From: IN%"[email protected]" "List for the discussion of Buckminster
Fuller's works" 26-OCT-1993 02:44:21.68
To: IN%"[email protected]" "Multiple recipients of list GEODESIC"
CC:
Subj: Fuller and his students
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Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 21:40:11 -0700
From: Alex Soojung-Kim Pang <apang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Fuller and his students
In-reply-to: <9310260409.AA09550@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> from "4D Solutions" at
Oct 25, 93 08:57:26 pm
Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works
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To: Multiple recipients of list GEODESIC <[email protected]>
Reply-to: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works
<[email protected]>
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>>>Die-hard Fuller apologists may suspect the master was playing hard ball
with his former student -- learn to self-promote, kid, like I did, cuz no
one else will do it for you.
This seems like a bit of a stretch, even for the best apologists--
"I'm stealing from you for your own good, it will make you stronger." I
would like to propose an alternative, that Fuller's relationship with
Snelson can be seen as an example of the problematic relations Fuller had
with students in this period, problematic because of claims Fuller made
as sponsor and inspiration of their work, and disputes over the ownership
of ideas and artifacts.
It comes as no surprise to readers of this list that Fuller was
always concerned to maintain control over his intellectual property rights.
Aside from the financial strain losing control of inventions brings to
inventors, there are deeper worries about losing other links between you
and your creation-- how it is used, who it is associated with, etc.. Fuller
required students to sign statements in which they swore to "protect my
proprietary rights," as he told an architecture professor. "In return for
their pledges," he continued,
"I agree to provide them with unrestrained, unguarded disclosures
of my evolving thougths concerning unique experiences and
emerging inventions."
So far not a bad bargain. But Fuller made very large claims about
the relative contributions he made to a student's work, and who ultimately
owned the fruits of a student's labor. At Washington University in 1955,
for example, after students complained that they had not been given sufficient
credit for their work in developing a prototype dome, Fuller fired back to
the Architecture School Dean:
"It must be remembered that the Dome was manufactured...
ONLY because I had an experience-fertilized teleological
design backlog.... It is true that every student was
responsible for some phase of ORIGINAL design conceptioning,
but none of them must make the mistake of thinking... that
they have been responsible for teleologic processes as yet
beyond the limits of their experience and capacity.... The
thesis students only designed the sub-complex forwarding
requirements of my preconceived comprehensive solution."
Now, once this is decoded, it contains a truly remarkable claim.
What I think Fuller is saying-- and this is the interpretation drawn by
several Architecture School professors-- is that because he developed
the mathematics by which domes were designed, and he IMAGINED the work
that students would do under him, that *students had no claim whatsoever
to authorship or anything they did under Fuller's direction.* The message
was not "learn to self-promote, kid," but rather "because I imagined all
this before I came here-- and because you're not old enough to have done
any of this on your own-- I own this work, and you don't. The fact that
YOU actually did the work is of not the slightest consequence."
This is hardly the only example of arguments Fuller had with students
and colleagues over the division of spoils and attribution of authorship in
collaborative projects; thoughout, Fuller maintained that HIS participation
was necessary for work to be done, and that this was sufficient to establish
exclusive ownership of prototypes and ideas. He ultimately broke with the
NC State School of Design, which had been a generous provider of support and
apparently gracious host to him, over precisely such issues.
In E.M. Forster's _Maurice_, a young Oxonian (Viscount Risley)
declares, "Words ARE deeds." For Fuller, if my take on him is right,
imagining was doing, and moreover, it was ownership.
Best,
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
Department of History, UC Berkeley
apang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Fuller's works" 26-OCT-1993 02:44:21.68
To: IN%"[email protected]" "Multiple recipients of list GEODESIC"
CC:
Subj: Fuller and his students
Return-path: <[email protected]>
Return-path: owner-geodesic <@PSUVM.PSU.EDU:owner-geodesic@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Received: from Jnet-DAEMON by ARCH.PSU.EDU (PMDF #12866) id
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Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 21:40:11 -0700
From: Alex Soojung-Kim Pang <apang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Fuller and his students
In-reply-to: <9310260409.AA09550@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> from "4D Solutions" at
Oct 25, 93 08:57:26 pm
Sender: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works
<[email protected]>
To: Multiple recipients of list GEODESIC <[email protected]>
Reply-to: List for the discussion of Buckminster Fuller's works
<[email protected]>
Message-id: <01H4JSNA067096VJZ1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
X-To: GEODESIC%UBVM.BITNET@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>Die-hard Fuller apologists may suspect the master was playing hard ball
with his former student -- learn to self-promote, kid, like I did, cuz no
one else will do it for you.
This seems like a bit of a stretch, even for the best apologists--
"I'm stealing from you for your own good, it will make you stronger." I
would like to propose an alternative, that Fuller's relationship with
Snelson can be seen as an example of the problematic relations Fuller had
with students in this period, problematic because of claims Fuller made
as sponsor and inspiration of their work, and disputes over the ownership
of ideas and artifacts.
It comes as no surprise to readers of this list that Fuller was
always concerned to maintain control over his intellectual property rights.
Aside from the financial strain losing control of inventions brings to
inventors, there are deeper worries about losing other links between you
and your creation-- how it is used, who it is associated with, etc.. Fuller
required students to sign statements in which they swore to "protect my
proprietary rights," as he told an architecture professor. "In return for
their pledges," he continued,
"I agree to provide them with unrestrained, unguarded disclosures
of my evolving thougths concerning unique experiences and
emerging inventions."
So far not a bad bargain. But Fuller made very large claims about
the relative contributions he made to a student's work, and who ultimately
owned the fruits of a student's labor. At Washington University in 1955,
for example, after students complained that they had not been given sufficient
credit for their work in developing a prototype dome, Fuller fired back to
the Architecture School Dean:
"It must be remembered that the Dome was manufactured...
ONLY because I had an experience-fertilized teleological
design backlog.... It is true that every student was
responsible for some phase of ORIGINAL design conceptioning,
but none of them must make the mistake of thinking... that
they have been responsible for teleologic processes as yet
beyond the limits of their experience and capacity.... The
thesis students only designed the sub-complex forwarding
requirements of my preconceived comprehensive solution."
Now, once this is decoded, it contains a truly remarkable claim.
What I think Fuller is saying-- and this is the interpretation drawn by
several Architecture School professors-- is that because he developed
the mathematics by which domes were designed, and he IMAGINED the work
that students would do under him, that *students had no claim whatsoever
to authorship or anything they did under Fuller's direction.* The message
was not "learn to self-promote, kid," but rather "because I imagined all
this before I came here-- and because you're not old enough to have done
any of this on your own-- I own this work, and you don't. The fact that
YOU actually did the work is of not the slightest consequence."
This is hardly the only example of arguments Fuller had with students
and colleagues over the division of spoils and attribution of authorship in
collaborative projects; thoughout, Fuller maintained that HIS participation
was necessary for work to be done, and that this was sufficient to establish
exclusive ownership of prototypes and ideas. He ultimately broke with the
NC State School of Design, which had been a generous provider of support and
apparently gracious host to him, over precisely such issues.
In E.M. Forster's _Maurice_, a young Oxonian (Viscount Risley)
declares, "Words ARE deeds." For Fuller, if my take on him is right,
imagining was doing, and moreover, it was ownership.
Best,
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
Department of History, UC Berkeley
apang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx