<nettime> "Next" theme for Ars Electronica

[brian carroll <human@architexturez.com>]

 proposal: that next years "science-technology as art" theme
 be focussed on energy: on the use and abuse and future use
 of energy. on pollution, global warming, depleted resources,
 contamination, et cetera, from an artistic perspective...
 wars for oil, nuclear waste in rotting barrel drums,
 space probe launches with nuclear power 1 in 100,000
 crash probabilities, 2/3rds energy inefficient technologies
 being used and continued to be developed while clean energy
 is deemed unprofitable and unsubsidizable, political and
 economic connections to energy companies and industries,
 Presidential oil men, global trade and geopolitical decisions
 based on the energy end-game, the politics of pipelines, the
 environmental destruction of habitats and local cultures
 for the global fuel: all to power the Internet, the supposed
 redeemer of all things scientific and technological, a muse
 by which to create `new' art forms disconnected from the
 old, industrial economy, while the world withers away.
 nuclear weapon stockpiles, star wars missile defense,
 food for oil, planned obsolescence, the power of electronic
 media, mass and other, infrastructures as universal design,
 ecosystems and ecological mapping of cybernetic systems,
 nature as energy, human energy, increasing human energy,
 draining human energy, the spark of life, the role of
 energy in lifeforms, the role of energy in the universe,
 the evolution of energy systems, global stories and local
 stories of energy: oil, coal, gas, water, wind, sun power.
 energy and the New Economy. power outages. too much demand
 due to info-tech revolution, not enough supply, rolling
 blackouts of the grid. international relations through
 the tying together of infrastructures, across borders.
 if energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only
 redistributed, an exploration of the process of dying
 and that burst of voltage upon ceasing to exist. the
 electrochemical brain as the ultimate processor of energy.
 the heart as the most intense electromagnetic organ in
 the human body. reliance upon energy to enable ways of
 seeing. what happens to civilization when the lights go out?
 new inventions. future of fuel cells. global workshop on
 public and private policies and initiatives from the
 artistic community for how to approach energy issues,
 creating awareness of energy processes, how things work,
 relation between energy patterns, severe weather, and
 power outages, histories of energy science and technology,
 on and on... instead of "next" as in, the future, what
 about now, in the present: energy now. otherwise it lends
 itself to the sci-tech futurism and theology of the
 scientific estate in determining the future course of
 governance in the world through a narrow ideological lens.

bc





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