Be Here Now

TEDxPhilly invites local visionaries to expound upon whatever's on their mind at this very moment.

by Holly Otterbein

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Published: Nov 17, 2010

TALKING HEADS: TEDxPhilly participants include (top to bottom) Hybrid X Team founder Simon Hauger, musician Dallas Vietty and film director Tanya Hamilton.

Artwork: Sean Martorana
Photography: Dan King

[ idea factory ]

When the speakers for TEDxPhilly talk about its theme — "right here, right now" — they don't bring up Eastern mindfulness, the zeitgeist or anything else highbrow.

They talk about Van Halen, Fatboy Slim and Jesus Jones.

"My brain skipped right over the Buddhist interpretation of that and went for the Van Halen song," says Zoe Strauss, Philly's un-official photographer laureate. Likewise, TEDxPhilly's organizer, Roz Duffy, asks, "Have you heard of the Jesus Jones song? From the '90s? That's what I think of."

It's totally Philly to conflate a spinoff of TED — the bourgeois, wonderfully cerebral conference founded in '84, which has featured such speakers as Bill Gates, Malcolm Gladwell and Jane Goodall chatting about topics like fair labor practices, spaghetti sauce and strokes — with Sammy Hagar et al. And that's not the only way we've made the California-born event our own: Most TEDx programs — independently organized TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) events, which the community plans completely with the global conference's blessing — invite speakers from all over. Not so in Philly: All 17 are locals (unless you don't count Stephen Powers, a current New Yorker who grew up in West Philly, though he's really an honorary citizen since plastering "A Love Letter for You" along the El).

"We wanted to share Philadelphia with the world," explains Duffy. "Plus, we originally came up with a list of 200 people who could be speakers, and we had to whittle it down somehow." Duffy, who also co-organizes BarCamp Philly, was moved to create the city's first-ever TEDx event after attending one in Baltimore; anyone, even a child, can head her own TEDx program, so long as she gets approval from the nonprofit.

The final lineup is delicately curated: There's Powers and Strauss, and there's urban ag activist Nic Esposito and West Philly Hybrid X Team founder Simon Hauger. There's Science Leadership Academy principal Chris Lehmann, Zahav chef Michael Solomonov, Temple neurologist Iyad Obeid, Night Catches Us director Tanya Hamilton and many more, all riffing on the "right here, right now" theme for about 18 minutes each. Plus, there'll be live music: Between speeches, Dallas Vietty's Musette Project will play buoyant, French accordion waltz pieces from the mid-20th century, and parts of his unfinished suite about the Delaware River.

Interestingly, the musician in the group doesn't first think of Van Halen when interpreting the event's "right here, right now" theme — and he won't be covering the song, either, thank you very much. Instead, he believes the appreciation of his muse, the river, is rooted in the moment. "I moved from the Mojave Desert to Bucks County, and the natural surroundings are very inspiring," he says.

Strauss takes an even more liberal approach to the leitmotif. "I think it means, literally, this moment right now, so you could talk about anything," she says. "I'm not even going to be fake and pretend to expound."

That translates to a discussion of her famed I-95 project, in which Strauss exhibited and sold photographs below the underpass every spring for 10 years, in hopes of bringing art to non-elites. "I'm going to include some personal stuff about the project, which I don't usually do, because who wants to hear about that?" she asks. "But I think it works, because in the end that's just about where I'm from, South Philadelphia."

Duffy calls Strauss' presentation "a visual masterpiece, with hundreds of slides." And, for the record, the artist's broad-minded analysis is fine with her: "We're just trying to capture what's happening right here, right now in Philadelphia."

For those interested in attending TEDxPhilly, you'll be disappointed to know that all 600 Kimmel Center Perelman Theater seats are already sold out. The good news: National Mechanics is live-streaming the conference all day long, and each talk will be taped and eventually available online.

For those blessed enough to score a ticket, TEDxPhilly won't provide wireless access — another example of how the local event is distancing itself from its national inspiration. TED first took place in the tech-lusting Silicon Valley, after all, and when free videos from the conference were posted online in '06, the program went viral: The 700-some talks have been viewed more than 290 million times. Still, Duffy is insistent on the no-Internet thing, despite the event running from 9 a.m. all the way to 6 p.m. on a Thursday.

"I don't want people to bring their laptops or look at their phones," she says. "I really want them to unplug and step outside of their normal day-to-day, and listen."

(holly.otterbein@citypaper.net)

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