To the passerby, Esparza’s Auto-Photosynthetic Plants was a maze of static tubes and microscopes. Within the clear tubes, a world of energy was being created. Here’s how it works: Esparza used the tubes to connect the energy created from several microbial fuel cells populated with polluted waters from Mexico. The tubes directed the energy flowing between the cells onto a micro-energy harvester. He allowed the energy to collect in the harvester, and when it had reached a certain point, the energy was fired into an oscillator. This device then created a sonic interpretation of the energy and a sound was emitted, giving the tiny microbes a voice.

Esparza was also able to place microbial fuel cells under a microscope, and then project the microscope’s image onto a screen. His installation read the image and translated that microscopic image into sound variations. According to Esparza, his work was an “installation that talks,” and that conversation was about pollution.

As a young boy, Esparza was fascinated by science fiction. He strives for his work to tell a fascinating story like the stories that inspired him as a child, yet creates that story from truth rather than fantasy. In his latest work, Esparza is leveraging the power of pollution to fuel animal-like robots that carry plants to their food source, clean the food source, and perpetuate the energy that supplies the robotic movement. His projects are a blend of passionate artistry and the fine-tuned research of a dedicated scientist – perhaps the two go hand in hand.

Esparza was chosen by Lincoln Motor Company to create a work for the Lincoln Reimagine Project™. He will develop a new piece derived from his Platas Nomadas [link?] project, which will highlight research about rivers that have become urban drainage networks. He plans to create energy extraction from the pollution in the rivers to promote life in urban spaces where it does not grow naturally any more.

Esparza will collect water samples in different points of a city in order to construct modules made with microbial fuel cells. Each module will generate energy in the form of light to grow living plants in urban spaces without solar light. At the same time, all this energetic activity will be translated into sounds, because even cells have to express themselves.

Esparza continues to write the story of the effects of technology on social relations and economic phenomena as well as their impact on the environment and the urban structure. It’s a fascinating tale of science, and not fictitious in the slightest.

Robson’s sculptures are just one part of her work as a multimedia artist whose goal is to change the world. She describes herself as a “subtle yet determined environmental activist” with the dream of changing artists’ roles to be creators of work that has more purpose. She has exhibited her work internationally at museums, galleries and public spaces. Her goal is not just to recycle, but to inspire other artists to do what she does with her junk mail and empty bottles: create a fascinating piece of art.

As a child, Robson suffered from debilitating nightmares. When she closed her eyes at night, she was shrunk down in size and transported to another planet. In her dreams she saw her tiny self jumping over sharp objects among monstrous terrifying beings. She was always safe, but the danger was growing every second. The worlds of her childhood nightmares now serve as the inspiration for her work.

Her sculptures are beautiful and serene but haunting; the perfect incisions of a plastic bottle and sharp claw of an aluminum can evoke a monstrous feeling to her work. The sculptures are not only representative of taking something harmful and turning it into beauty, but they are a haunting warning of what beauty can be lost if we don’t conserve, soon.

Lincoln has chosen Robson as an honoree of the Lincoln Reimagine™ Project. In collaboration with TED and Lincoln, Robson will continue to develop her own Project Vortex. Robson and her Project Vortex partners will match other artists with nonprofit conservation initiatives in order to supply them with non-recyclable materials so that they can create sculptures and works of art. Their works will then be sold with the profits feeding back into the conservation initiatives. It’s a completely new way to recycle – not just reuse, but reimagine.

“There’s nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.” – Harry Truman

It started with an idea – to say hello, again to those familiar things that inspire us. The power of the imagination compelled us, and we found ourselves drawn to the challenges of reinvention. We gave new life to a familiar classic, pontificated on design, and even gave a literary icon a fresh look. The journey was to rediscover the things that inspire us and in turn, reimagine ourselves. Then, we had another idea: Introducing the Lincoln Reimagine Project™.

As part of The Lincoln Reimagine Project™, Lincoln and TED are collaborating to uncover new perspectives on art and technology. With the assistance of TED Fellows Nassim Assefi and Gabriella Gomez-Mont, Lincoln identified three thought leaders who are reaching beyond the boundaries of art to reimagine the ordinary and familiar.

Over the next three weeks we will showcase garbage-filled sculptures, an intuitive heavy-metal orchestra, and cells that can sing. These thought-provoking projects from artists Andy Cavatorta, Gilberto Esparza, and Aurora Robson are not just art, but tools we will soon use to make our world a better one. Their imaginative works are the history of what you do not know, but will soon find out.

And yet, the mild-mannered Cavatorta began his career as a punk rocker in the 80s and 90s, and his currently shaved head was likely the home of a Mohawk hairstyle at one time. Perhaps not all punk rock is created equal.

