The Age of Stupid: Pete Postlethwaite
“.. we all have our self-justifying myths. We tell ourselves a story of our lives in which we almost always appear as the heroes.
These myths prevent us from engaging with climate change” This is how environmental activist George Monbiot described the film “The Age of Stupid”‘s message in his review for the Guardian Newspaper.
“The Age of Stupid” is a drama-documentary -animation hybrid starring the late Pete Postlethwaite (In The Name of the Father, The Usual Suspects, Brassed Off) as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, watching archive footage from the mid-to-late 2000s and asking “Why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?”
This 2009 British film is by by Franny Armstrong, director of McLibel and Drowned Out, and founder of 10:10, and first-time producer Lizzie Gillett. The Executive Producer is John Battsek, producer of One Day in September.
Crowdfunding and Indie Screenings are Born
Multi-award-winning documentary director Franny Armstrong (McLibel, Drowned Out) and Oscar-winning producer John Battsek (One Day In September, Restrepo) pioneered the “crowd-funding” model to finance the film, and then spent four years following seven real people’s stories to be interweaved with Pete Postlethwaite’s fictional character.
They also pioneered a new distribution system, Indie Screenings, which allows anyone, anywhere, to hold a screening of the film and keep the profits for themselves.
The film was shot in seven countries over a period of three years.
Spanner Films Channel on Vimeo
Spanner Films Channel on YouTube
Plot
The film begins in the year 2055 in a world ravaged by catastrophic climate change; London is flooded, Sydney is burning, Las Vegas has been swallowed up by desert, the Amazon rainforest has burnt up, snow has vanished from the Alps and nuclear war has laid waste to India.
An unnamed archivist (Pete Postlethwaite: In The Name of the Father, The Usual Suspects, Brassed Off) ) is entrusted with the safekeeping of humanity’s surviving store of art and knowledge.
Alone in his vast repository off the coast of the largely ice-free Arctic, he reviews archive footage from back “when we could have saved ourselves”, trying to discern where it all went wrong. Amid news reports of the gathering effects of climate change and global civilisation teetering towards destruction, he alights on six stories of individuals whose lives in the early years of the 21st century seem to illustrate aspects of the impending catastrophe.
These six stories take the form of interweaving documentary segments that report on the lives of real people in the present, and switch the film’s narrative form from fiction to fact. The people who feature are:
Al Duvernay, a Shell employee and resident of New Orleans who stayed behind and helped in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. He reflects on what it feels like to have had all his possessions washed away in the flood, and also on his job in the oil industry and how valuable resources are being wasted.
Jehangir Wadia, an Indian businessman who talks about his low cost airline GoAir startup company and his democratic vision of a world in which all people, rich and poor, are able to afford air travel.
Jamila and Adnan, two Iraqi children who fled with their family to Jordan during the Iraq War, who tell the story of their father’s death and of their desire to be reunited with the older brother they left behind.
Fernand Pareau, an 82-year-old man who works as a guide on the Mont Blanc glacier in France – he takes an English family on a tour of the glacier and explains how he has seen the ice recede massively in his lifetime. The guide is also shown taking action against expanding road infrastructure in his area.
Piers Guy, a wind-farm developer who talks about his efforts to bring sustainable energy to an English village, and how he is being blocked by people who profess a commitment to fighting global warming but do not want wind turbines destroying their views. His family takes action in reducing their carbon footprint and contemplate the effects of air travel.
Layefa Malemi, a Nigerian woman who struggles with poverty despite the wealth of oil in her country. She talks about her ambition to study medicine and the everyday impact of the exploitation of oil by Shell Nigeria on health, security and the environment in Nigeria.
The Film’s Release
Largest Film Premiere Ever with the Lowest Carbon Emission
The film’s UK premiere was on 15 March 2009 in London’s Leicester Square
The screening was held in a solar-powered ‘cinema tent’ and conducted without use of mains electricity. An independent audit conducted by Carbon Accounting Systems found the event’s carbon emissions to be 1% of those produced by a normal blockbuster premiere.
Linked by satellite to 62 cinemas around the UK, the premiere received a Guinness World Record for being the largest film premiere ever, based on number of screens.
