1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND

Lush, Moving Video about Recovering Detroit from Blight

2010-08-25T12:39:00.001-04:00

Volunteer Portraits, Jeff from Imagination Station on Vimeo.

A video portrait of Detroit social activist Jeff DeBruyn by Stephen McGee.

Detroit photographer and cinematographer, Stephen McGee has just released a new series of videos produced for the The Imagination Station in Detroit. The videos lushly capture the emotion and effort going into trying to remove the blight from Detroit and replace it with art and creative redevelopment.

Here's an excerpt of the Imagination Station's vision:

Imagination Station of Roosevelt Park is a nonprofit whose first job is to clean up 2236 and 2230 14th street, two blighted structures on the park facing the epic ruins of Michigan Central Station in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. The house on the right will be renovated using sustainable green practices. The burned out shell of the house on the left will be disposed of and its boundaries used as a public art space. Through this process, the Imagination Station aims to create a replicable model of redevelopment fueled by traditional partnerships and grant practices, as well as new social media techniques for fundraising, storytelling, and volunteerism

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There's also an excellent portrait of Jerry Paffendorf, who's Loveland project has launched the idea for The Imagination Station.

Wack Dem Weeds from Imagination Station on Vimeo.

[The Imagination Station]

[Detroit: Shrink a City with Wild Imagination]

Loveland "Makes" The New York Times

2010-08-03T19:41:00.001-04:00

Jerry Paffendorf, Mary Lorene Carter and Alan Languirand of the Loveland Team at the site of Plymouth. (Image credit: The New York Times)

The New York Times reporter Melena Ryzik went to Detroit this week to cover Maker Faire and ended up doing a profile about how artists are surviving and thriving in the shrinking city of Detroit. Rita J. King wrote her own take on the transformation of Detroit in her essay last week, "Detroit: Shrinking City with Wild Imagination."

Wringing Art Out of the Rubble in Detroit profiles a number of artists including our own Jerry Paffendorf's Loveland Project:

Jerry Paffendorf, a newly arrived resident who quickly built himself a niche. Mr. Paffendorf, 28, moved to Detroit from San Francisco by way of Brooklyn last spring, with an expertise in software design and a side of techno-savvy wit. He is behind a project called Loveland, a “micro real estate” enterprise that sells parcels of Detroit that he owns by the square inch for $1 a piece. Mr. Paffendorf bought 3,150 square feet of land for $500 when he arrived; “inchvestors” get a plot in a part of town that might not be well trod otherwise. Proceeds go to organizations that address Detroit’s many problems.

Congratulations Jerry!

[NYT: Wringing Art Out of the Rubble in Detroit]

Detroit: Shrink a City with Wild Imagination

2010-07-23T12:42:00.004-04:00

Co-owner of the Imagination Station Jerry Paffendorf leads a tour of the space and explains the future of the Detroit project.

I just returned from Detroit, where the Loveland crew continues to blow my mind while working on creative reconstruction of a shrinking city, Detroit.

The Imagination Station, depicted in the video above, is an empty building next to a burnt-out house destroyed by arson, as many places in Detroit are, and an old defunct hotel. Jerry co-owns it with Jeff DeBruyn. Across the street from the Imagination Station, beyond a grassy field, is the desolate, majestic Michigan Central Station, which stopped operating in the 1980’s and now looms tall and gray in a grassy field, full of broken windows and occasional hidden interlopers exploring the emptiness.

The cumulative effect of so much neglect makes it seem from an outside perspective that Detroit was abandoned all at once, as if a nuclear core had melted down and the entire city had to be evacuated. Vacant skyscrapers look almost normal by day, but at night, the city masterminded by Henry Ford, once the richest person in the world, is a ghost town of darkened windows and squatters.

When we meet Jeff for the tour of Detroit's Corktown neighborhood, starting at the Imagination Station, he’s chatting with squatters, Mike and Kevin, who have taken up residence in the future Imagination Station. They have big news--the three buildings were boarded up and the city is planning to come through and tear them down the next day.

Of all of the countless structures that could have been scheduled for demolition the very next day by the city, it seems absurdly odd that these buildings, two of which are now being tended by mindful new owners, would be first up. Next to the houses is the Roosevelt Hotel, a brick building with broken glass, graffiti tags and squatters. Through busted shades on the third floor, the outline of a man appears briefly in the window.

Next to the Roosevelt Hotel is the first of Jeff and Jerry's two houses, which is burned out by arson and brought back to life for a fleeting moment by the artist Marianne Audrey Burrows. A few months ago, Marianne was in a group of artists and friends from the Loveland crew who came from Detroit to visit the Imagination Age Salon in New York City. I run the Imagination Age Salon, after a lifetime of dreaming about it. Marianne had never been to New York before, and she was wild and wide-eyed with energy.