His creation for this year’s TED Active was The Dervishes, a musical installation featuring 14 spinning machines which create controlled voice-like tones through their motions. It is a caged animal of angelic sound – a robot that spins plastic tubes in a widespread circular motion to create a harmony. The tubes spin sometimes slowly and sometimes violently. The structure itself resembles a cyclone of heavy metal and plastic.

Cavatorta was inspired by the 16th century polyphonic music of Lassus, Tallis, and Byrd. For The Dervishes to create different notes, Cavatorta cuts the plastic tubes down in various sizes. Air whips down each tube as it spins, creating sound. The tubes are controlled by a computer that uses complex algorithms to deliver notes that Cavatorta has extrapolated from a piece of music. The sound produced is harmonious and heavenly, and two listeners would never agree on which era the song belongs.

As a rocker living in New York City, Cavatorta would find different instruments discarded on the streets and in the trash. He found himself writing completely new music on the found instruments and giving new life to his former compositions. These instruments were alive, had a history — and he was exploring their future.

The term “reimagine” resounds with Cavatorta. He has found that humans need new ways to say the same truths — truths that have been learned from the past.

As a chosen honoree for the Lincoln Reimagine Project™, Cavatorta plans to make The Dervishes into a more complex being and enable it to produce richer compositions. He will replace some of the metal and plastic with more advanced materials and plans to take the installation to a staging facility where he can properly test it. The next time we see The Dervishes it may look a little shinier, but it will always be punk rock.

The desert is a quiet place. Aside from the occasional gust of wind or rattle of a snake, the dusty landscape filled with Joshua trees and cacti is silent enough for a visitor to almost hear the groaning passage of the Milky Way overhead. In this relative silence, filmmaker Jeff Frost listens to whispers from nature. He has conversations that may be modern or ancient; they may be questions of the unknown or mere cosmic mischief. Frost hears this because he speaks to trees – and he wants to let you in on what he’s heard.

The trees, I think of them as recorders of history.

Frost grew up in the Four Corners area of the Southwest, just outside of a Native American reservation. He moved to California to pursue a music career. He went out to the desert often, happiest among the rural landscapes resembling his home. It was a friend named steave who taught Frost to speak to trees. Steave told Frost that trees are not always serious because the universe isn’t always serious, and that a fallen tree could have just as much to say as one that was standing tall.

This ability has influenced Frost’s acclaimed timelapse films. His mesmerizing light painting techniques and ability to create a beautiful image using only flashlights and a long exposure caught the eye of Lincoln, which asked him to take part in the “Hello, Again” film series in which filmmakers are asked to reimagine the familiar into something fresh and new. Frost started to make his film in which he would reimagine life in a fallen tree. Days into shooting, steave was diagnosed with cancer.

Frost began to split his time between filming in the desert and keeping his friend company at the hospital, asking him about life, fear, and the unknown. The direction of his work changed, but not in the way he could have imagined.

“When I started this project it was about this renewal process and transformation,” says Frost. “It then became very much about how things change into something that’s the next step to your journey. It’s about change, but not just an endless cycle. It’s a cycle of renewal and rebirth, but central to that — extremely central to that — is change.”

When some filmmakers could have created a work exploring the dark tragedy of death and loss, Frost wanted to show something more magical. Not death, but change is what every living thing goes through. It is not loss that is inevitable, but the magic of not knowing what comes next.

“I like that idea of leaving something beautiful out in the middle of nowhere that nobody specifically owns and won’t last forever.”

“The tree doesn’t have life in its branches anymore,” says Frost, “but it goes into another state of being in the form of an artwork and the form of a video. Visually it goes into another state of being for anyone who runs into it — when they’re out in the middle of nowhere.”

The Milky Way groans on and the snakes continue to rattle, while these conversations persist.

The two connected over a love of experimentation in the animation medium and started to create works as a team. After gaining acclaim for their playful films, the two became known as one entity: Becky & Joe. Their combined skills make for an incredible team of exceptional discipline, but both say their best work has been born out of a simple and timeless idea: fun.

“Aesthetically, it’s telling stories. We’re keen to do more storytelling by using more techniques that we’re building up.” – Joe Pelling

Sloan and Pelling’s idea of fun might be rather unconventional; even other artists would call their creative process labor-intensive. When the Lincoln Motor Company asked Becky & Joe to create a film for their “Hello, Again” project in which filmmakers reimagine the familiar into something completely new, they wanted to explore the earlier techniques of raw animation using artistic manipulation on rolls of film. They began to scratch, etch, and stroke paint onto a pea-sized piece of acetate. They stitched the pieces together and projected them onto a wall, watching the work come to life. The process was tedious, but Sloan and Pelling persisted, miraculously able to envision the final product together as they squinted at the frames.

