Robert Frenay

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Robert Frenay
Born1946
Occupation Philosopher, Author, Public Speaker

Robert Frenay (1946-January 27, 2007) was an American author and lecturer who described and advocated a green or ecologically conscious approach to technological development and development of human civilization. Frenay lived in the state of New York dividing his time between New York City and Bridgeport in upstate New York. [1] [2]

New York (state) American state

New York is a state in the Northeastern United States. New York was one of the original thirteen colonies that formed the United States. With an estimated 19.54 million residents in 2018, it is the fourth most populous state. In order to distinguish the state from the city with the same name, it is sometimes referred to as New York State.

New York City Largest city in the United States

The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2018 population of 8,398,748 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 19,979,477 people in its 2018 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 22,679,948 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.

Upstate New York Region of New York State north of the New York City metropolitan area

Upstate New York is the portion of the American state of New York lying north of the New York metropolitan area. The Upstate region includes most of the land area of the state of New York, but a minority of the state's population. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Island, and most definitions of the region exclude all or part of Westchester and Rockland counties. Major cities in Upstate New York include Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, and Syracuse.

Contents

Early life

Frenay began his professional life as an artist and photographer, an architectural draftsman and graphic designer. After spending some time as a jazz critic, jazz magazine publisher and jazz event coordinator, Frenay went to work for various periodicals doing article research. He ended up as a feature writer and contributing editor at Audubon Magazine after heading up an effort to raise money and acquire property for a green community plan in upstate New York. He covered developments in nature and technology for the magazine.

Artist person who creates, practises and/or demonstrates any art

An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only. The term is often used in the entertainment business, especially in a business context, for musicians and other performers. "Artiste" is a variant used in English only in this context; this use is becoming rare. Use of the term to describe writers, for example, is valid, but less common, and mostly restricted to contexts like criticism.

Photographer person who takes photographs

A photographer is a person who makes photographs.

Graphic designer person who who assembles images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design

A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures (sometimes) and advertising. They are also sometimes responsible for typesetting, illustration, user interfaces, and web design. A core responsibility of the designer's job is to present information in a way that is both accessible and memorable.

Pulse

Frenay left his editing position at Audubon to work on his first book, Pulse: The Coming Age of Systems and Machines Inspired by Living Things (also published with the title Pulse: How Nature is inspiring the technology of the 21st century). The book was published in 2006. Frenay also maintained a website where the entire text of his book was available for free online along with links to the original sources in the text, relevant websites and frequent posts from the author and others regarding the various subjects of the book: environmentalism, anti-corporatism, green machine mentality, ecology, environmental thinking, etc. The book covered a number of distinct topics, leading reviewer Aparna Sreenivasan from the San Francisco Chronicle to write that "there is no question that a lot of solid research went into compiling these fascinating stories. The main criticism is that the many ideas that Frenay describes sometime seem to lack a common thread." [3]

Environmentalism broad philosophy, ideology and social movement concerning environmental wellbeing

Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the impact of changes to the environment on humans, animals, plants and non-living matter. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecology combines the ideology of social ecology and environmentalism. Ecology is more commonly used in continental European languages while ‘environmentalism’ is more commonly used in English but the words have slightly different connotations.

<i>San Francisco Chronicle</i> newspaper serving the San Francisco Bay area

The San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of northern California in the United States. It was founded in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The paper is owned by the Hearst Corporation, which bought it from the de Young family in 2000. It is the only major daily paper covering the city and county of San Francisco.

Philosophical and/or political views

Frenay sought to convey a history of technological development through a machine age into a period that is just beginning which he regarded as a new biological age of technology in which computer memory will be based on DNA, computer software will work according to the logic of human emotions, human systems and human inventions will meld into a new biology based relationship. His book advocated recycling of all waste, greater control of corporations to prevent pollution and waste, government support of environment-based technology development. His view was a positive vision of future industrial, military, agricultural and commercial technological developments. While the basis of his book was a single idea, he reflected that idea throughout history, cultural philosophy, technological change and invention as he "charted the shift from machines to biology bolstered by computers: a type of 'new biology' in which human systems and machines meld to form new possibilities". [4]

On his website, Frenay wrote "PULSE is a book of ideas, a philosophy disguised as pop science. While it offers gee-whiz stories about cutting-edge technology, these stories are also meant as parables. Like Aesop's fables, they aim to illustrate something more—in this case the core dynamics of how living systems work". [5]

Frenay also sought to describe a mode of invention, a mentality of human development based in discovery of humanity's natural, evolutionary direction and modality rather than purely atavistic or profit-motivated industrial development. He didn't describe this mode of development as a vision of a possible way of becoming a future human civilization but rather sought to demonstrate that this was the inevitable refined direction of human development. "According to Frenay, humanity is on the cusp of a new evolutionary change, where we are likely to see emotional computers, ships that move like swimming fish, and accelerated evolution." [6]

Shortly after the publication of Pulse in April, 2006, Frenay was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and succumbed to the disease, passing away on Jan 26, 2007.

Bibliography

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Frenay, R. (2006). Pulse: The Coming Age of Systems and Machines Inspired by Living Things. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN   9780374113278 . Retrieved 2015-04-13.
  2. ↑ "Robert C. Frenay's Obituary on Syracuse Post Standard". syracuse.com.
  3. ↑ "The evolution of science / A road map leading to the experimental age - SFGate". sfgate.com. Retrieved 2015-04-13.
  4. ↑ "MBR: California Bookwatch, June 2006". midwestbookreview.com. Retrieved 2015-04-13.
  5. ↑ Frenay, Robert. "Robert Frenay » Pulse". pulsethebook.com. FSG. Archived from the original on 2008-06-12. Retrieved 2015-04-13.
  6. ↑ "Science Book Reviews - May 4, 2006". scienceagogo.com. Retrieved 2015-04-13.
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