She said she needed to paint and I commissioned her to paint a mural on the double doors of the garage at the bottom of the garden. It was late spring, with hot pink rhododendrons in full bloom. Over the course of the hot day, she painted a full cityscape in the background and the blooming rhododendrons in their full rebirth in the foreground.

Since then she has painted six other murals in or on buildings around the city including inside and outside this burned-out shell of a house, which has become in its last days a canvas for her great work “Reclamation.” The hot pink rhododendrons are reborn again on the charred walls along with the blue silhouette of the black-windowed city skyline.

Paint A Burnt House from Imagination Station on Vimeo.

Now the ruined house is boarded up, and no more visitors can see the art inside. Yesterday, the day I toured with the artist herself, was the last day of the life of the house. We stepped over black bricks and burnt sticks on the shelled stairway to the second floor, where we tiptoed across damaged floorboards to the explosion of sky blue paint spreading from the corners of the rooms to the broken windows and beyond, out into the world.

After this structure is removed, The Imagination Station will be left standing across from Michigan Central Station, which was designed by the same firm that created Grand Central Terminal. While it’s hard to imagine Grand Central not existing in Manhattan, it almost happened. The structure was under siege by would-be developers in 1968.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis intervened:

"Is it not cruel to let our city die by degrees, stripped of all her proud monuments, until there will be nothing left of all her history and beauty to inspire our children? If they are not inspired by the past of our city, where will they find the strength to fight for her future? Americans care about their past, but for short term gain they ignore it and tear down everything that matters. Maybe… this is the time to take a stand, to reverse the tide, so that we won't all end up in a uniform world of steel and glass boxes."

Before we get in the car to explore Corktown, Jeff points across the street to a barbecue restaurant next to pawn shops and a half-painted Banksy on the last brick building, near the roof. Apparently one of the world’s greatest living artists was chased off like a common thief before he had a chance to finish, leaving only the dark faded silhouette that somehow suits the location perfectly, making me wonder if maybe that’s what Banksy intended. Across the empty grassy field, in the silent darkness of the Michigan Central Station, the shadowed perimeter of bobbing heads popping up over the edge of the roof looks like the painting came to life in the form of mysterious explorers.

There’s danger and romance in the creative anarchy of abandonment and empty space for people who have a roof over their heads but want to explore, and then there’s stark necessity for people like Mike and Kevin who have run out of other options. What they’re doing could be considered giving in or fighting back, depending on where you sit.

“In 2002 I graduated from law school,” Jeff says as he pulls away from the curb. “Six years ago, a priest brought me to Detroit. Father Tom. I moved into the shelter to run the soup kitchen and live a monastic existence, living simply, serving the poor.”

“You’ve been living there ever since?”

“Ever since. But now I’m ready to expand, that’s how I got involved with Loveland and the Imagination Station.”

He explains the nature of the divisions that tore the community apart, starting with freeway construction in the 1960’s and then riots in 1967, commencing after a police raid during a party for two returning Vietnam vets in the very place we now sit in an idling car.

“This is ground zero for the riots,” he says. The dusky night has cast the quiet street into a jagged ring of shadows on the horizon. My eyes haven’t yet adjusted. He rolls slowly past vacant lots, some bound by hurricane fences, some gone to seed, others covered in remnants and junk. “Some of the houses burned down. Crime drove people out. The city is shrinking. Detroit is 143 square miles but the population is down from over two million to under 800,000. I believe that this city can and should be used as a model for how to shrink a city.”

Some of the blocks we pass are blown out completely, empty of people and hope, with sagging roofs and rusted gates swinging open on overgrown fields of Queen Anne’s Lace. These areas, he suggests, can be turned into community parks, farmland and incubators for social entrepreneurialism.

“Wait and see what’s going to happen in the next few years. The Imagination Station will be the center of a major shift. We’re going to make it real. Community organizing through social media. I’m excited to learn these new skills and see how they can have an impact on fundraising. We don’t want to kiss ass or beg. We just want to raise the funds to make this real.”

Loveland: The Scene of the Crime

2010-06-18T09:21:00.000-04:00

A sawed off pole in Loveland missing its solar panel lies across Plymouth.

By @RitaJKing

Shortly after midnight I received a call from Jerry Paffendorf to let me know that a crime took place today in Loveland.

Loveland is a city of inches in Detroit. 600 people from all around the world are “inchvestors” who share space in Loveland’s first fully developed colony, Plymouth. Each parcel in Plymouth is one square inch. Each inch costs one dollar. I own 1000 inches in Plymouth. This neighborhood of 1000 inches is called The Imagination Age Network.

