We are ducked

 

Just finished making and editing We Are Ducked, new work for the the Matterrealities exhibition in Cardiff School of Art and Design opens on Thursday 3rd March.

 

We Are Ducked is a response to eco-anxiety, a feeling of distress caused by uncertainty about the future of the planet and its ecosystems that can cause depression and hopelessness. With its humorous appearance and tongue in cheek pun that scrolls when the viewer activates a hand dynamo, the small electronic and wood sculpture We Are Ducked celebrates the joy of making and joking in the face of environmental adversity.

 

 

The companion video also titled We Are Ducked is a more open-ended contemplation shot on a beach by an industrial estate in Barry Wales. The bleak landscape is a backdrop for words spoken by machines, an attempt to synthesize complex existential and ecological parameters for life in 2022 and beyond.

 

 
The exhibition is part of the EASTN-DC European research project in digital creativity.

On est touffus

On est touffus
Boxwood, Oak, electronics, artificial hair

When the hand dynamo is activated, the carved skull displays a scrolling text in French that says:
ON EST FOUTUS
ON EST TOUFFUS
Translates as
WE ARE FUCKED
WE ARE BUSHY
Red ominous eyes then glow

 

In the Soyouz 4-21 exhibition @galerieoliviermeyer Nantes France

Opens 4-12-2021 15:30, until 18-12

https://galerieoliviermeyer.wixsite.com/nantes/soyouz-4-21

 

 

On est foutus benefited from funding from the EASTN-DC European Research project at Cardiff School of Art and Design

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Pony Express

A pretty radical take on environmentally friendly art from the Pony Express collective.
Their Epoch Wars is an attempt to challenge and re-invent the notion of Anthropocene, just in time when Symbiocene is making a comeback.

 

 

Check also their Ecosexual Bathhouse project, pushing the love of nature to sensual heights!

 

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                               '$    #.
                                $:   #:
                                *#  @):
                                :@,@):   ,.**:'
                      ,         :@@*: ..**'
                       '#o.    .:(@'.@*"'
                          'bq,..:,@@*'   ,*
                          ,p$q8,:@)'  .p*'
                         '    '@@Pp@@*'
                               Y7'.'
                              :@):.
                             .:@:'.
                           .::(@:.  

 

===> 2021


 


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                \.--         --./     
     ~-_    *  ./               \.   *   _-~
        ~-_   /    ^         ^    \   _-~     *
   *       ~-/    ___       ___    \-~        
     .      |    (_O_)     (_O_)    |      .
         * |                         | *     
-----------|                         |-----------
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        *   |    \             /    | *
           _-\    `.         .'    /-_    *
     .  _-~ . \     `-.___.-'     /   ~-_     
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    ~           /`--___   ___--'\           ~
           *  /        ---     .  \     .
            /     *     |           \
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                        |
                        |



 

Mud Satellite

Max builds and launches a mud satellite with antennas all around.

 

The Clearing, a report from the future

I found out recently about an excellent project: The Clearing, A Report From The Future by Alex Hartley and Tom James. They “set out to build a living, breathing encampment where people could learn how to live in the collapsing world coming our way.”

 

In 2017 they constructed with the help of volunteers a geodesic dome from scavenged materials and for several months invited people to workshops on skills that might be useful in the future (fire making, bread oven, democracy, radio, loo…).

 

 

Public engagement was very rich and a temporary community of sorts emerged. The artists have published a full report on the experience, photocopied by hand, with a cover made from used cardboard boxes. I recommend this informative and inspiring read.

 

The report is available at https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FrdLTkW8bA8OITUCHrqHqcG-wA496G0Y

 

 

A year after the end of the clearing, Hartley and James wrote that “the more time we spent at The Clearing, the better we felt. The Clearing made us feel hopeful, and confident, and capable, and even happy. Perhaps this is how it could be in the future> Softer and simpler and slower. Perhaps the end of this world, and the beginning of a new one, could even be good?”

 

The Age of Low-Tech

An essential read is finally being translated from French: The Age of Low-Tech, Towards a Technologically Sustainable Civilization by Philippe Bihouix will be published by Bristol University Press on October 25th.

 

 

Bihouix worked for 25 years as an engineer in various industrial sectors including construction, energy, chemicals, transport, telecommunications and aerospace, in Europe and Africa. In The Age of Low-Tech Bihouix draws on his experience in resource management to build a very strong case for an unavoidable shift to a low-tech civilisation. He demonstrates that, due to the finitude of available resources, no technological solution exists that will enable sustaining the level of comfort enjoyed by western societies since the 1950s. Instead the human race must shift to a truly low-tech, frugal mode so as to ensure resilience and sustainability. Using down to earth examples and an approachable style, Bihouix denounces the fallacy of techno-solutionism.

 

 

For example he addresses the idea that the Sahara desert receives enough sunlight to provide energy for the whole world, and that a giant solar farm in the dunes would solve forthcoming golbal energy crisis. He calculates that producing 23TWh (global energy consumption in 2011) would require installing 500 years worth of global solar panel production, that would have to be renewed after 40 years at most. This would necessitate an enormous amount of fossil energies, metals and synthetic resources issued from petrol for building and resourcing the giant factories required to supply the panels. And who would wipe the sand off these tens of thousands of square kilometers of panels?

Bihouix, using informed resource usage data and practical scenarios, claims that reducing our needs is an urgent priority. In a nutshell the bicycle is the future, not the electric car.

 

I recommend reading In the Guts of the World Expresso Machine, a short online essay by Bihouix on the necessity of a low-tech shift.

 

 

Extract from the Bristol University Press summary:

 

People often believe that we can overcome the profound environmental and climate crises we face by smart systems, green innovations and more recycling. However, the quest for complex technological solutions, which rely on increasingly exotic and scarce materials, makes this unlikely.

A best-seller in France, this English language edition introduces readers to an alternative perspective on how we should be marshalling our resources to preserve the planet and secure our future. Bihouix skilfully goes against the grain to argue that ‘high’ technology will not solve global problems and envisages a different approach to build a more resilient and sustainable society.

 

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