During the post show discussion, President Mohamed Nasheed received a standing ovation for announcing that the Maldives would be the world’s first carbon neutral country.
Star of the film Pete Postlethwaite threatened to return his OBE if the government gave the go-ahead to the controversial Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent. A month later the Government announced a change to its policy on coal – no new coal-fired power station will get government consent unless it can capture and bury 25% of the emissions it produces immediately – and 100% of emissions by 2025. This, a source told the Guardian, represented “a complete rewrite of UK energy policy”.
“Best Green Event” and Best “Live Brand Experience”
The UK premiere received the accolades of ‘Best Green Event’ from Event Awards and best Live Brand Experience in the PR Week Awards.
In the UK, The Age of Stupid was released in 62 cinemas in its opening week and hit the top of the Box Office charts (by screen average). The total run was 13 consecutive weeks, playing in 263 cinemas in all, with the longest single run being four weeks at London’s Odeon Panton Street.
The Age of Stupid was launched in Australia and New Zealand on 19 August 2009 with simultaneous green carpet premieres in Auckland and Sydney, linked by satellite to 32 cinemas in Australia and 13 in New Zealand. The film was then released in all 13 cinemas in New Zealand and many of the 32 in Australia.
Global Premier
The film was released internationally on 21 September and 22 September 2009 at the “Global Premiere”. A green carpet cinema tent in downtown New York, powered by locally sourced biodiesel, was linked by satellite to 442 cinemas across the USA and to more than 200 cinemas in more than 30 other countries, as well as another 33 countries which hosted independent screenings with no satellite link.
Popular musicians Moby and Thom Yorke from Radiohead performed live. Special guests at the New York premier included Kofi Annan, Ed Miliband, Mohamed Nasheed, Rajendra Pachauri, Heather Graham, and Gillian Anderson. Pranksters, The Yes Men, walked up the green carpet in their “survivaballs”.
Many guests arrived by low-carbon transport, including sailboat, rowing boat, electric car, bicycle, bicycle rickshaw and rollerblades.
Reception
Writing for The Guardian, environmental activist George Monbiot said that the film’s “message, never stated but constantly emerging, is that we all have our self-justifying myths. We tell ourselves a story of our lives in which we almost always appear as the heroes. These myths prevent us from engaging with climate change.”.
The Financial Times critic described the film as intelligent and provoking, giving “The wisdom of hindsight, today”.
Time Out London‘s film editor, Dave Calhoun, said, “Armstrong’s prognosis is apocalyptic, but her journalism is solid, instructive and pleasingly thoughtful,” and described the film as “entertaining and provocative”.
The Times called the film “the most imaginative and dramatic assault on the institutional complacency shrouding the issue”, saying, “The power of this shameless campaigning film is that it gives dates and deadlines. It explores options and ideas. It names culprits…”
The Telegraph‘s reviewer, Sukhdev Sandhu, said, “Bold, supremely provocative, and hugely important, [Armstrong’s] film is a cry from the heart as much as a roar for necessary change.”
Based on only 12 reviews Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 83%.
The New York Times described the film as a “much sterner and more alarming polemic than An Inconvenient Truth”. The review noted the “gallows humor” throughout the film, although the review was critical of the crude animated sequences.
The Sydney Morning Herald described the film as “a wake-up call with an elegiac tone — not quite hectoring but pressing. This is about human nature, greed and personal responsibility. It aims to scare and galvanize — and it’s pretty good at both.”
In a double-page spread under the headline “Oblivious to oblivion” The Sun‘s environment editor said “reality has caught up with the apocalyptic images.”
William Nicholson, writer of Shadowlands and Gladiator, said “I hate this film. I felt as if I was watching all my own excuses for not doing anything about climate change being stripped away from me.”
Awards
Grierson: Sheffields Awards – Best Green Doc 2008
Sunny Side of the Doc – Best Green Doc 2008
Sunny Side of the Doc – Film Most Likely To Be Cinema Hit 2008
Sunchild International Environmental Festival – First Prizes
Birds Eye View Film Festival – Best Documentary 2009
British Independent Film Awards – Best Documentary 2009 (nominated)
http://www.spannerfilms.net/films/ageofstupid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Stupid
Franny Armstrong
Franny Armstrong is a British Documentary film director and former drummer with indie pop group “The Band of Holy Joy”.