“The idea was taking inspiration from the past, but putting it into a new arena and new direction. It wasn’t just about taking inspiration from the past and mimicking it. That’s what interested us,” says Pelling.

Sloan and Pelling were taken aback by the beauty of the experimental footage put together on the tiny film frames, and were determined to show that these non-digital techniques could be as breathtaking on a digital platform and relevant when joined with modern music. Check out their Behind the Scenes footage here:

“We have an admiration for the traditional techniques and more raw filmmaking. Not that we’re against digital work or anything like that, but we’re trying to find a way to merge the two and capture the best bits of stuff that’s more handmade,” says Pelling. “That’s what’s evolved over our period of  work together. We’ve got more of a clear idea of what we do and why we do it.”

Their final film, “Tallest Heights,” consists of 7,000 frames stitched together perfectly in time with music. “We had to keep reworking things and keep pushing things into a new direction,” says Pelling. “We didn’t want it to feel like we were repeating something.”

Becky & Joe are one of four filmmakers selected to interpret the theme of “Hello, Again.” Their works will be rolling out on our Vimeo channel this month.

Eliot Rausch was sitting in his parents’ living room scrolling through emails on his phone. He had just called Vimeo to tell them he was too busy to take on a new project with Lincoln, one that would ask him to reimagine a piece of his life. His wife called him, but he missed the call because he was typing.

“Eliot…”

This was the house he grew up in. His parents were artists who had begged him as a young adult to get a job where he wouldn’t have to struggle to raise a family for the sake of a passion. He continued to silently press digital buttons on the tiny screen.

“Eliot.”

His wife called him again and he missed the call for a second time. He thought he heard mumbling but ignored it.

“Eliot, please put the phone down.”

Suddenly his fingers froze. The phrase was one he had heard earlier that day when his wife had asked him how she looked before she went to work. He put the phone down and saw his father and mother, staring at him with concern. It occurred to him that he was distracted — and had been for some time.

He remembered the way he used to love his wife, his work, and his life. There had been a time when he was more connected with these things, but that seemed a distant memory. Suddenly inspired to make a film about getting back to human relationships, he didn’t care how busy he was. He wanted to dig deeper and reimagine what it means to connect.

“This way of life is interrupting some real primal pieces of our human experience that are essential to fight for and hold on to.”

Rausch started his filmmaking career in the vaults of one of the largest advertising agencies in the country. As an intern, he taught himself how to edit and created films of his own. At one point he stole over 300 pictures from an image database to pursue a film idea, and wept at the final product and emotion he’d been able to express onscreen.

“I want to figure out if there’s a way of getting back to this fundamental human connectivity that we’re beginning to not celebrate as much.”

Rausch soon became known as a brilliant filmmaker in the advertising world. His fascination with the lives and interactions of others has propelled him to create beautiful works – advertising or otherwise.

“It’s exploration,” says Rausch of creating the films. “It’s taking tools and my artistic nature and offering those as gifts inside of pure and authentic relationships. What transpires from those moments of engagement are these little films that – and I’m always blown away by this –resonate so deeply with culture.”

With recognition came high demand. Time spent answering emails and calls outweighed the time he spent with his wife, family and friends. It wasn’t until the moment in his parents’ living room that he decided to make a change and say, “Hello, Again” to his life.

“I thought, what a great, facilitating, experimental opportunity to work out my own demons,” says Rausch. “To try to put something on film that might help me understand this reality that I’m living in was a therapeutic device. I became excited because I knew it could potentially save me.”

As Rausch made the film, he saw not only his life change, but the lives of his crew become affected as well. The actor and actress from the film are an actual married couple that Rausch met when casting for a previous project. They have since realized that most of their time together had been spent on digital devices, and have made rules to take time to disconnect. Rausch’s 19-year-old assistant cameraman was so affected by the film that he turned his phone off for three days – a huge change for him – and went surfing in Big Sur. His voice message can be heard on this behind-the-scenes video below:

The change in Rausch’s life was not monumental, but important. Now, he and his wife do not check their email in the morning until they have kissed one another good-bye and left their homes.

Rausch knows the future of relationships will be heavily digital, but the power of a real-life connection can overcome any device. “I’m trying to figure out what truth looks like in this space,” he says. “I want to embrace some of this nostalgia and sense of a time that once existed where I just felt more connected to human beings.”

Rausch is one of four filmmakers selected to interpret the theme of “Hello, Again.” Their works will be rolling out on our Vimeo channel this month.

When an object speaks to us across time, it’s because of its authenticity.

