of admiration and awe for the evolving culture. c&S was then and continues to be a strong advocate of media literacy and awareness, as well as permacultural skillsets and earth based modalities of communication. all of this was infused within an entertaining audio and visual environment. we called this the metamedia environment.
borne of a deep sense of connection with many modes of expression found within digital consciousness, the crystal and spore design legacy immediately established notoriety on the west coast as being an inspirational presentation to keynote events and gatherings where the focus was an immersive media environment. we became festival hoppers, making appearances at many west coast and east cost festivals and events, speaking on permaculture, metapoetiks and future oriented design.
the pick of the month from the deep archives is the lineage crystal and spore interface page. at the time, while being heavily co-inspired by produce designs, the green samurai clan, invisible and the UMIC, a real vision of galactic community was a deep theme of the culture of the day. 2004.