She works for her own company Spanner Films and is best known for the climate change blockbuster “The Age of Stupid”, “McLibel” about the infamous McDonald’s court case and “Drowned Out” which followed the fight against the Narmada Dam Project.
As well as pioneering the use of Crowdfunding for producing independant films, she developed the innovative form of film distribution known as Indie Screenings.
Franny launched her recent carbon reduction campaign 10:10 in the UK in September 2009 and it is now active in more than 50 countries.
On International Womans Day, March 8, 2011 Franny Armstrong was named as one of the Guardian newspaper’s “Top 100 Women”, in a list which included Aung San Suu Kyi, Wangari Maathai, Gareth Pierce, Doris Lessing, Arundhati Roy and Oprah Winfrey
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There will be a Screening of the film in Enfield, London (UK) on the 12th March 2012 – more info here…
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ORGANISE A SCREENING – via www.goodscreenings.org
“Show the best, award-winning social justice filmmaking. Share films that aren’t just good – they do good too…
Welcome to the future of film distribution. Now anyone in the world can buy a license to screen these excellent films. Our cunning software will calculate the license according to who you are, where you screen and how many people you’re screening to. You can even keep the profits for yourself or your organisation, campaign or cause.”
http://www.goodscreenings.org/
Read MoreMonika Bulaj: The hidden light of Afghanistan
Monika Bulaj - discovering Noor, the hidden light of Afghanistan
“My aim is to give a voice to the silent people, to show the hidden lights behind the curtain of the great game, the small worlds ignored by the media and the prophets of a global conflict.”
Monika Bulaj was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1966 and studied Polish philology at the University of Warsaw.
Although Polish is her mother tongue she also speaks Italian, French, English, German, Russian and other Slavic languages, some Spanish and at present is studying Arab and Persian
Monika is a photographer, reporter and documentarian who classifies the main areas of her research as “The Borders of Faiths” (mystic, archetypes, divination, possession, pilgrims, body, cult of the dead) and minorities, nomads, migrants, outcasts, dispossessed, in Asia, Europe, and Africa.
Among other things she has published many books and articles, given many presentations of her work and had over 50 solo exhibitions,.
In this TED talk she shares some of her work on her project “The hidden light of Afghanistan”, an inspiring work of photojournalism and insight into the hidden lives of an ancient people in a world now devastated by war.
“My travels to Afghanistan began many, many years ago on the eastern border of my country, my homeland, Poland. I was walking through the forests of my grandmother’s tales. A land where every field hides a grave, where millions of people have been deported or killed in the 20th century.
I have been walking east for 20 years
Behind the destruction, I found a soul of places. I met humble people. I heard their prayer and ate their bread. Then I have been walking East for 20 years — from Eastern Europe to Central Asia — through the Caucasus Mountains, Middle East, North Africa, Russia. And I ever met more humble people. And I shared their bread and their prayer. This is why I went to Afghanistan.
One day, I crossed the bridge over the Oxus River. I was alone on foot. And the Afghan soldier was so surprised to see me that he forgot to stamp my passport. But he gave me a cup of tea. And I understood that his surprise was my protection.
Noor, the Hidden Light of Afghanistan
So I have been walking and traveling, by horses, by yak, by truck, by hitchhiking, from Iran’s border to the bottom, to the edge of the Wakhan Corridor. And in this way I could find noor, the hidden light of Afghanistan. My only weapon was my notebook and my Leica. I heard prayers of the Sufi — humble Muslims, hated by the Taliban. Hidden river, interconnected with the mysticism from Gibraltar to India. The mosque where the respectful foreigner is showered with blessings and with tears, and welcomed as a gift.
What Do We Know About the Country and the People that We Pretend to Protect?
