Empowering a Creative Path Forward (1,000 + Followers!)

voronoi (70)in #future • 7 years ago (edited)

1,000 + Followers !

Unreal! I'm humbled. This community is incredible. As an urban planner / architect / artist / creative human I've never felt so empowered. I promise you all that I will continue to build, improve and create content that means something to each and every one of you. This is just the beginning of something very exciting...

I've never felt so connected and supported by a community as I have with Steemit. For years, I've looked for a place to host my "sketchbook" of ideas... a flexible kind of forum where I could publish content, discover, make mistakes, receive honest feedback, build a network of like minded people and maybe even churn out a dollar or two in the process. When I stumbled onto Steemit last year, those dormant creative juices were brought to a boil. It supercharged my creative thinking in ways I had never imagined. This is not a website. It's a true place where people genuinely interact, explore and create. It's been an amazing ride so far. Thank you all so much for your support and enthusiasm along the way.

What's going on in the world of @voronoi...

My mission on Steemit? ... use creative arts to engage a global audience for the purpose of empowering local communities. With Steemit Park, I'm attempting to practice what I preach. Alongside @hansikhouse, were seeking to flip an outdated hierarchy - and create a true grass-roots community project.

Steemit Park!

“Steemit Park” is an interactive community garden in the heart of Brooklyn, New York. Located within the historic Herbert von King Park: Steemit Park is a grass-roots pop-up installation that will be used to host Steemit meetups, local community events, workshops and dozens of activities throughout the year. It will be the first public park project funded ENTIRELY through cryptocurrency. We're incredibly excited for this project and are working very hard behind the scenes to ensure that it is a major success. Our goal is to achieve HUGE visibility for Steemit while empowering a local community in need without shedding a single local dollar in the process. Steemit Park is expected to launch in July (next month!)

Steemit Park People to follow :

I'm working on this community project alongside @hansikhouse (FOLLOW THIS GUY)
Together we make up the collective @hitheryon. Follow these accounts for more updates on the Park and on how you can get involved!

A Look Back...

It's been a very busy several months! These projects (below) were all part of my digital "sketchbook." Here are a few bookmarks and highlights / a walk down memory lane...

"Hello friends, Welcome to Steemit!" I'm proud to say that my "Welcome" post has been translated into 3 languages:

STEEMTOWN : Community Art Experiment

One project that really got me acquainted with the Steemit community was an art project called STEEMTOWN. I used comments as suggestions to build a digital model of a town. It was super fun and really engaging. This is something that I've been meaning to kickstart again... Hopefully you'll see this town experiment pop up again this summer! Here's a blurb about the project below:

STEEMTOWN is an ongoing community art project powered through your comments and ideas. It’s an experimental game of city-making, a digital Madurodam, where my role is the builder and yours is the planner and curator. Each post, a new layer of buildings will be added to the Town. Your photographs, quotes, stories and feedback are the raw materials that drive construction for each new layer. For more, here is a link to the introductory post of STEEMTOWN and the project mission.

A New Formula for Public Realm

Much of my writing is about how Steemit and blockchain tech. can impact the design world. For example; art, architecture and the way we perceive public spaces. (Link to post here)

Cities are molded and defined through their networks. In the past, these seemingly connective infrastructures of energy, transportation and economy have worked largely independent of one another. Today, web-based technology is providing a new and unprecedented digital-network that will push cities to evolve differently. Here are some thoughts on how Steemit’s digital ecosystem may one day transfer over into the built environment…

Public Workshops

Blending digital communities with real communities. I frequently take part in public art workshops as well. Here's a project I did a couple of months ago in celebration of Earth Day in New York City:

"Broadway Boogie Woogie" - A collaborative drawing workshop celebrating Broadway as New York City’s signature North-South thoroughfare. For Earth Day, the public is invited to draw and create their own imaginary car-free city.

The project started with a big blank map of Manhattan, with Broadway (NYC's longest and oldest street) highlighted from top to bottom... From there I consulted with up-and-coming urban planning experts on how we could make Manhattan a greener and more fun place to live...

Trying something new...

In the middle of the crowd there you can see me and @hansikhouse taking notes at a @charlieshrem roundtable hosted by CoinDesk last fall. The event was mostly geared towards software engineers and bitcoin experts, so you could imagine how we were entirely out of our comfort zone… in a great and exciting way. I think it's important to put yourself out there - forcing yourself to explore something new. By exposing yourself to new disciplines you can add new layers to enliven the work that you are passionate about. We asked questions, made connections and learned a tremendous amount. I encourage everyone to not only forge relationships on Steemit.com but in meetups, events and other gatherings locally in your own community.

Going forward I want to continue trying new things and exploring the possibilities of this great community. STEEM and Steemit are so amazingly young. This is just the beginning of something very exciting...

Thank you all + STEEM ON !