2025 № 2 (53)

UDC 14; 93/94

LBC 71; 87

DOI: 10.51678/2226-0072-2025-2-94-127

For cit.: Sazikov A.V. Counterculture and Social Revolution in the Context of Project Activity. Appropriate Technology and the Whole Earth Catalog. Hudozhestvennaya kul’tura [Art & Culture Studies], 2025, no. 2, pp. 94–127. https://doi.org/10.51678/2226-0072-2025-2-94-127. (In Russian)

Sazikov Aleksey V. 

PhD (in Art History), Head of the Department of Artistic Problems of Design, Decorative and Folk Arts, Research Institute of the Theory and History of Fine Arts, Russian Academy of Arts, 21 Prechistenka Str., Moscow, 119034, Russia

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9388-8894

ResearcherID: T-9354-2019

Scopus Author ID: 57190030231

a_sazikov@mail.ru

Counterculture and Social Revolution in the Context of Project Activity. Appropriate Technology and the Whole Earth Catalog

Abstract. The article examines the importance of counterculture and alternative technologies, primarily appropriate technologies, in shaping the environmental movement aimed at using scientific achievements, new technologies, ecological thinking, and ecodesign in the social revolution in the West in the 1960s and 1970s. Maintaining energy and information awareness were described as the basic skills needed to change the system. The article shows how under the influence of the politics of the New Left the representatives of the counterculture, such as the publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog Stuart Brand, designers Richard Buckminster Fuller and Victor Papanek, and organizations such as the New Alchemy Institute began to work on creating an alternative society from scratch, adapting science and technology for people. The fusion of technology and counterculture became the key to personal freedom and self-sufficiency.

Keywords: counterculture, the New Left, appropriate technology, New Alchemy Institute, Whole Earth Catalog, Steward Brand, Richard Buckminster Fuller, Victor Papanek

References:

Bukchin M. Anarkhizm ehpokhi posle defitsita [Post-Scarcity Anarchism], transl. from English. Ru.anarchistlibraries.net. Available at: https://ru.anarchistlibraries.net/library/bukchin-miurrei-anarkhizm-epokhi-posle-defitsita (accessed 05.02.2025). (In Russian)

Papanek V. Dizain dlya real’nogo mira [Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change], transl. from English. Moscow, Izdatel’ D. Aronov Publ., 2004. 416 p. (In Russian)

Papanek V. Zelenyi imperativ. Rukovodstvo po ehkologichnomu i ehtichnomu dizainu i arkhitekture [The Green Imperative. Natural Design for the Real World], transl. from English. Moscow, Bombora Publ., 2022. 384 p. (In Russian)

Roszak T. Istoki kontrkul’tury [The Making of a Counter Culture], transl. from English O.A. Myshakova. Moscow, AST Publ., 2014. 384 p. (In Russian)

Fuller R. Bakminster. Kosmicheskii korabl’ “Zemlya”. Rukovodstvo po ehkspluatatsii [Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth], transl. from English A. Tereshchenko. Moscow, Izdatel’ D. Aronov Publ., 2018. 120 p. (In Russian)

Schumacher E.F. Maloe prekrasno. Ehkonomika, v kotoroi lyudi imeyut znachenie [Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as If People Mattered], transl. from English, notes D.O. Aronson. Moscow, Izdatel’skii dom Vysshei shkoly ehkonomiki Publ., 2012. 352 p. (In Russian)

Bookchin M. (Herber L.). Our Synthetic Environment. New York, Knopf, 1962. 285 p.

Brautigan R. All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. San Francisco, The Communication Company, 1967. Available at: https://allpoetry.com/All-Watched-Over-By-Machines-Of-Loving-Grace (accessed 02.02.2025).

Gottlieb R. Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement. Washington, Island Press, 1993. 413 p.

Hays S.P., Hays B.D. Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955–1985. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1987. 630 p.

Kirk A. “Machines of Loving Grace”: Alternative Technology, Environment and the Counterculture. Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s and 70s, eds. Peter Braunstein and Micael William Doyl. New York, London, Routledge, 2002, pp. 353–378.

R. Buckminster Fuller: An Autobiographical Monologue/Scenario, ed. R. Snyder. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1980. 218 p.

Roszak T. Machines of Loving Grace. Roszak T. From Satori to Silicon Valley. 2000. Available at: https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/primary/docs/satori/machines.html (accessed 07.02.2025).

Rybczynski W. Paper Heroes: A Review of Appropriate Technology. New York, Anchor Books, 1980. Available at: https://archive.org/details/paperheroesrevie0000rybc/page/n5/mode/2up (accessed 07.02.2025).

Secrest C. “No Right to be Poor”: Colorado’s Drop City. Colorado Heritage, 1998, Winter, pp. 14–21.

Signal: Communications Tools for the Information Age. A Whole Earth Catalog, ed. K. Kelly. New York, Harmony Books, 1988. 226 p.

Soft-Tech, eds. J. Baldwin, S. Brand. Penguin Books, 1978. 175 p.

Stop the Five Gallon Flush! A Survey of Alternative Waste Disposal Systems, W. Rybczynski, A. Ortega, N. Schoenauer. Montréal, The Minimum Cost Housing Group, 1973. 66 p.

Todd J. The New Alchemists. Soft-Tech, eds. J. Baldwin, S. Brand. Penguin Books, 1978, pp. 149–158.

Trim H. An Ark for the Future: Science, Technology, and the Canadian Back-to-the-Land Movement of the 1970s. Canadian Countercultures and the Environment, ed. C. Coates. Calgary, University of Calgary Press, 2016, pp. 153–177.

Wahl D.C. El Instituto de la Nueva Alquimia. ECOHABITAR, 2008, no. 16, pp. 33–35.

Winner L. Building a Better Mousetrap: Appropriate Technology as a Social Movement. Appropriate Technology and Social Values: A Critical Appraisal, eds. F.A. Long, A. Oleson. Cambridge, Ballinger, 1980, pp. 27–52.

Wolfe T. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York: Bantam Books, 1999. Available at: https://archive.org/details/the-electric-kool-aid-acid-test-4/mode/2up (accessed 21.02.2025).

‘You’ve Got to Find What You Love,’ Jobs Says. Stanford Report, 12.06.2005. Available at: https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2005/06/youve-got-find-love-jobs-says (accessed 15.02.2025).

Received 11.02.2025

Accepted 29.03.2025