What do we know about the country and the people that we pretend to protect, about the villages where the only one medicine to kill the pain and to stop the hunger is opium? These are opium-addicted people on the roofs of Kabul 10 years after the beginning of our war. These are the nomad girls who became prostitutes for Afghan businessmen.
What do we know about the women 10 years after the war? Clothed in this nylon bag, made in China, with the name of burqa. I saw one day, the largest school in Afghanistan, a girls’ school. 13,000 girls studying here in the rooms underground, full of scorpions. And their love [for studying] was so big that I cried.
What do we know about the death threats by the Taliban nailed on the doors of the people who dare to send their daughters to school as in Balkh? The region is not secure, but full of the Taliban, and they did it.
My aim is to give a voice to the silent people, to show the hidden lights behind the curtain of the great game, the small worlds ignored by the media and the prophets of a global conflict.”
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http://www.monikabulaj.com/eng/
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Below is a selection of extracts from press statements about her work.
“If you suspect that the ancient faith does not lie in the choked squares, the marble cathedrals or the great metropolis, but rather in the periphery, in the forgotten villages on the farthest borders of the empire, then you should visit the work of Monika Bulaj”.”
Paolo Rumiz, La Repubblica, Rome
“If justice belonged to this world, “People of God” would be a textbook in every school of the world. Thanks to a moving and elegant writing style, and to dozens and dozens of photographs, this book confirms how people of different ethnic origin, nationality, and religion can and do live together. … The faces worn by time, endless and without a beginning, caught behind windows that look as if they have never been opened, behind dusty glass panels which, if broken, are never replaced; …. the villages lost in remote and distant regions, almost crystallized by ice and snow…”
Alessandro Marrongiu, Liberal, Turin
“Monika Bulaj is a “light hunter”. Rather than being interested in the boundaries among different cultures, she is focused on the spaces where what was impossible to blend has actually blended. Hers are simply provocations to those who believe in solid and established truths. She thinks that respect means to work without flash, because she is looking for the light, even when there is only shadow, and the details and outlines are blurred. This is how she creates her images that suggest action and motion.”
Christiane Schlotzer, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Munich
Jason Silva: To Understand is to Perceive Patterns
“True comprehension comes when the dots are revealed and you get Steven Johnson’s Long View…put simply: Everything is connected… Chance favours the connected mind…”
These are some of the ideas film maker Jason Silva shares with his usual enthusiasm on the fastest growing network in TV history – “Current TV”.
INSPIRATION:
The Imaginary Foundation says “To Understand Is To Perceive Patterns”…
Albert-László Barabási, author of LINKED, wants you to think about NETWORKS:
Networks are Everywhere
“Networks are everywhere. The brain is a network of nerve cells connected by axons, and cells themselves are networks of molecules connected by biochemical reactions. Societies, too, are networks of people linked by friendships, familial relationships and professional ties.
On a larger scale, food webs and ecosystems can be represented as networks of species. And networks pervade technology: the Internet, power grids and transportation systems are but a few examples.
Even the language we are using to convey these thoughts to you is a network, made up of words connected by syntactic relationships.”
‘For decades, we assumed that the components of such complex systems as the cell, the society, or the Internet are randomly wired together. In the past decade, an avalanche of research has shown that many real networks, independent of their age, function, and scope, converge to similar architectures, a universality that allowed researchers from different disciplines to embrace network theory as a common paradigm.’
Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From, writes about recurring patterns and liquid networks:
The Cities of the Seas
“Coral reefs are sometimes called “the cities of the sea”, and part of the argument is that we need to take the metaphor seriously: the reef ecosystem is so innovative because it shares some defining characteristics with actual cities.
These patterns of innovation and creativity are fractal: they reappear in recognizable form as you zoom in and out, from molecule to neuron to pixel to sidewalk. Whether you’re looking at original innovations of carbon-based life, or the explosion of news tools on the web, the same shapes keep turning up… when life gets creative, it has a tendency to gravitate toward certain recurring patterns, whether those patterns are self-organizing, or whether they are deliberately crafted by human agents”
Patrick Pittman from Dumbo Feather adds:
Everything is Connected
“Put simply: cities are like ant colonies are like software is like slime molds are like evolution is like disease is like sewage systems are like poetry is like the neural pathways in our brain. Everything is connected.