Design industry thought leader and Glass House Director Henry Urbach said this in response to a series of questions we asked him about the process of rebirth and the journey of design. Lincoln wanted to know: When it comes to design, what makes something worthwhile to reimagine?

We collaborated with Dwell Magazine to gather design-industry thought leaders like Urbach at the Fontenell Hotel in Palm Springs, CA, during Palm Springs Modernism Week 2013. Artists, designers and architects alike gathered together to discuss reimagined design with us. The innovators described what it feels like to see a familiar object or hear a familiar song in a completely new way, share their thoughts on the creative process of rebirth, and, perhaps our favorite query: What would they like to see reimagined?

Art & architecture is about conveying emotion & storytelling. It’s a reiteration of ideas in a modern context.

“There has to be a difference between modern principles and nostalgia,” said architect Ana Escalante. “Taking principles that others learned…and just running with it. It’s almost like a relay race.” Walking into the Fontenell Hotel, that relay race is apparent. The hotel is more of a resort, with seven houses surrounding a triangular pool. The houses are impeccably designed to celebrate mid-century modernism that was Palm Springs’ heyday, complete with pink, yellow and turquoise kitchens meant to inspire. The resort is not one of reminiscence; it’s a collection of good design ideas in their original environments, ideas that have been used in new ways for the rest of time.

Good design is like good ideas. They are timeless.

After the questions were asked and conversations sparked in the cool air of the San Jacinto Mountains, groups of guests were paired with a design leader and travelled with him or her in Lincoln MKZ and MKS motorcars to dinner. The meals were held in stunning examples of Midcentury Modern architecture, which had been opened up to the exclusive guests. The groups continued their tête-à-tête about reimagination over several courses served in each of the homes. Among the guests were fashion designer Trina Turk, Falling Water Building Director Lynda Waggoner, and recording artist/design blogger Moby.

“Our prime need is to reassert our individuality,” said Jack Lenor Larsen about design as it relates to identity. “Not to be a sheep; to be different from the neighbors. To be ourselves, whatever that is. And to grow into being real people.”

Lincoln plans to continue reimagining the world around them in search of what may come from a good idea reborn.

Mitchell remained on the magazine’s staff throughout the rest of his life, until 1996. His period of silence was interpreted as writer’s block – until Thomas Kunkel, an author writing a biography of Mitchell, uncovered three unpublished pieces Mitchell wrote about New York City. One became the essay “Street Life: Becoming part of the city,” published in The New Yorker’s 2013 Anniversary Issue. The remaining two will be published in later issues.

To commemorate the discovery of new writing by Mitchell, the magazine devoted an evening of its monthly discussion series – “The Big Story,” presented by the Lincoln Motor Company – to discussing Mitchell’s legacy. “To get a piece from Joe Mitchell, who was to nonfiction writing what Hemingway was to fiction in the ’20s and ’30s, was an incredible gift,” says New Yorker editor David Remnick.

For Kunkel, a renewed appreciation for Mitchell provides a new generation of readers the chance to reimagine New York and the great mosaic of New Yorkers with the legendary writer as their guide.

Throughout his life, Mitchell roamed the city in tireless and methodical search of a good story. His wanderings brought him to every borough and allowed him to create vivid portraits of all types of people, finding the humor and the humanity in street preachers, saloon regulars, and the sideshow bearded lady.

“He was one of the first writers,” Kunkel says, “to show that you could create real literature from the lives of actual human beings.”

We salute this scholar of individuality.

Through the years, Tilley reappeared on the cover of the Anniversary issue, sometimes in his original form, but eventually reimagined by prominent graphic artist. The great underground comic artist R. Crumb depicted Tilley as a scowling punk. The photographer William Wegman reimagined Tilley as one of his trademark Weimaraner dogs.

Six years ago, The New Yorker gave readers an opportunity to get in on the act of reimagining Eustace Tilley by issuing a call for submissions to the Eustace Tilley Contest. That year, and every year since, readers responded with hundreds of designs, taking Tilley’s familiar features and giving them a fresh spin, often reflecting current trends in pop culture. Reader’s submissions for the 2013 contest included Tilleys inspired by Hurricane Sandy, the 2012 presidential election, emojis, and even planking. The most popular redesign in the first-ever Reader’s Choice Awards, sponsored by the Lincoln Motor Company, reimagined Eustace in the snapshot style of Instagram.

For The New Yorker’s art editor, Francoise Mouly, the annual contest is a reminder that there’s always a way to take a familiar icon and make it fresh and relevant for a new age – a concept we know all too well. “It gives us such a warm feeling to see the investment and the commitment and the playfulness of all the entries,” she says. “It’s nice to do this as a contest, because we aren’t looking for just one answer. We’re looking for as many answers as possible.”

Oh, the joy of reimagination….