As “inchvestors” in Loveland, we live scattered among states, countries and even continents. But we share a neighborhood, and in our neighborhood tonight, a crime took place. How we react to this challenge is the first real test of our shared values.

Tonight, before I spoke with Jerry, I had dinner with Jesse Dylan, the Curator of Mysteries of the Imagination Age Network. The most incredible thing about Loveland, he said, is that it’s “real.” Immediately, we learned just how real our shared space is. The same way a seed contains the blueprint for a vine that can grow a half-ton pumpkin with seeds of its own, each inch in Loveland is tiny but full of future.

Jerry’s pictures of the crime scene depict what happened to the pole that he, Mary Lorene Carter and Alan Languirand erected to support a solar-powered camera at the top. It was sawed down, and the solar panel, which the Imagination Age Network funded, was removed and stolen. The next step would have been to attach a Lemon Battery camera.

Had the camera been installed, images of the vandals would have been captured and uploaded before they had a chance to get close enough to touch the pole. In this way the Lemon Battery camera will curb future vandalism on the site, unless would-be criminals don’t mind their pictures instantly being shared with law enforcement and the rest of the world. A sign will be placed on the property warning future visitors that if they can see the Lemon Battery, the Lemon Battery can also see them.

This is not the first time recently that I’ve dealt with an invasion. A few months ago, I heard a sound at my back door at home. I caught a gloved hand holding my garden shears reaching for the doorknob through a broken glass panel. As I met with various security professionals and weighed the options for protection, I was forced to deal with serious questions:

Which measures are only psychologically comforting, and which actually result in increased safety?

What is the proper attitude to take in the face of such a crime?

Where’s the line between security and paranoia, protection and cynicism?

Some might argue that leaving a valuable object like a solar panel unattended in an abandoned urban environment during an economic and cultural crisis is asking for trouble, but I disagree. Neglecting such areas when they need attention the most leads to even more squalor, and that’s a failure of imagination.

At the heart of Loveland is love.

Construction at Loveland

2010-06-11T12:32:00.000-04:00

Plymouth, LOVELAND Construction, June 2010 from Jerry Paffendorf on Vimeo.

By Rita J. King

I couldn't be more excited to see cement being poured.

The time capsule shown 44 seconds into the video was packaged by me in the middle of the night before Jerry Paffendorf and Mary Lorene Carter drove back to Detroit from New York City last Monday. Jerry texted me when I was already in bed to tell me if I wanted to bury a time capsule in the cement, they'd be by at 9 am to pick it up.

I am the founder of the Imagination Age Network, a neighborhood of 1000 inches in the first colony of Loveland, Plymouth. Plymouth consists of 10,000 inches, outlined by the cement.

I got out of bed and in the silent darkness, gathered my thoughts to figure out what I should include. Time capsules in cornerstones customarily include that day's newspapers so the date can be remembered. I printed out a copy of my friend Cory Doctorow's latest post on Boing Boing. I included a string of Mardi Gras beads from New Orleans. I found them on the floor in a little girl's room. She had meticulously stenciled a sign for her door, "Don't come in without knocking first," but looters had kicked the door in and torn her abandoned possessions to shreds, leaving only a pile of tangled beads on the cheap, burnt carpet. The beads symbolize rebirth, reconstruction, the hope that Detroit will once again be a city of the future and that the individual lives of the human beings affected by disaster are remembered. I included a picture of the Detroit girls, Celeste and Ricki, who live on the same street as Loveland. They are the only ones left on their block, but they're thrilled that the micro real-estate experiment has given them neighbors.

The jar includes a map of Plymouth and two versions of the Imagination Age Network, the first as conceived on a cocktail party, on a napkin, with Jerry, and the second (shown below in the rainbow image) after the actual plot of land was redistricted. Originally, I had intended the Imagination Age to be subdivided, but we ended up with a single block of 25 by 40 inches. I like it better the way it turned out, but both maps went in the jar.

Old map.

New map.

I included an LED light connected to a small battery that I once used to write the word love in the air.

The jar contains other secret items as well, but more on that later.

The most important thing about the jar is that it contains an augmented reality marker and on July 17, in Detroit, the jar will begin to communicate from inside the cement. The contents of the jar will be updated as the community develops.

Also see:
Welcome to Loveland!
Rita J. King speaks at O'Reilly's Gov2.0 Summit about Loveland
Loveland.

Map of the Imagination Age Network in Loveland

2010-05-20T18:35:00.003-04:00

Loveland continues to grow, inch by inch, and the Imagination Age Network in Loveland has now been mapped!

