Open Bicycle

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with reading, and in particular, the Choose Your Own Adventure books.  For those of you not familiar with these titles, the CYOA series offered the reader interaction with the text, putting him or her in the place of the protagonist with choices to make in critical situations; and within what was essentially a proto-hyperlinked structure, providing a dynamic (and therefore reality-mirroring) experience withing the static confines of the neatly cut pages of a paperback.  I think my fascination with these books, and science fiction in general, sparked my interest in philosophy and art; that ever-present question, “What if?” being at the core of any introspective look into the future our individual and collective human endeavor.

The creative directions that I find the most compelling, then, are those that use the amorphous language of art to explore all the possibilities that we might have taken, or could yet perhaps take.  Over at the Design Interactions Studio at London’s prestigious Royal College of Art, one student has taken on this modeling of alternative reality as a exercise in considering our contemporary energy policies.  From Régine Debatty’s excellent blog, We Make Money Not Art:

The Golden Institute for Energy is a think tank from an alternative reality where Jimmy Carter, instead of losing the 1981 presidential election, had defeated his Republican opponent Ronald Reagan. According to this scenario, a think thank would have been formed to pursue Carter’s energy policies (Carter it might be reminded had created the United States Department of Energy to respond to the 1973 energy crisis.) Located in Golden, Colorado, the think thank focused heavily on devising alternative sources of power for the United States. What would have happened if Carter had been able to pursue his environmentally-friendly policy? If money and resources had been poured into geo-engineering rather than into space programs?

Sascha Pohflepp, the artist behind the Golden Project, explores a US present and future where a state of  oil reliance and impending ecological catastrophe is something that has been averted through careful and creative planning:

Project AMBER aims to use the momentum of Planet Earth, to drive a giant gyroscope near one of the poles.

Project QUARTZ would turn an area or a state (most likely to be Nevada) into a weather-experimentation zone.

One of my favorite proposals is that of recapturing the energy wasted by automobile transportation, including inertial brake zones on highway ramps and (perhaps controversially) energy-reclaiming crash zones:

Project OPAL harnesses the velocity, prevalence and potential of the car to create energy for the nation and for the individual.

I want to see one of those on every block.  Given the way Boston car owners drive, this city would be lit up like a Christmas tree without even a drop of Venezuelan crude.

The future is ours to decide.  Unlike the Choose Your Own Adventure books, however, we can’t simply skip back to the beginning and start over.  As cyclists, we make the decision to push our way over the hills and across town with our own two legs, and this simple and freeing determination can be a starting point for a common shift towards a rosy, joyous, and self-empowered tomorrow.  If you agree with me, turn to page 217…