Posts tagged ‘Legoview’

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September 25, 2012

The Unbearable Lightness of Ideas: LWs goes to University!

Hands on Bricks!

Hands on Bricks!

“Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things” Theodore Levitt 

 The last months have been devoted to innovation. Time for creativity and innovation is necessarily made by questions looking for solutions and  the apparent quietness of this space is filled by innovative actions taking place in unexpected places, with unimagined forms and surprising people.

LegoViews is a growing method, proving itself to be not only flexible, but integrated and integrable into different contexts with diverse aims.

The current experiment is taking place in Italy: regardless the economic situation, that country can still be a place open to real innovative approaches and able to recognise, capitalise and be enthusiast for new ideas.

And the Italian Academia can be a free  environment where a real problem could turn into an amazing opportunity: just put together an innovative university department, like the Architecture department of University of Ferrara, a team coordinated by Prof. Marcello Balzani, a cutting-edge course lead by prof. Carlo Bughi and supervised by Prof. Beppe Dosi,  and what you get is an explosive situation where ideas happen and changes take place.

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September 21, 2012

LegoViews or Legoviews?

Creative processes always require time and the more difficulties and challenges they face, the more the resulting projects are innovative and original.

I have found myself playing around with LSP (Oops, I did it again!) and LegoViews a lot and the newest projects will be shortly revealed. In the meantime, while I am allowed to disclose the very first new initiative I have been working on, I have opened a FaceBook LegoViews‘ page: feel free to join!

Recently I have been pointed out that I spell both LegoViews and Legoviews and actually, there’s a reason for this, which might be subtle, but it makes a lot of difference.

LegoViews [LWs] is the Method: LEGO are the tool used to extract Views, to delve into human perceptions and representations, to discover and to create new meanings. It’s a modern maieutic approach based on the constructionist theories, which has been developed from LEGO SERIOUS PLAY. It’s actually my main personal challenge and the result of three years of thinking, testing and learnig by doing.

LegoViews is more than a way to challenge traditional journalism: it’s an attempt to explore the world through other people’s perception of reality and their views of the world. It’s a way to build worlds with words through unusual and different cognitive mechanisms.

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February 16, 2012

Israel and the Democracy building process from an Anti-Zionist Perspective

Michael Warshawski

Micheal Warschawski

Micheal Warschawski is a well-known pro-palestine, anti-occupation activist, co-founder of the Alternative Information Center. I’ve met him in Jerusalem and we had a long chat about Palestine. His model of Palestine was peculiar, he used also non bricks to underline the external factors mining the stability and the peace making process. But when I ask him about Israel, his reaction is strong.‘What is Israel?!’

Israel as seen by Warschawski

Israel as seen by Warschawski

Says angrily messing up all the bricks on the table. ‘Here it is…! It’s something incoherent and structured except by its military mind, it’s a nation which is a very weak entity, which is not very big, where the glue is very weak, without borders… why Israel doesn’t have borders? Israel always refused to define borders, it’s something which is chaos, it’s chaos as a way of existence. Always either in the offensive way, conquering more lands, conquering population, they try to get rid of them… it’s a chaos. Not a chaos without a plan.’ ‘There’s a plan?’ I ask. ‘Of course! Judea and all this area, they are making it as biggest as possible provided that it is purely, or as pure as possible, Jewish. This is the plan, the official objective of Israel.’
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Posted in Israel and Palestine, Journalism | 4 Comments »

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February 5, 2012

Holes, walls and bricks: Palestine with Israeli eyes

Micheal builds Palestine

Micheal building Palestine

Michael is a true cosmopolitan Israeli citizen. I’ve met him the day I arrived in Tel Aviv, he asked me what was I doing and when I showed him the LEGO bricks he asked me to be interviewed. I returned to Tel Aviv to meet him. I’ve found him on a very bad day, yet he engaged with the bricks. The first question was about Israel and we had a long and intense conversation about it. Then it was the turn of Palestine. ‘What is Palestine?’ I ask him. He doesn’t say a word, he has understood the process, he doesn’t ask, he builds.

Palestine and the hole in the centre

Palestine and the hole in the centre

As soon as he finished with LEGO I ask him to tell me about it. He stares at the bricks for a while, thinking. ‘You see… It doesn’t have a bottom. It’s not based on anything – he says by showing me the hole and the lack of any base – because they haven’t succeeded in creating a State; they have a State now but it’s not solid. Also all these Arab countries, in all these more than 60 years… All the Arab countries crying Oh Palestine!‘ – he grows acrimonious – ‘but ask them to do something for them! They didn’t do anything for them. Nothing! Palestinians know that, Arabs like Syrians, Lebanese, use Palestine as propaganda at the UN and in Europe. But they don’t help them. Arafat… Europe sent 900 million euros to Palestine to help them, they could have done a lot with that but Arafat put that money in his pocket and now his wife is pampering around Tunis or wherever…’

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Posted in Activism, Israel and Palestine, Journalism | 2 Comments »

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January 21, 2012

This Crazy Thing Called Palestine

Aysar from Dheisheh Refugee Camp

Aysar from Dheisheh Refugee Camp

Aysar is a young volunteer at Dheisheh Refugee Camp. He was born and grown up there and he studied at Bethlehem University. While introducing himself, he says he believes in some crazy ideas, and I am curious to learn more about them. When I show him the bricks, he is surprised: ‘You remind me about Parmenides… – he says and soon after he admits – ‘I’ve never played with this game…’ I let him play around with the LEGO bricks and then get straight into the question: What is Palestine? ‘What it should be or what it is?’ he asks. I repeat my question, those simple 3 words: What is Palestine. I am not giving him any clue, I want to see what Palestine is for him. The less I say, the more he’ll tell me. He is puzzled, he starts talking but I stop him and ask him to build me his answer ‘We’ll talk after…’ I reassure him. He starts building – he takes the bricks on and off, smokes and builds. After a while he is finished: he spreads all the left bricks around the model ‘Leave them’ he says ‘They are part of it’. ‘So this is Palestine… tell me something about your model’ I ask him. [Read more]

Posted in Activism, Israel and Palestine, Journalism | 4 Comments »

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December 10, 2011

The Occupy movement: the light and fluid warrior

Ollie building his models with Lego

Ollie building his models with LEGO

As soon as we meet, Ollie, 23, proudly shows me his brand new DC motor for a bike generator. He’s excited about making his own energy and eager to start the LegoView experiment. I met Ollie the first time the Occupy movement had taken the streets in London, on October 15th. He was enthusiastic then and so he is today. Since his job contract ended, he is now free to occupy full time and contribute and support the movement. I show him the  LEGO bricks and he immediately starts building even before I ask him to do so. “I am building a house” he says. And he starts assembling the bricks. “It’s about homelessness” he tells me while making his model, “there are like 600,000 empty houses  in the UK that are liveable, which are not falling down or abandoned and there’s so many people who are homeless…. They’ve been trying to make squatting illegal for years now… and that’s how you have people sleeping in the rain every night and houses which are completely empty… it’s just stupid…” He comments while playing with the bricks.
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Posted in Activism, Journalism, Occupy | 1 Comment »

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