The Eight Zones are named for the aspects of the Eightfold Path. Each member of the network receives an address within one of the zones.

In the map above, the thin purple rectangle represents 40 inches of shared space. This shared space will include all elements that can be found in any community--with a twist. Eventually the network will create multiple shared assets including a Theater of the Future, The Imagination Age School, and a store. The image directly above is the banner for the store, which will soon be open for business.

Jason Silva in The Imagination Age "Intentions: 128"

2010-05-02T23:30:00.001-04:00

When Jason Silva sent me the concept teaser for "Turning Into Gods" (see below for video) I was struck by the scope of the thought and his enthusiasm for a subject that has kept me staring at the ceiling many nights since before I even started grade school:

Is immortality possible? Can science put an end to death?

Jason Silva seems certain that the answer is yes. Looking ahead for a moment...let's say we get there. Envision a place where consciousness is re-engineered without the turmoil of the mortal coil...

But will we ever truly be immune to hazard, even if the singularity is reached?

One line grabbed me particularly:

"Imagination," Silva says, "allows us to think beyond our limitations to conceive of what might be and go further than we ever thought possible."

I invited him to become a member of the Imagination Age Network in Loveland, an experiment in Detroit created by Jerry Paffendorf. Loveland explores new concepts about community and the micro-ownership of shared real estate. Loveland is 1,000,000 square inches in all, made up of individual colonies. The first colony, Plymouth, is 10,000 square inches and has 588 "inchvestors." The Imagination Age Network is a 1000-inch neighborhood in Plymouth. Our goal is to see how big we can make an inch.

The yellow rectangle is the Imagination Age Network in Plymouth, shown amid the parcels of 588 other inchvestors. For more information about Loveland, click here.

Jason Silva's inch is called "Turning Into Gods." He chose the address "Intentions: 128" for his project. The Imagination Age network is divided into eight shared zones of 122 inches each. Intentions, the second zone, includes inches 123-245.

The first step in growing Jason's project is to watch the video below and leave comments on this blog post with your thoughts on possibility, science and technology, a grand unfolding instigated by humans, and, oh yeah, "making ourselves permanent."

TURNING INTO GODS - 'Concept Teaser' from jason silva on Vimeo.

Congratulations Mary Lorene!

2010-04-22T03:07:00.002-04:00

Congratulations to Mary Lorene Carter! Confidante and collaborator with Jerry Paffendorf on the Loveland project has an inspiring blog post about completing her art degree.

The primary reason for me not accompanying Jerry to New York is due to a presentation of my own. I have, over the last 10 years, attended 3 different universities and switched majors 3 times…. So, in case any of you are wondering, this unofficially qualifies me as an expert in the fields of: fine arts, library science, and the history of art, particularly the pagan empires of the Mediterranean (700bce-400ad). Today I had to present my senior thesis to a panel of faculty, which means I get to graduate….

[I Do Something.]

Plymouth: The Imagination Age

2010-03-28T00:31:00.002-04:00

The dimensions of The Imagination Age, our 1000-inch neighborhood in Plymouth, the first colony in Loveland, is shown above at 25x40 inches.

Inchvestor Profile: Ken Hudson -- "100 Squirrels in Loveland"

2010-03-10T12:57:00.010-05:00

The Black Squirrel, part of a collection of urban art that Ken Hudson may be including in his Loveland inches.(Image and art credit: Ken Hudson)

Inchvestor Profile
Name: Ken Hudson
Number of Inches: 100

Ken Hudson is a Canadian visual and theatrical artist, performer, digital media consultant, and Managing Director of the Virtual World Design Centre at Loyalist College in Belleville, Ontario, near Toronto.

He is perhaps better known for his ground-breaking work using the virtual world of Second Life to train Canadian Border Guards, which led to significantly improved grades on students’ critical skills tests, taking scores from a 56% success in 2007, to 95% at the end of 2008 after the simulation was instituted.

Ken will be documenting his involvement in Loveland on his new blog "100 Squirrels in Loveland."

What inspired you to buy inches in Loveland?

Obviously, there's the character of Jerry [Paffendorf] and his bon vivance. People want to be involved in ideas he's pushing forward.

It connected really strongly with my creative past. I used to create theater in alternative venues. In Canada my claim to fame is I adapted Shakespeare's Henry V to an Ice Hockey arena -- with heavy metal music and fighting with sticks. Before that I did a show in an store window on Queen Street in Toronto in 1999. [Here's a video clip.]

This idea that Jerry was going to retrieve some of these ideas -- using alternative venues, using venue as a space for expression. In other words the venue itself becomes part of the entire narrative. Those concepts are really appealing to me. Then the idea that he would be blurring the boundary between virtual worlds, augmented reality, site-specific art.

