In an E-flux zoom conversation Demos discusses the broad necessities of visualising the current climate and the efficacy of cinematic documentation. Is it really effective to just show beauty in destruction.. what of the slow violence mentioned in the Nixon thesis and the immunised attention spans of the social media generation..

Thinks that OTOLITH group do this interestingly – ‘seismic psyche / popular imagination of disaster prediction’

•  Kodwo Eshun spoke in the zoom conversation i watched about how people living in the convention that is the anthropocene have turned to finding indexical signs, material traces, to inform them of seismic movements/predictions.
• ‘living in the anthropocene is to confuse and to complicate the difference between human sciences and so called natural sciences. To confuse the inherited devisions of knowledge of colonial order’
• he also makes a strange point about a women (Charlotte King) who, when living in this confusion, had taken to thinking her body was able to predict seismic activity, she was especially sensitive to the earth indexes (in this case ones that are more spiritual and physical in my opinion) – and how this links to Bruno Latours call for ‘sensitisation’
  • SO maybe if we didn’t have this subconscious need to different so harshly between nature and science and earth and mind, we would not need to designate a the collecting of indexical signs into delusional/spiritual and scientific/datacolective… if these realms merge (is our perspective of technology vs nature) and we see US and OUR technology AS nature… we could create a space for innovation that nurtures this… objets and tools that mesh together the bodily reactions/visualisations/sensitisations/technology/tools etc….

‘we need to organise social movement activism that can stir the capitalist death spiral from bringing us all to ruin’

‘no more moderationism / reformism’

‘we need a leftist populism’

‘We must challenge the fundamental rule of dominant economic arrangements, that is racial and colonial capitalism as the organising principle of contemporary existence’

someone to further look up is Octavia E. Butler… Her essay : Treasured Strangers: Race, Biopolitics, and the Human in Octavia E. Butler’s XenogenesisTrilogy. The abstract:

• The Xenogenesis trilogy, written during a period of rapid growth in the neoliberal bioeconomy in the United States, is increasingly relevant today, when our ability to manipulate life has outstripped the ethical and theoretical considerations of reproductive/genetic research and technologies. In this essay I seek to bring the trilogy into conversation with a broader dialogue around reproduction in relation to race, drawing on discussions of scientific racism and medical apartheid. Butler’s work draws on a variety of biopolitical discourses and is deeply concerned with the figure of the black woman as breeder, the history of reproduction as eugenics, and the contemporary “tissue economies” (Waldby and Mitchell) that continue to exploit the reproductive labor of non-white and third-world bodies. The Xenogenesis trilogy illuminates the links between colonialism and biological capital, and uses apocalypse to show how the “human” is constantly being discursively and biologically reconstructed. By contrasting the genetic determinism of the Oankali with humans’ insistence on biological and reproductive independence, Butler enacts a politics of ambivalence that situates reproduction as an ongoing dialectical process within the context of broader ecological systems. Although her work is certainly concerned with genetic engineering, she emphasizes the importance of generation rather than reproduction, articulating a theory of symbiogenesis that sees human evolution as reliant on dynamic relationships with other species and environments.

Overview / Relevance :

Pragmatic speculations of futures and the political climates necessary for carboys futures to play out – EG new vision of socialism when collective action + automation (less need for human labour) + regulation of market forces aids an eco-techno existence!

Initially only taken inspiration from chapter 3, Socialism.

Interesting in that he acknowledges the philosophical duality of human/technology and nature and the misconception of this and what it means for anthropocentrism. There is no perfect ‘way’ for ecology to be, no ‘conserving’ or ‘retracting’ back to a past form of earthy environment, instead we must look forwards for the use human intervention and technology to create a possible harmonious state for all.

This could, in Frase opinion, be manifested through an evolved socialist ideology where market forces are allowed to play a part but regulation and environmental awareness allows for fluid transition from the anthropocene / colonial capitaliscene (terms from P.J Demos) into a post capitalist world.

Quotes:

“The argument of this book is that we are in fact facing such a contradictory dual crisis. And it is the interaction of these two dynamics that makes our historical moment so volatile and uncertain, full of both promise and danger. In the chapters that follow, I will attempt to sketch some of the possible interactions between these two dynamics.”

“Automation continues to proceed even in agriculture, which once consumed the largest share of human labor but now makes up a tiny fraction of employment, especially in the United States and other rich countries. In California, changing Mexican economic conditions and border crackdowns have led to labor shortages. This has spurred farmers to invest in new machinery that can take on even delicate tasks like fruit harvesting, which have until now required the precision of a human hand.11 This development illustrates a recurrent capitalist dynamic: as workers become more powerful and better paid, the pressure on capitalists to automate increases. When there is a huge pool of low wage migrant farm labor, a $100,000 fruit picker looks like a wasteful indulgence. But when workers are scarce and can command better wages, the incentive to replace them with machinery is intensified.”

^ Scary reality of incentivisation around automation… 

“In the 1970s, the radical feminist theorist Shulamith Firestone called for growing babies in artificial wombs, as a way to liberate women from their dominated position in the relations of reproduction.12 Fanciful at the time, such technologies are becoming a reality today. Japanese scientists have successfully birthed goats from artificial wombs and grown human embryos for up to ten days. Further work on applying this technology to human babies is now as much restricted by law as science; Japan prohibits growing human embryos artificially for longer than fourteen days.13 Many women find such a prospect off-putting and welcome the experience of carrying a child. But surely many others would prefer to be liberated from the obligation.”

^ RELEVANT to lucy mcrea ideas of social science fictions around pregnancy and the female womb as as wearable technology?……?

