Storefront at Shadowbox on Kirk Avenue, Roanoke, VA
When you go Downtown, just know there’s always something cool going on. Time of day doesn’t matter, there’s always something. Cool.
Today I remembered that The Shadowbox runs a weekly Ted Talks video stream in their micro cinema. The cinema (which also is the Kirk Avenue Music Hall) sits on a street with a gaining number of hip new proprietorships. A couple of these pair themselves up into unique companion-shops. So the whole neat thing about it is that when you’re on Kirk Avenue, you can visit a totally different atmosphere than anywhere else Downtown.
And it’s always nice to break up a week (Wednesday) in the middle of the day (Noon).
This week’s Ted Talks shown was Michael Pawlyn: Using nature’s genius in architecture. The speaker is described on Ted.com as taking “cues from nature to make new, sustainable architectural environments.” The audience at The Shadowbox was introduced to a new hi-tech, low-impact design for resources generation/conservation. This sparked a conversation ranging from a solid hopefulness of the future (because of the sound results of the science involved), to reservations about progress when it comes to the politics of industry foes, to acknowledging the world’s rising level of awareness… and in all that was the main value of watching the piece, a short lecture, in a group of local and visiting people.
You can view the video watched today from Ted.com here: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/michael_pawlyn_using_nature_s_genius_in_architecture.html
It wasn’t until someone said, “This IS the REAL NEWS,” that I decided to write a blog post about The Shadowbox’s weekly Ted Talks engagement. This fellow is correct in saying that. First, there are plenty of great things happening in the world. One only has to get passed the commercialized and sensationalized programming of mass media. Second, global discourse, especially in achievements, deserves to be shared and discussed by local communities for any new ideas to grow, make sense, take hold, and to be shared further still.
We live in a brave new world, indeed. It’s drastically different compared to what now seems like a disconnected world just a few decades ago. The telephone was our only live connection to one another, one at a time. But in today’s global world, with instantaneous satellite and digital transmission, we tend to lose the human element while our capacity for sharing, speed of sharing, and ease of sharing is constantly on the rise. Perhaps social networking, in the final analysis, works best when it includes in-person discussion. It leads to community collaboration and innovation because sharing ideas is instinctively exciting to humans. You just can’t ignore that face-to-face relationships make a social network and a true society in real life, in real time.
Ted Talks brings the topics. The Shadowbox brings the Ted Talks. Host/facilitator Katherine Fralin Walker brings the conversation alive by turning the audience into a meeting, inviting anyone who desires to comment, ask questions, and share insights of their own. Community hero Beth Deel is also one of the organizers bringing Ted Talks to The Shadowbox. It’s a diverse group. It’s an intelligent group. It definitely makes me want to return regularly. And I can hang out before and after at GET Coffee and Bubbletea. (Ted Talks goers get ½ off on coffee!!! Just mention it to Sam or Beth at GET.)
Next week, Ted.com will be webcasting their live conference, TED2011. The Shadowbox has registered for it and is scheduled to bring it to their screen. This is also going to be taking place during the annual Marginal Arts Festival events all over Downtown, making TED2011 a nice addition to the many activities surrounding MAF.
2/24 UPDATE – A little background on how The Shadowbox was able to get the TED2011 to be seen in Roanoke: A Salem, VA native by the name of Bob Lambert secured the license for the microcinema to webcast the conference. Katherine Fralin Walker explained. “He had heard about our weekly TED discussions, loved that it was happening here, and gave us this opportunity.”
“[Bob Lambert] is a generous supporter of grass-roots community efforts in Roanoke,” Ms Fralin told Star City FAME. (He lives in California now, and in fact will be attending the conference in Long Beach.) Mr Lambert is a Corporate Senior Vice President in Worldwide Media Technology and Development for The Walt Disney Company. He is involved with innovative areas of new media, technology, and business initiatives and serves on a number of boards and as an advisor for USC, Virginia Tech, American Film Institute, National Academy of Science, and US First program.
TED2011 runs from March 1st to 4th – see their scheduled programs and speakers at this link: http://conferences.ted.com/TED2011/program/schedule.php (Note: Time on the TED2011 schedule is in Pacific Time. Add three hours for Eastern Standard Time.)