“…Johnson uses ‘The Long Zoom’ to define the way he looks at the world—if you concentrate on any one level, there are patterns that you miss. When you step back and simultaneously consider, say, the sentience of a slime mold, the cultural life of downtown Manhattan and the behavior of artificially intelligent computer code, new patterns emerge.”
James Gleick, author of THE INFORMATION, has written how the cells of an organism are nodes in a richly interwoven communications network, transmitting and receiving, coding and decoding and how Evolution itself embodies an ongoing exchange of information between organism and environment.. (Its an ECO-SYSTEM, an EVOLVING NETWORK)
“If you want to understand life,” Wrote Richard Dawkins, “don’t think about vibrant, throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology.” (AND THINK ABOUT NETWORKS!!)
Geoffrey West, from The Santa Fe Institute, also believes in the pivotal role of NETWORKS:
Network Systems Can Sustain Life at All Scales
“…Network systems can sustain life at all scales, whether intracellularly or within you and me or in ecosystems or within a city…. If you have a million citizens in a city or if you have 1014 cells in your body, they have to be networked together in some optimal way for that system to function, to adapt, to grow, to mitigate, and to be long term resilient.”
Author Paul Stammetts writes about The Mycelial Archetype: He compares the mushroom mycelium with the overlapping information-sharing systems that comprise the Internet, with the networked neurons in the brain, and with a computer model of dark matter in the universe. All share this densely intertwingled filamental structure.
To understand is to perceive patterns
An article in Reality Sandwich called Google a psychedelically informed superpowered network, a manifestation of the mycelial archetype:
Chance Favours the Connected Mind
“Recognizing this super-connectivity and conductivity is often accompanied by blissful mindbody states and the cognitive ecstasy of multiple “aha’s!” when the patterns in the mycelium are revealed.
That Googling that has become a prime noetic technology (How can we recognize a pattern and connect more and more, faster and faster?: superconnectivity and superconductivity) mirrors the increased speed of connection of thought-forms from cannabis highs on up.
The whole process is driven by desire not only for these blissful states in and of themselves, but also as the cognitive resource they represent.The devices of desire are those that connect,” because as Johnson says “CHANCE FAVORS THE CONNECTED MIND”.
Geoffrey WEST on The sameness of organisms, cities, and corporations:
http://blog.ted.com/2011/07/26/qa-with-geoffrey-west/
Stephen Johnson’s LONG VIEW
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08games.html?pagewanted=all
http://dumbofeather.com/blog/post/on-slime-molds-and-sewage-steven-johnson-s-origin-of-the-idea/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/oct/19/steven-johnson-good-ideas?cat=science&type=article
BARABASI’s Scale Free Networks:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scale-free-networks
Manuel Lima’s Visual Complexity:
visualcomplexity.com
Paul Stammets Myceilum is everywhere:
http://www.realitysandwich.com/google_and_myceliation_consciousness
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A collaboration of /Jason Silva and /Notthisbody incorporating:
/Aaron Koblin
/entpm
/Andrea Tseng
/Genki Ito
/ItoWorld
/Dominic
/Cheryl Colan
/TheNightElfik
/Paulskiart
/Grant Kayl
/blyon
/resonance
/gtAlumniMag
/Katie Armstrong
/Page Stephenson
/Jesse Kanda
/Jared Raab
/Angela Palmer
/elliottsellers
/flight404
/Pedro Miguel Cruz
/Takuya Hosogane
/kimpimmel
/Rob Whitwort
**and some original animations from Tiffany Shlain’s film CONNECTED: An Autoblogography about Love, Death & Technology
****
By @jason_silva and @notthisbody – Follow us on Twitter!
Our other videos:
Beginning of Infinity – http://vimeo.com/29938326
You are a RCVR – http://vimeo.com/27671433
****
Jason Silva
Jason Silva is a Venezuelan-American television personality, filmmaker and journalist who is the founding producer/host for “Current TV” the Emmy winning youth-oriented lifestyle cable network started by former US Vice President Al Gore.
