Yesterday I was talking to RSA Arts & Ecology Centre contributor/writer Caleb Klaces and we both started raving about Dave Eggers’ book What Is The What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng. It’s a supreme piece of narrative non-fiction writing in which Eggers tells the extraordinary life of Valentino Achak …
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More on Robin McKie’s article from The Observer
Well we have to be doing something right, because McKie’s article got this response from factually wayward Daily Telegraph young fogey James Delingpole, lambasting “eco-luvviesâ€. It’s a conspiracy! froths Delingpole:
What Cape Farewell does brilliantly, Delingpole fulminates, is breed wave after wave of high profile propagandists for the authorised Al Gore/James Hansen version of man made climate doom.
Um… yes. And? Delingpole (Ed. public school & Oxon), however, clearly thinks using culture to demonstrate things he doesn’t believe in is wrong.
The madness of the car commute: LA freeways
“If I can just get off of this LA Freeway
without getting killed or caught…â€
Guy Clark “LA Freewayâ€
Picture from Traffic! by Benny Chan at the Pasadena Museum of California. Opening May 31 until September 20.
More on Robin McKie’s article from The Observer
Well we have to be doing something right, because McKie’s article got this response from factually wayward Daily Telegraph young fogey James Delingpole, lambasting “eco-luvvies”. It’s a conspiracy! froths Delingpole:
What Cape Farewell does brilliantly, Delingpole fulminates, is breed wave after wave of high profile propagandists for the authorised Al …
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology
“Global warming is as much a cultural problem as a scientific or political one…â€
Robin McKie, science journalist for The Observer, has been to see Steve Waters’ The Contingency Plan, and has noticed that that there is something significant happening across the arts:
Until now, scientists, journalists and politicians have dominated the debate about the threat of greenhouse warming. Many have fought well and brought …
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A couple of dirty beaches: Brighton
Under this clean white exterior I’m a right dirty beach 2009 by Chloe Hanks – part of Dirty Beach @ Cafe Delice Brighton by artists Chloe Hanks and Lou McCurdy.
Short Darwin films online
I’ve just been watching a series of short films exhibited online by the artist-moving-image agency Lux in honor of the 200th year of Darwin’s birth. They’ve put up four short films that consider, in their words, “Darwin’s complex legacyâ€.
There are a couple of real gems there; go have a look. In particular:
Paul Bush’s While Darwin Sleeps 2004 (illustrated) is a four-minute film that animates 3,000 dead long-dead insect specimens, cunningly using their very diversity to bring them alive again.
And Ben River’s wonderfully slow and measured Origin of the Species 2008 is a portrait of an unnamed auto-didact hermit, fascinated by the big questions of life and nature. In occasional moments of voice-over reflects on them from the solitude of his woodland hut. Among the gems of wisdom he dispenses is this one, which I particularly love:
“Man’s brain. It evolved real quick. And it’s trouble. It’s just trouble.â€
Go to the Lux collection of Darwin-related films.
The Great Fen Project
I write this as we set off for a meeting in Peterborough which is, wonderfully, interested in the connection between the arts and environmental issues. I had a brilliant taster with respect to the Fens in an extraordinary concert at King’s College, Cambridge in their stunning chapel. This was in support of the Great Fen Project – “the most important conservation project in the UK for 100 years†– www.greatfen.org.uk With Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, the music soaring upwards as the dusk light spread through the building, it seemed anything is possible!
Amy Balkin: my 20 minutes reading the IPCC report
I went to Manchester to visit Futuresonic yesterday and joined in Amy Balkin’s artwork Reading the IPCC’s Fourt Assessment on Climate Change outside the Centre for the Urban Built Environment.
Afterwards I spoke to Amy Balkin about her work there:
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Amy Balkin | Futuresonic 2009 from RSA Arts & Ecology on Vimeo.
With two more days to go you may still find free slots if you check out Amy Balkin’s website.