THE 10,000 YEAR CLOCK

Stewart Brand works on the Clock of the Long Now, a timepiece that counts down the next 10,000 years. It's a beautiful project that asks us to think about the far, far future. Here, he discusses a tricky side problem with the Clock: Where can we put it?

All during the expedition Danny Hillis kept telling variations of his theory of "The 7 Stages of a Mythic Experience" as a way to think about how the mountain and the Clock might fit together. After the trip I asked him to write up the ideas fully. Here they are:

Stewart,

You ask me to write up a short summary of the design issues that I have been thinking about for the experience of visiting the clock. Here it is.

The visit to the clock is intended to be a kind of Hajj, a spiritual journey. As such it needs to have certain elements. One of the design issues for the clock is how to provide these elements. Below is a description of seven of the elements that I think are needed. Variations of this list have been discovered and identified many times by anthropologists and storytellers

THE IMAGE

Before committing to the journey the travelers must have a picture in their minds of what they want to reach. They need a picture of the goal at the end of the journey. If I travel to Paris, I imagine the Eiffel tower. If I go to see the movie Titanic, I expect to see a ship sink. This is what I mean by the Image. It is a simple picture that travelers can hold in their minds of what they are going to accomplish.

Storytellers and designers are mostly concerned with motivation at this point (what Campbell calls the Call to Adventure). I am not so concerned with the Why, but about the What. What is their picture of visiting the clock? A compelling image is a sufficient attraction. Why do you want to visit the Taj Mahal or the Great Pyramid? In part, it is because you can imagine them. The Image is particularly important to the clock, because most people will probably never visit it. For them, the clock will be the Image.

THE EMBARKATION

If someone is going to set out on a quest, there must be a moment of beginning, where they make a transition from everyday life into the special state of pilgrim. Part of what makes the state special is that it is clearly defined. The Hajji change into their Ihram cloths. The visitor to Disneyland crosses through a turnstile, under a tunnel, and emerges into the park.

In the case of the journey to the clock, the visitor will have to travel to the clock site, but since we have no control over that preparatory journey, we need to mark the beginning of the trip with something specific, such as crossing a threshold.

THE LABYRINTH

The spiritual journey requires leaving the world behind, and the most effective way to do this is to force people to focus on the immediate. The best way to do that is fear. This is what Victor Turner calls the Liminal Zone (i.e. the Twilight Zone). Campbell calls it the Belly of the Whale. This is the confusing maze through which the traveler must pass on the way to the goal. This is not just a trial to overcome (although this is part of it), but it is disorientation that leaves the travelers unsure of what they know. The state of confusion is a necessary precondition to reintegration in a new state of mind.

THE DRAW

Part of what pulls the pilgrim forward through the labyrinth is glimpses of some indicator of the goal. This what the a screenwriter calls the McGuffin, or a theme park designer calls the Wienie (for instance, Cinderella's Castle in center of the park.) This is a beacon that lets us see where we are headed and draws us forward through the difficulties.

I speak of the Labyrinth, the Draw and the Payoff as if they are separate events, but in actuality that are interleaved, so the traveler is alternately challenged and led forward, given partial payoffs and tantalizing promises, punctuated by setbacks and disappointments. The rhythm of this alternation of tension and release, building to a climax, is part of the art of the storyteller.

THE PAYOFF

The payoff is the point at which the goal of the journey is achieved, and it must be definite and specific. The traveler of course imagines the Image as the payoff. The good journey will deliver the image, hopefully suddenly and unambiguously. The great journey will do something more. After it delivers the Image, which is the apparent payoff, it will deliver something more, the Secret Payoff. The Secret Payoff is beyond what the traveler was expecting, and by its very nature, it cannot be fully understood by those who have not completed the journey.

The entire Journey is actually a set up for the secret payoff. Having passed through the stresses of the Labyrinth the traveler is relieved to find the apparent payoff. But since the Apparent Payoff is anticipated, it can never be entirely satisfying. This state of relieved tension and slight let down prepares the traveler perfectly for the secret payoff.

THE RETURN

Having gained the boon, the traveler must now make the return journey to the real world. This cannot happen suddenly, or the newfound state will not have a chance to be assimilated by the traveler. The return must take time. It gradually brings the traveler back home to the ordinary world. Ideally the return should be marked by a clear transition, but by then the assimilation should have already happened, and the traveler should be ready to return.

THE MEMENTO

Finally, the travelers must be left with some physical reminder of the experience, something to remind them of what they accomplished. This is a souvenir, or the trophy. It must be something physical. It is preferably something rare or valuable but not useful, so that it will not be lost.

This list is not exhaustive or exact. I learned many of these ideas at Disney. Others I picked up from Joseph Campbell, Victor Turner, Larry Keeley, and Claude Levi-Strauss. They each discuss different variations of these elements, but the spirit of what they are describing is much the same.

To see how universal the list is, try mapping it against a common ritual. Consider a wedding:

The Image: The picture of the bride and groom standing together at the end of the aisle.
The Embarkation: The Proposal.
The Labyrinth: The Bachelor's Party.
The Draw: The Groom waiting at the end of the aisle.
The Apparent Payoff: "You may kiss the bride."
The Secret Payoff: The Consummation.
The Return. The Honeymoon.
The Memento. The Ring.

When applied to the clock I could imagine that the Image is an image of the clock, or possibly the structure that contains it. Because that must be iconic, I see that as the most difficult design element. I think the Embarkation should be relatively easy to mark if the journey is a trip up the mountain. The Labyrinth would obviously be best done if part of the journey is underground. The Draw can be literal glimpses of something that marks the location of the clock. (Right now I am enamored with a glint of light at the top of the mountain.) The Apparent Payoff will be seeing the clock as it looks in the Image. Right now my favorite candidate for the Secret Payoff is listening to the chimes.

— Danny Hillis

The Creative Process of Architect Santiago Calatrava

Santiago For Calatrava, who is one of the world’s most successful architects, sketching with watercolors is an essential part of his creative process. He does not work with a computer or with drafting equipment; each of his buildings begins with a sheaf of paint-dappled pages.

Calatrava typically paints images—a leaping figure, a charging bull, a disembodied eye, a skeletal hand—that at first seem to have nothing to do with buildings but, rather, suggest the contents of the sketchbook of an art student who has spent the afternoon at MOMA lingering over the Picassos. The relevance of such drawings becomes fully apparent in Calatrava’s completed structures, which are instantly recognizable for their use of sculptural forms that draw upon motifs found in the natural world.

The Turning Torso tower, in Malmö, Sweden was inspired by Calatrava's study of the human spine.










What I found most interesting about Calatrava was his signature move of sketching in public. In her New Yorker article Mead describes how Calatrava has used this to help win important commissions.
In Liège, Belgium, Calatrava was one of seven contestants in an architectural competition to design a high-speed-train station. His rivals came in teams, armed with examples of their past work; Calatrava showed up alone, with his paintbrush, and won the commission. In January, 2004, while presenting his proposal for a new PATH transit hub for the World Trade Center site, Calatrava drew in chalk a child releasing a bird from her hands, thus conveying the genesis of the design, in which a pair of glass-and-steel canopies would arch over the sidewalks of lower Manhattan, like outstretched wings.

Read the full article describing Calatrava's life and creative process in the following New Yorker article:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/09/01/080901fa_fact_mead