How do you perceive Loveland and what has it inspired you to do with your inches?

I see it specifically as a creative space. There's no promotional or corporate angle.

Last fall I started doing a bit of stencil graffitti art. Where I live, we have black squirrels that hop across the road all the time. So I cut a stencil of a hopping black squirrel as a way to capture that image. Then I put it in some strategic locations in our town. (See above) [Ken says he may incorporate the Black Squirrel into the expression of his inches.]

What's your current vision for how you're going to use your inches?

I see it completely as self-expression, finding images or populating the space -- physical, virtual or both with primary artistic intent. Part of my work doing performance in alternative venues, everything around it becomes part of the performance.

It's less a group show and more a collaborative art piece. I want to keep my points fluid so that I can adapt to what's around me and respond to it. I don't want to create a monolith here.

Whatever I do there, I expect to grow from the collective experience.

Kenny Hubble, Hudson's Second Life persona.

Do you imagine using your inches across platforms?

I see it as something I want to have maximum flexibility with. The squirrel may be virtual or augmented reality. The similarity between the public performance work I've done all the way to Second Life is that it all builds on the environment. It's not art that's happening in a glass box that doesn't have any relationship to anything around -- just the opposite. Everything around it changes it. If you're doing a show on the street and a bus comes by, it's part of the show.

Is it a physical project for virtual art or a virtual project with a physical location? Those are all salient questions for contemporary art as we move forward into the century. I think it is experimental in the best way. I don't think there is an over-arching artistic intention. I think there is a really neat idea. One idea that isn't even explicitly mentioned is that you could even buy real estate in Detroit for $500. I mean, that's a huge social issue that is entrenched in this concept.

What does that say for people in economically depressed areas. Or to people that don't have access to fine art or virtual worlds? What does it say to those people? To start to envision what land could be used for, what contemporary art is.

Whether it answers all these questions or not, it certainly raises all of them. To me, that's incredibly exciting.

----
You can follow Ken's involvement in Loveland at his project blog 100 Squirrels in Loveland.

Loveland on NPR's All Things Considered

2010-03-04T17:55:00.004-05:00

[cross-posted from The Imagination Age -- written by Rita J. King]

Plymouth is the first full colony of inches in the Loveland project in Detroit. The yellow block of 1000 inches is my neighborhood, The Imagination Age. Loveland is being featured today on NPR's "All Things Considered." (Click here to listen to the archive)

What is Loveland?

It's an experiment in the micro-ownership of real estate, economic revitalization and cultural development.

It's an art project.

It's a statement about creating something new and unexpected.

Yes, it's about a guy selling a million square inches for a dollar each. With so many people out of work and seeking new ways to make money, create connections, excitement, fun and new ideas about the way communities work--that's a visionary way to get something going in an economy that promises to steamroll people who fail to freshen their skills, update perspectives and figure out new ways to pay bills.

Me, Jerry and our friend Tish Shute.

Sarah Hulett, the insightful journalist who interviewed me and Loveland founder Jerry Paffendorf, started off by saying that she wanted to understand the thinking behind the project.

I'm frequently asked why Jerry, who splits his time between the coasts, chose Detroit for this project. Why not? Why shouldn't a young, provocative artist move to Detroit and get something going? Is there some unwritten rule of etiquette that says we must avoid American cities in crisis? Detroit was once a city of the future, and that blueprint from the past is greatly appreciated by Jerry, who slept over at the Imagination Age Salon last night before catching a top-of-the-morning flight back to Detroit. We were up all night discussing plans for the future of Loveland and Detroit, ways we can explore Square, for example, to raise much-needed funds for local initiatives.

Sarah Hulett thoughtfully went back to interview the two little girls who live in the house next to Loveland, Celeste Moore (left, 11) and Ricki Collins, 9. In fact, their house is the only house left on the block. Ricki said she hopes the inchvestors will come and visit her. I am planning a visit soon.

Sarah Hulett asked me how Loveland might benefit the local population in Detroit. I don't know yet, but in order to find out I've opened up a block of 100 inches within the 1000 inch Imagination Age neighborhood in the Plymouth colony, a network that includes many notable residents already, including IBM Senior Research Fellow Grady Booch, WIRED writer Alexis Madrigal, filmmaker Josh Asen and educator Liz Dorland, to name a few. If you have an idea, even a tiny one, and imagination enough to envision how big you might make an inch, ping me on Twitter or leave a comment on this blog post.

I'm working hard to turn my inches into opportunities to connect people in Detroit with a larger community of innovators around the world, and I need your help, your ideas, your support and most of all, your imagination. Inches are tiny, but I hope you'll think big. Technology is a prism held up to the bright beam of the imagination.

