Will the culture of the future be green ?

Of all the colors, give me green! Green hope, green horizon, green nature, green culture? Welcome to a (greenish) grey area, where the impact of culture on the planet seems very difficult to evaluate. Works of art transported by kilos of bubble wrap, flown millions of kilometers, mounted on walls with a limited life cycle, etc. The example of a simple exhibition could look like an ecological nightmare. In parallel, artists and professionals of the creative industries are putting their grey matter into action (again!). Between power, will and execution, are we already “green” in the world of culture?

Today, we offer you a tour of the artists—our very own star of the shepherd—that we follow and that hack technology to propose positive imaginations and cultivate the seeds of a future that we (makes us) want.

Today, we offer you a tour of the artists—our very own star of the shepherd—that we follow and that hack technology to propose positive imaginations and cultivate the seeds of a future that we (makes us) want.

A glacier that … grows? the work “Tipping Point” by Barthélemy Antoine-Loeff – photo by ©Creative Tech

Changeover in the cultural and creative industries: from constraint to freedom from a system?

The news comes, with a surprise. We learn that the important work carried out by the LINCC in 2019—notably from The Shift Project report—makes the following keen observation: “The carbon footprint of a museum like the Louvre comes from 99% of the emissions linked to the travel of its visitors, for about 4 million tons of CO2 equivalent.”

Fortunately, the creative industries are fighting back! Some initiatives such as Récupscène, a platform that connects people who no longer have any use for sets, costumes or equipment, for example, with others who could give them a second life. Or Ecoprod, a tool that guides and calculates the carbon footprint of audiovisual productions and highlights the important issues surrounding the ecological transition of cultural and creative industries. From music festivals to the publishing sector and the performing arts—all the arts are joining the dance for a better and greener world! So, let’s stay positive!

Combining content and form 

Bringing the world to life is done with the installation “Voice of nature” by visual artist and professor at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands Thijs Biersteker. The work takes the form of measuring a real tree in one of the most polluted cities in the world: Chengdu, China. Twelve sensory sensors have been affixed to a tree to collect data, such as pollution levels, photosynthesis, and growth patterns.

The artist says that the tree rings, over the years, indicate the tree’s well-being. In the same idea, concentric rings form a digital panel that has been installed behind the tree to indicate its status in real time, second by second, to “give voice to climate change.”

We can imagine the installation being duplicated in a multitude of territories to show an organic cartography of our impact on the trees and therefore the planet!

Hacking speeches on the green

The Yes Men, an unconventional American activist duo (that we selected with the other co-curators of the Fake News exhibition at the EDF Foundation, which runs until January 22, 2022!), constantly take on social and environmental issues. With a credo “the bigger the better“, the two Americans pretended to be journalists to French politicians. For this hoax, they claimed that the United States would stop all their investments in France if the Ecological Pact was adopted. In addition to the surprising reactions of those sometimes fooled, this type of media stunt shows the immobility of certain political actors and the need to rethink practices on many levels…

Reconciling the worlds 

Non-fungible token (NFT) and ecology, notions that seem to in opposition: indeed, estimates indicate that the life of an NFT is comparable to the activity of a car that has traveled 800 km. In addition to using green energy to power the machines, historical blockchain players have put the gray areas of virtual object creation to good use. Larva Labs Studio, which is known for giving birth to more than 10,000 cryptopunks (and 15% of the NFT 😊 market), i.e., the digital images associated with some of the most coveted NFTs in the cryptomarket, has also birthed “Autoglyphs.”

“Autoglyphs are the first “on-chain” generative art on the ethereum blockchain They are a fully autonomous mechanism for the creation and ownership of a work of art.”

Profits from the resale go to the 350.org association, which fights global warming and accepts donations in ethereum!

An extract of the open-source code and a visual of Autoglyph ©Larvalab

Album cover ©Grimes

Towards more “green” imaginations 

In an article published on the Usbek et Rica website, Magali Payen, founder of the On est prêt movement wrote: “It is essential to set a common course, to imagine the world after and therefore to be lucid, but to imagine lucid utopias. […] This means giving people the opportunity to relive experiences of nature. We also need, in my opinion, to be much more connected between humans.”

At the agency, we abundantly share this idea of renewal and crossing of imaginations! It is through sensitive, artistic and aesthetic experience and through fiction that we will be able to imagine innovative solutions to face all challenges! This translates into a shift from a cyberpunk reality—a world of machines ruled by AI—to a biopunk will leave the dystopian imaginary and propose fictions intimately utopian and positive!