2009
Koert Koert van van Mensvoort Mensvoort
As you Koert write, “Like a true nature, it can be benevolent and kind as well as wild, cruel and unpredictable.” This sentence could be from the bible or 17th century romantic novel about nature, and it is this positioning of economy as somehow out of reach, beyond reason, that erases the meaning of individual or group acts of power within economies. Yet I am not arguing that economies, in their interconnected complexity could be as a whole transparent and understandable by a single person. Still, this does not mean that economies are mythic, or an economy would be a creature like entity with a behavior without embedded crafted reason. Furthermore, if people worry about weather and mortgages (I surely do), again these two things are not the same as worrying about ecologies. While there is a relationship between all economy, all consumption of produce, energy, with ecologies on a meta level, economies CAN be controlled and intervened by human decision while many ecologies cannot, or if they can, the relationship is different. In a way, to say that economy is ecology means to give up an idea that economy could be impacted or controlled with reason. At the same time this does not mean that living ecologies are not logical at all, but they are just not in a reciprocal relationship with one another. The rest of the argumentation was based on a presupposition that “Once we agree that both systems are ecologies in their own right” – which I at least cannot agree on. Even if exploitation of ecological resources would stop NOW and remain on a sustainable level, economies could continue to evolve because they, or many of them, have long ago departed value=material mimetic relationship. Returning this amount of population to economies tied to material value would destroy the 70 70
planet more rapidly than now. This is just a guess though, but maybe some people on the list have better knowledge about such non-sustainability models. The discourse on the ECO is sharp, it is the other side of the carbon trading coin, and interdependencies need to be imposed. Unfortunately measures like the Tobyn tax have not been imposed to control global trade. Now though, it will be in the interest of Western economies to try to impose some level of green taxation. The ECO concept when extended means that a microbe, a bird, a tree – everything has an ecological currency value when living and not dead. In this capitalist world, it probably needs to be tied to consumption; ie. in order to kill a tree you need to keep one alive. A quicker solution would be to tax all carbon based fuels with such a high tax that non-carbon based fuels become highly desirable over night. But CO2 is just one parameter, loosing biodiversity due to foresting + farming was rapid before global warming was even a widely acknowledged issue. In the case of Norway – their entire national cash reservoir is generated by oil pumped from North Sea base. So they have a bit of a conscience. Probably in terms of goals you Koert and I would agree on many. All that you have described though about economy is going to take political decisions. As goes the saying, “let nature take its course”… that is hardly desirable, hence I suggest to maintain a distinction between politics, economy, and living non-human ecologies to be able to, as you also wish, to point their interconnections and be able to make a difference. The point about romantic nature I made has
to do also with a situation where nature or world is seen as a picture, not understood as a living environment. In Finnish, we have a proverb “Ei näe metsää puilta” - can’t see the forest as you see a tree. The ways in which, at least I as a Northern European have learned to see nature is much about understanding the landscape, and one plant, a taxonomy of sorts, and then there is lot of unknown. This unknown contributes to seeing nature as a wonder, as to have sublimity. The responsibility humans have is to that complexity, not the tree, the polar bear, the penguin, the panda (domestic and pandafied nature). They are part of the package too, but, maybe prevent different ways of knowing, instead of seeing. The political response-ability needs to extend to see several forests, not just one, from one vantage point. And yes... if one as an artist chooses to illustrate nature, that is fine of course, but again, it is different than dealing with ecologies. Thanks for bringing me up to speed to write this, it is useful. Bestest, Tapio -------- Original Message -------Subject: Re: [Paralelo] Following up on Paralelo... Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 12:40:07 +0100 From: Bronac Ferran To: paralelo@listcultures.org
Tapio and Paralelo colleagues
Bound (downloadable under cc license from the Demos website) traverses some of this economy/ecology connections area... summarised in the Prognosis section. http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/brazil -------- Original Message -------Subject: Re: [Paralelo] Following up on Paralelo... Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 01:37:53 +0200 From: Esther Polak To: paralelo@listcultures.org
Dear Tapio, and list, For me it is really not easy for I have great difficulties with both his and Koert’s positions. For me it is really important first to articulate why make art and deal with relevant technological/social/ economical/ecological issues in the first place. ------I do art because I find it the best area to investigate the world. My practice is primarily curiosity driven,( to lend a quote from Hans Bernard) , and I decided producing art is the best way to devote my life to this curiosity. I could have chosen to be a scientist, journalist or even detective, but arts turned out to a more interesting field for me, as it offers great freedom to do different kinds of investigations and to even invent experimental and new ways to communicate the outcomes to an audience.
a couple of relevant events/texts: The Demos report on Brazil: A Natural Knowledge Economy edited by Kirsten
As a consequence I find traditional fine arts not so appealing, especially as it tends to linger into the direction of l’art pour l’art prin71