it is an honour to be here again

last year i spoke of an invitation to a journey
at that point the next step in the journey was to istanbul
to the conference on human settlements

in that journey - i said -
we needed to go far beyond where we had gone
if we are going to turn around the imbalance
the disorder, the chaos, the unsustainability, the violence

we needed to go as far as we could in our minds
we need to go as far as we can
in connecting with each other in a global mind
in the global network of connectivity that is the internet

as i followed this journey
i came across a rather remarkable gift
a gift of light

i want to just take a moment
to dedicate this gift - this little cube

i call it the virtual light and colour cube
and i dedicate it now - here - as the peace cube

that is
    all of the colours that you can find in a computer
    virtually all the colours you can find anywhere
    in a little cube - in a little box

i had discovered, had realized - while on-line
while planning on-line follow-up to istanbul
about colours
about how they can be made up of
red green and blue light

a little later i suddenly became aware -
from the mathematics of it -
that this cube existed
at first i had no idea what it would look like

this is the first time it's really been seen in public
it is something that has many faces
and so many different directions

jennifer - who was working with me to assemble it - said
"can't we try to sort it out and
get a clearer sense of which goes where"

it soon became clear -
that each of the faces of the cubes
involved part of a journey from darkness to light

by adding the three primary colours -
red, green and blue - to darkness - to black
a whole series of patterns emerged

i have become immersed in these patterns
in discovering the wonderful gifts
they are bringing to us - gifts of colour and light

what soon became very clear is
    although we have have first been able to see
    this cube through the lens of a computer
    the properties - the qualities - of this cube
    are properties of light - properties of nature

    they're mirrored back from the "other side"
    from the virtual world

i just want to take a moment
to give you one very brief glimpse of the cube

and although you can't get the
iranian norooz cookies and sweets on-line
you will be able to get
the full story of this cube on-line
it'll be there very soon
parts of it already are

i began to realize that - it is very windy here
the patterns of moving from darkness to light
we can arrange them in patterns of
red, green, and blue
with a wonderful moving patterns

it turns out that there's another cube
which does the same thing but differently
it's going in the other direction
from blue to green to red

so i just wanted to dedicate this
and ask you to join with me...
we will be making a presentation of the cube
at the commission of sustainable development
and a major exhibition of this at the earth summit

this light can be a symbol
of all the different lights in one
an icon to guide us through the next millennium