[NPR: Inchvesting in Detroit: A Virtual Realty]

Want an Inch?

2010-03-02T15:15:00.009-05:00

The Imagination Age in the Plymouth colony in Loveland, shown above in yellow, and the rest of the colony, in all its inchy splendor-in-the-grass, is shown around it.

Want an inch?

Yes, Loveland's first colony, Plymouth, is full--but you can still get in on the experiment. I have 1000 inches in Plymouth, a neighborhood currently called the Imagination Age. Maybe, like the newly minted Google, Kansas, the name will change once we all get set up, but for now, we're going with the Imagination Age.

Neighbors in the Imagination Age include the brilliant writer Alexis Madrigal, IBM Research Fellow and all-around creative genius Grady Booch, filmmaker Josh Asen (who directed the video above), educator Liz Dorland, Tiffany heir and designer Stephen Burlingham, Tony Award winning production designer Richard Hoover & actor John Ventimiglia, to name a few. The purpose of this experiment in micro-ownership of real estate is to see how big you can make your inch, or inches. In the meantime, the neighbors are starting to get together. If you want to be part of the neighborhood, ping me on Twitter or leave a comment on this post and tell us why.

Follow @RitaJKing and LOVELAND founder Jerry Paffendorf, @makeloveland, on Twitter.

The Mystery of the Ghost Inches

2010-02-20T19:52:00.003-05:00

LOVELAND Season 2 Pre-Game: The Legend of The Ghost Inches from Jerry Paffendorf on Vimeo.

Jerry Paffendorf, who recently announced the completion of Plymouth, the first 10,000 inches in Loveland, produced this video mystery in response to requests from people who still want inches.

"Small parcels of land would occasionally disembody and float the streets..."

Plymouth Grid Construction

2010-02-16T00:36:00.003-05:00

The Plymouth grid construction is underway and the design brings the past into the future. Check it out.

Congratulations Plymouth Inchvestor Colonists

2010-02-14T13:17:00.001-05:00

Yesterday Jerry Paffendorff announced that the Plymouth Colony of Loveland, the first 10,000 inches of Loveland, has sold. The community is now sealed.

Starting next week we will be profiling members of Loveland's Plymouth colony on the 1000 Inches in Loveland blog.

Congratulations, Jerry!

"Inching toward a virtual new Detroit at $1 a square"

2010-02-14T13:15:00.001-05:00

The Detroit Free Press has a new article about Jerry Paffendorf's Loveland project. As readers may know, Rita J. King is the largest "inchvestor" in Loveland. Her story of the project can be found at 1000InchesinLoveland.com.

Rita J. King has confirmed that the 1,000 inch holder who "plans to install an actual mailbox on the site" is indeed her. From the article:

"I would like to get to a point where it is globally interesting," said Paffendorf, 28, who moved to Detroit's Corktown neighborhood in January. "I want to bring these inches to life."

Inch by inch
Paffendorf has taken the popular concept of virtual worlds -- where you can be anything or anyone you want to be on the Internet -- and given it real roots in Detroit.

"If you can stretch your imagination ... this small space can be as big as you want," said Paffendorf.

The project allows property buyers to virtually and physically alter their land.

With 1,000 inches, one buyer plans to install an actual mailbox on the site, giving the plot, which Paffendorf calls "Plymouth," a place to receive mail.

Trevor Smith, a Web developer in Seattle, plans to use some of his 333 square inches to install solar panels that will charge up a battery to distribute power to other inchvestors. Smith plans to give it away at first and potentially charge his neighbors in the future, "assuming we could negotiate right of way through the inches in between," he said.

Starting next week we'll be profiling members of Loveland's first community of inch holders to ask them about their experience, vision and take on Loveland.

Rebuilding Detroit through the Internet One Inch at a Time

2010-01-31T12:08:00.004-05:00

The new global culture and economy is taking shape an inch at a time.

As the biggest "inchvestor" in Loveland, I'm thrilled to see GG Paff getting his inch on and out.

The 10,000 inch Plymouth colony, where I own 1000 inches, is almost filled up. Get your space now.

I also just funded the development of Project Lemon Battery, and I love the plans so far.

Keep an eye on Jack Dorsey's new company, Square. It's going to change our capacity to create micro-ownership of shared assets.

Inching Toward a New Year

2009-12-27T22:24:00.000-05:00

I've got 1000 Inches in Loveland, in a colony called Plymouth--in Detroit.

Loveland is an experiment in micro-ownership of land. Want some?

Welcome, Lovelanders!

