David's Talks available as Podcasts

Endgame Issues (talk 2) and Endgame Strategies (talk 3) have been edited as podcasts or for viewing on screen. Please ask Richard if you would like to download a copy.

Skyglow

By David Cross

This photograph comes from the UK Campaign for Dark Skies. Taken with a super wide angle lens on a clear night, it shows the glow of light reflected off moisture and pollution in the atmosphere over Southern England.
As a key point of connection between contemporary visual culture and industrial consumerism, electric light is so widespread that it has the familiar effect of an ideology.
The detractors of environmentalism have often tried to associate the movement’s aims with poverty or loss. Just as the idea of light carries connotations of reason and understanding, the idea of darkness is linked to ignorance and superstition. Yet such dichotomies are misleading, and may be redundant. Whether we view the stars with the gaze of an astronomer or astrologer, the accidental illumination of the night sky is the result of an excess that is obscuring our wider vision.

Marianne Krogh Jensen on Super-ecology

Danish curator Marianne Krogh Jensen wrote an very rich text about the ambivalence of Nature and Culture and also their sometime contradictory relationship. Interesting points being made here, in direct relation to Olafur Eliasson's work.

download pdf from the following page:

http://www.olafureliasson.net/publ_text/texts.html

It's the 6th one from the top. Haven't read any of the other ones but I'm sure some of the texts have strong relevance to EndGame.

Sharing a bit of land...

In brief "The Land" is a large-scale collaborative and transdisciplinary project that was begun by artist Rirkrit Tiravanija in 1998, and is taking place in Sanpatong, near Chiang May, Thailand. It sees itself as a laboratory for self-sustainable development, and is a place where new models for living are being tested out.

Tiravanija explains that "The Land" is a merging of ideas by different artists to cultivate a place of and for social engagement. It's development over the years has been quite unpredictable and quite organic... moving somewhere between process, object, structure, and exchange. Underlining "The Land" is the idea of a self-imposed Utopia, one that strives to be feasible, practical and subjective, rather than being rooted in "beliefs on how others should live"...

The Green River

In response to Valerio's interesting post, "Nuovo Rosso", I can't resist but bounce from a red fountain to a green river...

In 2000 Olafur Eliasson turned a river in the city of Stockholm luminous green using pigment developed by marine biologists for measuring the turbulence in water.

He said his aim was to "challenge the viewer's knowledge of the natural landscape"...

Two years ago, the Japanese government — essentially with the stroke of a pen — instituted a new policy that has so far trimmed more than two million tons of greenhouse gases from the country's growing emissions.

The feat is particularly impressive because it required overturning a decades-old tradition.

When Yuriko Koike was Japan's environment minister, one of her jobs was to figure out how to deal with climate change. So she hit on what — in Japan — was a radical idea: Get men to stop wearing suits. That way, office buildings could ease up on the air conditioning.

links:
http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2005/06/01/5/
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/vote/264

And to wrap-up, the air conditioned tie....

Mr Wind

And on a lighter note....

A surprising idea to solve climate change

And yet another engaging TED talk about the environment, although I've got my reservations about some of what's proposed...discuss

Krzysztof Wodiczko

The Homeless Projection: A Proposal for the City of New York, 1986

Posted by Annabel Fraser through Filip

Why can't we grow energy?

Hello everyone, this is my first post on the blog. Take a minute to watch this inspiring video, from one the TED conferences, about alternative ways of producing energy.

Marjetica Potrč

Marjetica's Hybrid House juxtaposes structures from the temporary architecture of Caracas, the West Bank, and West Palm Beach, Florida, and shows how they negotiate space among themselves. Each of the community-based structures formulates its own language, which, in all three cases, has much in common with archetypal (and not modernist) architecture. Emphasis is placed on private space, security, and energy and communication infrastructures.'
from: http://www.potrc.org/project1.htm

I looked at Marjetica's work because she is interested in educating people how to build more sustainable enviroments for themselves, she stays within communities, teaches and designs objects that become a part of every day life. Unfortunately not only the third world countries need this re-thinking strategies...

Nuovo Rosso

In october Rome' Trevi fountain water was coloured in red to protest against social housing issues, the same day the Rome Film festival was happening, judged by the authors of this action as a waste of money.

The action was claimed by a group called "Azione Futurista", a collective close to the extreme right wing, generating strong responses from all political sides.

Red
La Dolce Vita
Red Carpet
Contemporary Issues
Historical Symbol
Blood
White Marble
Action!

To my eyes this action has no political color.
Only the color of its violent reaction matters.

Rosso

Whats the worst that could happen?

A logical weighing up of options and establishing an unavoidable choice.

France 4x4

Buddhist Monk

by David Blamey
This is an image of a Buddhist monk who has set fire to himself in protest against the American war in Vietnam. I guess it appeared in newspapers somewhere around 1974, some time while I was still at school anyway. I can remember that there were constant calls for troop withdrawal, from Americans and Vietnamese alike, but the war continued despite its unpopularity. It's still a terrifying image today an extreme visualisation of an ethical position and it's interesting to consider the way that the image resonates so successfully. Where, for example in the context of the current Gulf war, suicide bombing is regarded as fanatical violent resistance, this could be seen as the most radical form of non-violent resistance: although the body itself is passive as the monk is in deep meditation, it is only the image of the body that becomes active as soon as it is circulated in the mass media.

Black or White

Hello Everybody,
I think that even before we start using this communication tool we should spend a couple of words on its very nature. When the amazing people of google gave me the option to change colors and background I've hesitated for a few seconds: as a designer I found difficult to believe that white text on black background reads well, but on the other hand I think that the publishing organ of our discussion should be coherent with our intent.

Continue reading on this topic here:
http://ecoiron.blogspot.com/2007/01/black-google-would-save-3000-megawatts.html

and let's start.

It's Black, It's White
It's Tough For You
To Get By
It's Black , It's White, Whoo