conversation between Buckminister Fuller, Andrea Zittel, bell hooks, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles

I know that I am not a category, a hybrid specialization,
I am not a thing-a noun,
I seem to be a verb-
an evolutionary process-
an integral function of the universe
and so are you.
-Buckminster Fuller

Andrea Zittel: That's very poetic, buckminster, but you have to also acknowledge that you are a person-

bell hooks: you have a body

AZ- yes, a body, that is a physical thing, a noun, and that you are processing information through that specific body. Phenomena have happened that lead to you, and you in turn have the power to cause change, but in that you are a human with opinions and experiences, you cannot be purely 'an evolutionary process', you process data through your lens of experience.

bh: denying that body is dangerous, because it suggests that your experience is infact an objective fact.

BF: of course there are specifics of my life that have led me to the body of work that I am doing, but that does not negate the fact that I am developing innovative material. It is considered, researched, tested, and I believe to be objectively beneficial to a world in crisis. The dymaxion car and dymaxion house will make modern life possible for all people. My invention of them is not an outpouring of myself, an autobiography, but stand as autonomous works of engineering and architecture.

Mierle Laderman Ukeles: What do you mean by 'autonomous'?

BF:It is important to me that my work be understood as outside of all pre-existing thought. What I am trying to acheive is new and revolutionary. I am not a specialist, drawing upon the work of previous intellectuals in order to refine this useless body of thought that we label academia, but rather a force for the new synthesis of information that will and does produce truth that is actually useful to society at large.

bh: I appreciate that you acknowledge the limited influence of educated white, male academics, have chosen to distance yourself from this cannon, and are attempting to put your research towards social change. But I also need to ask you how you think this is possible- to work both empirically and entirely indepedently. I think it's delusional and disrespectful not to acknowledge your influences.

MLU: and really fucking male! who do you think you are, claiming independence from all thought previous to yours?! I've never heard anything more narcisistic. Your claims at autonomy are a symptom of the overblown male ego that exactly characterizes the body of thinkers you are trying to distancing yourself from. The engineering of housing requires collaboration and upkeep. You may think of yourself as entirely autonomous, but who is going to pump the gas for your dymaxion car and wash your dymaxion toilet? By claiming that you can only be relevant by working entirely independently you are invalidating the work that supports you: maintenence work. the jobs of the working class and of women. Really, Buckminster, what has your work accomplished? By refusing to collaborate ,almost everything you invented has failed to go in to production, and your work has been relegated to the rhelm of ideas that you claim you are not a part of.

AZ: Mierle, I see where you're coming from, but I also want to assert that unrealized does not mean unproductive. Following that logic, and concept, any artwork that does not translate in to commodifiable economic product is not useful to society. My work, like buckministers, is utilitarin in orientation but exists as a suggestion, a model, an idea, rather than an actuality. I believe this is the place of artists- to suggest what might be possible but isn't yet, based on knowledge of what is necessary. To say that responses to problems have to yeild solutions is also to say that those who don't yeild solutions, such as artists, must only address address irrelevant or apolitical topics.

bh: Of course I believe that it is valid and wonderful for artists to address contemporary problems, but you must understand the impracticality of your work as a privilege you have been afforded as a fine artist, Andrea. In a more technical discipline, the lack of applicability and coherent explainations of your inventions would be seen as a sign of failure.

BF: But exactly, it is crucial not to see Andrea and I as failures because we are working independently to process the situation of today's world.

bh: Then do you see yourself as an artist more so than an inventor or architect?

MLU: why are you forcing him to make that distinction? Whatever you do is art is art is art.



-Buckminster Fuller is a bizarre architect from the 60's, best known for inventing the geodesic dome, interested in egalitarian efficiency but often retroactively appointed a father of ecological design
-Andrea Zittel is a contemporary artist working with themes of waste reduction and efficiency. She blurs the distinction between pragmatic object and art-peice, and studio practice and display space in a way that I find really inspiring.
-bell hooks is a a writer and teacher who deals with talks a lot about race, gender, pedagogy. I've read too little or her work to really be able to include her in this. I just think she's great.
-Mierle Laderman Ukeles is a feminist conceptual/performance artist from the 70's(?) whose work I'm not always so in to but who has said some things I find really inspiring about the connections between sexism, classism and ecological crisis.


This debate came out of reading some of Buckminister's autobiography yesterday. As the only man whose work I'm really looking at right now and rather a cocky figure, I wanted to argue with him but instead imagined how some women I think highly of would talk to him. Of course, none of these people would probably actually say what I attribute to them. The discipline of fine arts a liberation from the need to research comprehensively or site my sources? Or maybe just an excuse not to? Or a means to incorperate the intuitive and emotional with equal weight?