2009-08-14T14:55:00.000-04:00

At last count, 75 inch-holders have inchvested in Loveland! Read all about it in this thoughtful post (including the Fermi paradox, coded communication with extraterrestrial life forms, humans in cages and shooting stars) by Loveland impresario Jerry Paffendorf.

1000 Inches in Loveland is a neighborhood in Loveland made up of eight zones named for the Eightfold Path. Read this to learn more about it and check out the map of the inches.

So far we've got Grady Booch, Stephen Burlingham (scroll to the bottom of the Tiffany family archives page to see him), the brilliant and hard-working Alexis Madrigal, nanotechno artist and IBMer Jack Mason and on Inch 502, Zone V: Livelihood, we have the mysterious proprietor of the Mystery Hole.

If you're incherested, get in touch.

Follow @ritajking, @makeloveland and @1000inches on Twitter.

The Eightfold Path as a model for 1000 Inches in Loveland

2009-08-03T01:14:00.010-04:00

The eight main zones of 1000 Inches in Loveland are shown around the perimeter of LOVELAND in pink. Each zone is named for one of the aspects of the Eightfold Path: Zone I: View, Zone II: Intentions, Zone III: Speech, Zone IV: Actions, Zone V: Livelihood, Zone VI: Effort, Zone VII: Concentration, Zone VIII: Mindfulness.

Alexis Madrigal, shown left with Josh Fouts, is an inch-holder in Zone VI: Effort. Alexis Madrigal is one of the most illustrious journalists working today, and on top of that, he's spectacularly fun. I can't wait to see what he does with his inch!

Why the Eightfold Path was chosen as a model for the eight zones of 1000 Inches in Loveland: The Imagination Age:

I've been taken with the Eightfold Path for years, and the fact that there's a mundane and a transcendental way to approach the framework of its aspects. In other words, there's theory and then there's action. It's time for action.

In "The Noble Eightfold Path," Bahikkhu Bodhi says that following the path is more a matter of practice than intellectual knowledge, but to apply the path correctly it has to be properly understood. This is a process that people can undertake together, no matter what circumstances into which each individual person is born in the physical world, if we commit to a creative approach to imagination and technology.

The current economic and cultural crisis has created an opportunity for new understanding, just as the Eightfold Path is borne from suffering yet is a framework for a genuine spiritual search. Collaborative creativity can defeat the fear of transformation.

1000 Inches in Loveland: The Imagination Age is a cultural and economic development project, a neighborhood in the larger Loveland project.

1000 Inches in Loveland will be one of the world's most diverse creative communities.

How big can you make an inch with your imagination?

I've been working on Zone I: View: Inch 1: Transformation. The project will launch this week. I've been meeting with various inch-holders to discuss their massive plans for their tiny parcels. If you're interested in becoming an inch-holder, follow the project on Twitter at @1000Inches or email us here.

Inch 502 on Zone V: Livelihood: The Mystery Hole

2009-07-31T13:56:00.003-04:00

Welcome the newest resident of 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND: The Imagination Age! The mysterious proprietor of the Mystery Hole (shown above around the time when she created me) is taking command of Inch 502 on Zone V: Livelihood. Right now, her art and curiosities shop is headquartered in a small town. She's ready to be connected to the rest of the world and she's starting from scratch--her high-speed internet access won't be connected until next week.

"This is going to be fun," she says, "Aggravating, but I think it will be worth the effort."

What will become of the Mystery Hole as it goes from a small town--to an inch?

Want to become an Inchvestor?

2009-07-29T16:34:00.008-04:00

LOVELAND is kickstarted! Get your inches!

LOVELAND is a million square inches in Detroit, and each of the one-square-inch parcels costs $1. There are tiers of membership, and already someone has inchvested in 1000 Inches in Loveland:

That someone is me.

I am creating a neighborhood out of the 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND. The neighborhood will be divided into eight zones, and open for mixed-media, mixed-reality development. I am documenting the development of 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND as it unfolds.

The first developed inch in 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND (the neighborhood is called The Imagination Age) will be launched next week, along with more information about how you can get your own inch and make it as big as your imagination. The development of the 1000 inches within The Imagination Age will also be a game. Inch-holders can opt in or out of the game, which will not start until all players have been assigned inches.

Click here to follow me or the project on Twitter.

Welcome to 1000 Inches in Loveland!

2009-07-27T18:26:00.014-04:00

How big can you make an inch?

Several months ago, I was commissioned by PROBOSCIS to create an installation on 27 cubes: "Transformation: How We Become Who We Are." While working on the cubes (some of which are shown above) I first heard about the LOVELAND project in Detroit.