Over view / Relevance to 3rd year :

Cross overs with FRASE work in that it attempts to outline social / political / economic fictions / futures.

Speaks of the power of visualisations (ie; the doughnut shape)

Analyses use of diagrams – especially in neo liberal 20th century economic thought, basis much of their imagery on laws of physics imagery. Power of unconscious bias and contextual tools such as lows of motion and hydraulics.

Quotes

quote from economist tim jackson; we are ‘persuaded to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need to make impressions that wont last on people we don’t care about’

samuelson’s 1948 circular slow diagram, which depicted income flowing round the economy as if it were water flowing around plumbed pipes.

mimicking early physicist diagrams in economic diagrams in order to reaffirm legitimacy and leaner nature of interpretation… as if there is no alternative. 

p20

the circular flow diagram that for 70 years was the defining. the same year this diagram was created and published the engineer turned economist Bill Phillips created a hydraulic machine for real. is machine, known as the MOMIAC – monetary national income analogue computer – was made up  of a set of see through water tanks connected together by tubes flowing with pink water. designed to bring the circular flow diagram to life, the tanks and tubes represent the flow of income through the uk economy. it was there first computer ever made and it was utterly brilliant, earning philips a teaching post at the london school of economics.

p65

‘like any real economy it relied upon an external source of energy to make it run, but neither phillis nor his contemporaries spotted that the machines power soured was critical part of what made the model wok. that lesson from MONIAC supplies tp all macroeconomies; the role of energy deserves a far more prominent place in economic theories that hope to explain what drives activety’

p75

ideas of ‘script’ writing for the economy came out of the 40’s with there launch of the Mont Pelerin Society.

‘the neoliberal script developed out of the neoliberal agenda 1947 around aims to push bak hard against the threat of state totalitarianism, which was spreading fast thanks to the growing reach of the soviet union… that aim gradually morphed into a hard push for market fundamentalism, and the meaning of neoliberal morphed alone with it. whats more, when paul samuelson’s diagram appeared – depicting which actors were at the heart of the economy and which were pushed into the wings – it provided the perfect setting for their play’

‘the big time came at last in 1980 when margaret thatcher and ronald reagan teamed up to bring the neoliberal script to the international stage… Reagans election team indlufef more than twenty members of the Mont Pelerin society and thatchers first chancellor of the exchequer, geoffery howe was a member too;

p67

analogy of neolierism depicted through a play script. staging by Paul samuelson and script by the mont pelerine society. Rawworth rewrites this with a new vision… 

‘still trapped in the mindset of degenerative, linear industry, the first question that many ask is; how big a slice of that ecological cake is ours?’

examples of business trying to go net 0 waste which isn’t the same as being regenerative…

‘examples aspiring to that goal of zero energy buildings like the Bullitt centre in seattle wchih uses solar panels to generate as much energy as it uses each year. / nestles dairy plant in jalisco mexico which meets all its industrial water needs by condensing the stream evaporated from the cows milk, instead of continuously extracting fresh water from the regions severely stressed ground water’

‘aiming for net-zero impact is truly impressive depature from bnussiness as usual of degenerative industrial design, and it is more impressive still if the aim is net zero not just in energy or water but in all resource-related aspects of a compacts operation – a still far off goal’

p217

…’ only generous design can bring us back below the doughnuts ecological ceiling. for janine benyus (whos undergoing the research and creation of ‘generous cities’, a leading thinker and doer in the field of biomimicry, this notion generosity has become the design mission of a lifetime

(benyus also created asknature.org which makesth long0held secret of natural materials, structures and processes open-source for all (example – how geckos cling without glue)

^ image the butterfly economy ; regenerative by design – how material culture fits in specifically and how that relates to fashion industry. 

‘take coffee beans for example; less than one percent of every bean ends up in a cup of coffee and the leftover coffee grounds are rich in cellulose, lignin, nitrogen and digars. it would be foolish to thrown such organs treasure straight on to a compost head, far worse, into a rubbish bin, but this happens in homes offices and coffee ships worldwide. coffee grounds it turns out make an ideal medium fir griwniug mushrooms and then can be used as feed for cattle, chickens and pigs, and so are returned to the soil as manure. from humble coffee beans imagine scaling that principle up to all foods, crops and timber and scaling it our to every hime fan firm and institution. it would transform out last century forestries and industries into regenerative ones. 

p 221

‘on the butterfly other wing in contrast products made using technical nutrients such as metals and synthetic fibres do not naturally decompose so they must be designed to be restored – through repair, reuse, refurbishment and (as a last resort) recycling.

‘the notion of a truly circular economy belongs with the fantasy of perpetual motion machines; a more accurate name would be the cyclical economy. no industrial loop  can recapture 100% of its materilas. 

p222

(fuck of a lot examples of people trying to be cyclical p222+)

regenerative industrial design can only be fully realised if it is underpinmnmed by regernative economic design… current priorities are focused instead on creating just one form of value – financial – for just one interested group – sharholders. 

to resolve this she calls for rebalancing the roles of the market, the commons and the state.

the glaring gap between eh regenerative potential of the circular economy and its narrow efficiency-focused practices by corporations has inspired the launch of an Open Source Circular Economy OSCE movemtn. – METERIOM

the principles include, modularity, open standards, open osrce, open date

BIT ABOUT HOW IT HAS TO BE STATE IMPOSED

mariana mazzucato; ‘we cannot rely on the private sector to bring about the kind of radical reshaping of the economy the tis required, only the star can provide th eying of patient finance required to make a decisive shift’

p239

‘real time data are a fun and engaging way to gain community interest but many of the deeper insights come from monitoring their dynamic trends year on year. 

climate change: water scarcity, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, and chemical pollution.