Graphic by Alyce Santoro
THE SOCIAL & SCIENTIFIC IMPLICATIONS
of the
PERFECTLY ROUND TORTILLA
by Alyce Santoro
W
hen I first set out to make art
about science I imagined
making technical renderings
of specimens in black ink for textbooks.
While enrolled in school for scientific
illustration, however, I found that sound,
sculpture, weaving, writing, gardening
and cooking are also media that can be
used to explore and express particular
aspects of the wonders of our world. As
years have passed, I’ve become increas-
ingly concerned with humanity’s impact
on nature and our inherent intercon-
nectedness with it and with one another.
I’m not exactly illustrating science any-
more as much as I’m attempting to
express – in lots of different ways – a
sense of awe at it.
“The things to do are: the things that
need doing that you see need to be done,
and that no one else seems to see need to
be done,” R. Buckminster Fuller said.
“Then you will conceive your own way
of doing that which needs to be done,
that no one else has told you to do or
how to do it. This will bring out the real
you that often gets buried inside a char-
acter that has acquired a superficial
array of behaviors induced or imposed
by others on the individual.”
I learned about Enrique Madrid
10
shortly after moving to Texas from
Brooklyn in 2006. I was in the midst of
a lengthy discussion with a new friend
on the possible social impact of discov-
eries in quantum physics when he men-
tioned a local scholar and native of the
Texas/Mexico border who had devel-
oped a formula that related Big Bang
Theory to the making of a perfectly
round tortilla. In that moment I knew
that a meeting with this man was
inevitable. I’d already created a piece
titled “The Universal Raisin Cake
Theory” based on an actual metaphor
that astrophysicists use to describe the
way the universe is expanding. Clearly
this connection between physics and
food would require further exploration.
In 2007, the Buckminster Fuller
Institute began offering an annual prize
to the individual or team that could
present the most universally accessible
and implementable strategy with the
potential to positively impact the great-
est number of people in the shortest pos-
sible time frame using the smallest num-
ber of resources. Bucky called this kind
of solution a “trimtab,” named for the
tiny rudder on an enormous ship that
performs the critical job of steering.
I had a hunch that the trimtab the
Cenizo
Third Quarter 2011
institute was looking for was going to be
something tangible – like bringing solar
power, sustainable agriculture or water
catchment to a remote village or design-
ing a way to supply the entire planet
with wireless Internet. I was pretty cer-
tain that the winning strategy would not
be a method of pointing out all the
unique, individual, creative ways in which
each of us – with a little encouragement
– are capable of becoming trimtabs.
But to me it seems that the most effi-
cient, affordable, accessible means of
changing the world for the better is like-
ly to come in the form of a collective
mental shift. What if enough of us sim-
ply decide it is possible to contribute in
positive ways to our families, communi-
ties, societies – and just do as much as we
can with whatever means we have avail-
able to help make it happen?
“All of humanity now has the option
to ‘make it’ successfully and sustainably,”
R. Buckminster Fuller said, “by virtue of
our having minds, discovering principles
and being able to employ these princi-
ples to do more with less.”
My mind kept working on the riddle
of the trimtab, but I didn’t submit a for-
mal entry to the competition until 2011.
I titled my proposal “the Instant &
Efficient Comprehensive & Synergetic
Omni-Solution, a Customizable, Inter -
disciplinary, Collaborative, Philo -
sophical Approach to Social Change.”
The SOS project would be a call to
action, a compendium of possible
strategies and a means of describing,
documenting and contributing to do-it-
ourselves revolutions currently under-
way around the world.
Just as I was about to submit my
application to the BFI, I was asked by
Ballroom Marfa to represent them in
the 2011 Texas Biennial, a statewide
showcase of galleries, museums and
artists. The beautiful old Masonic Hall
building in downtown Marfa was
offered as a place to present my project
during the last weekend in April. I was
thrilled to have the opportunity to
launch the Synergetic Omni-Solution so
close to home and wanted to include
local visionaries – people who seemed to
be engaged already in Synergetic Omni-
Solutions of their own. I knew immedi-
ately that Enrique Madrid and his tor-
tilla formula would be a perfect fit.
To many, the profound power and
meaning contained in the everyday act of
tortilla-making may not be so obvious.
In late March, after trying to make a