Perhaps because I was working daily with cubes and my imagination, the idea of a city of a million square inches that fits in a warehouse in Detroit and yet relies on technology and creativity to amplify the size of each inch made perfect sense.

The installation was immediately influenced by the LOVELAND project. "Transformation" (which will launch soon) expanded first into virtual and augmented realities and then evolved into the first developed parcel in a project called 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND.

What is 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND?

Stories have a tendency to get lost if they aren't shared right away, so here's how the 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND deal went down:

CHELSEA (on a rainy night during the height of NYC's new monsoon season)---

My collaborator, Joshua Fouts, wears round black glasses. We’d been invited to the event by David Green and Liz Dreyer with a pink lotus and two shining orange fish inked on her calf. We’d met at White Oak Plantation near Jacksonville, Florida, where we drove past rhinos and zebras on the way to the lodge to meet in groups and discuss the consequences of the economic downturn on the arts and how this might be overcome through meaningful participation in the digital culture. We promised we’d meet again in New York. I invited GG, who now stands in front of me, having run late from Brooklyn but committed to keeping his word.

There he is, all six-feet-six-and change of him, wearing a shirt that says, “I’ve got twelve inches in Detroit,” in neat capital letters that could only have been ironed in place by the man himself. He goes by Jerry because he’s not crazy about George Gerald Paffendorf III, but he doesn't seem like a Jerry to me, so I call him GG.

“What’s going on in Detroit?” I ask. GG lifts his eyebrows because the answer to that question is going to take some time, but he's excited for the chance to tell, and I can't wait to hear.

The room has been set up as a bar for the night, so people come and go. Josh, GG and I sequester ourselves in a corner overlooking the amber rectangles of light spangling the wet slate street-scape. Josh had met GG in Singapore in 2007. I met them both on the same day in San Jose a few months later.

GG won Josh's undying affection when, less than 24 hours after they met in Singapore, this GG-magic image with (GG, left and Josh right) appeared among Josh's copious electronic correspondence.

GG is 27 years old and he’s already an admired futurist, which may explain why he has an air of time travel about him, as if you could set the dial to any time or place in which humans have interacted and he would find a way to improve life through his imagination and capacity for catalyzing collaboration. For over two years I’ve been waiting for his Big Idea, but I had no idea it would end up being so tiny.

“Detroit,” he says. “Okay. Loveland, is what the project is called--a million square inches that I’m going to sell for $1 each. Anyone from around the world can buy one, or more than one, and be a part of the community. The inches are just a jumping point for people, and they can be as big as the minds of the community. Loveland is a platform to connect people. People will come together to build this new land. Every inch will exist in the physical world and in the digital realm at the same time. What’s going to happen? There’s no way to know in advance, and that’s the fun of it. But you know something will happen. Reality will...be...augmented!”

He stopped to eat a cheese cracker and a few grapes and then went on to explain why he’d chosen to tie a virtual project with the physical world by placing it in Detroit, a story I know all too well from my work in the Gulf Coast: economic decline, mass exodus of the jobless population, widespread systemic change and the absence of a clear path for transformation.

“Detroit was the most futuristic city that existed for a time,” he says, “an engineer’s dream of tinkering coming together with a possible vision of reality, like the automobile moving at sixty miles in an hour move a person to another place. The universe is like a seed. So it’s just how big can you make your inches? What can you do with an inch if the only thing stopping you from making it as big as you can imagine is your ability to imagine it? Think about all the things people can do with it.”

To GG, confusion isn’t an obstacle. If some people don’t get it, that won’t stop him from reaching those who do. Around us, people listen and gather, and someone asks for more information on the Loveland project. What can people do with an inch, really? Is this a real inch, or an imaginary inch that some guy from New Jersey will sell you for $1 because he has a million of them?

“The inch markers are just something that give a human feeling,” GG said. “They act as a connector for the sense of ownership. An inch sounds stupid until suddenly you have something that can be connected to other people, and then you see how big and important that is. I know it’s funny. I know it makes people smile. It’s game-like, but it’s a city that will fit into a warehouse.”

The population of Loveland, if all million inches are sold, might end up being higher than the current population of Detroit: 800,000.

“Dancing Ink Productions will take 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND,” I say. “For economic and cultural development. Loveland is a new city and I'm going to create a neighborhood and document its development. The neighborhood will be known as the Imagination Age.”

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” said GG. “Right on.”

I grab a stack of paper and start to sketch out the grid.

“You already know where you want your inches to be?” he asks. “Look at that! It’s real!”

It *is* real. Starting next week, space within 1000 INCHES IN LOVELAND: The Imagination Age," will be available.

Follow on Twitter: @1000Inches.