“Current TV” is now the fastest growing network in TV history.
Silva was born in Caracas, Venezuela and now lives in Los Angeles, California.
Jason Silva earned a degree in film and philosophy from the University of Miami, Florida. Along with best friend, Max Lugavere, he produced and starred in a video documentary/performance piece called “Textures of Selfhood”.
“Max and Jason” have become a prolific hosting and producing duo on Current TV. Silva produced and directed a short documentary film “the Immortalists” which profiled scientists on the subject of merging technology and biology in ways to overcome our biological limitations.
This film was based the quote: “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.”
Pangea Day
Pangea Day was created by filmmaker Jehane Noujaim and TED curator Chris Anderson, with the goal of using film to unite the people of the world through the power of film.
Jason Silva along with his co-host on Current TV, Max Lugavere hosted the first annual Pangea Day on May 10, 2008, a 4 hour program of film, music and speakers that was broadcast worldwide to over 150 countries with a projected audience of over 500 million people.
Read More2011 Christmas Number One, won by the Military Wives Choir’s “Wherever You Are”
Daddy's Home
“Wherever You Are” sold more copies in the last week than the rest of the top 12 in the official charts combined. It sold 556,000 copies in the last week, which makes it the fastest-selling single in six years.
Raising Money for Charity
This single is raising money for The Royal British Legion and SSAFA Forces Help (Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association). Help these charities that work tirelessly with the families of the armed forces by buying this single and play your part in making it a Christmas No 1.
The choir was assembled by Gareth Malone for a series on BBC Two. He persuaded the wives and girlfriends of servicemen stationed at Royal Marines Base, Chivenor, and Royal Citadel, Plymouth, both in Devon, to step into the spotlight.
“This is so surreal,” the choirmaster said. “Who would have guessed in those first rehearsals that we could take Christmas number one? It’s testament to the Military Wives’ hard work and the nation’s support of them, as well as the power of choral singing.
“The support of the British military for the choir has been fantastic. I’m delighted that they have found their voice. We did it!”
Malone added: “My thoughts are with all those serving abroad at Christmas time. The nation thanks you.”
A Treasury spokeswoman for the Receiver of Revenue said that a VAT equivalent from sales of the single was donated to the armed forces’ charities.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16285101
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/8977924/Military-Wives-target-the-album-chart.html
http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/61142
The Florin Street Band: “My Favourite Time of Year”
“The Florin Street Band” was put together by contemporary composer Leigh Haggerwood to record an original Christmas song he had written called “My Favourite Time of Year”.
His idea was to have the music video in a 19th century English setting with with period costumes, snow covered streets and rooftops lit by old fashioned lantern light.
He could not get the backing of any record companies to produce it as they did not think it would prove financially viable.
Leigh decided to go ahead and produce it himself and managed to get the help of 36 musicians including the English Chamber Choir.
British director Nick Bartleet helped to make the video a reality and as plans progressed, American cinematographer John Perez offered his services as Director of Photography.the extraordinary video was shot at Blists Hill Victorian Town at Ironbridge in Shropshire. Since their release in 2010, the song and video have received an unprecedented public response through social networking websites with many people describing it as a future classic.
Text Santa
Text Santa is a charity initiative that aims to raise money and awareness for nine charities over the festive season. The producers were keen to use “My Favourite Time of Year” as the theme music for the appeal, which Leigh agreed to. The Text Santa appeal was first broadcast by UK’s television network ITV in 2011.
As a gesture of good will, Leigh decided to donate all profits from UK downloads of the song in 2011, to the nine Text Santa Charities, along with the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust which was the location of his Victorian museum video, and a supporter of the Florin Street Band.
Florin Street Website: www.florinstreet.com
The charities supported are:
Carers UK
Crisis
Samaritans
wrvs
Help the Hospices
Yorkhill Children’s Foundation
Helping Hand Charity
Noah’s Ark Appeal
Great Ormond Street Hospital Childrens Charity
Plunderground: The Words of the Profits are Written on the Subway Walls
Artistic Lie Sense
Artists usually consider themseleves “outsiders” because they cannot reconcile their own view of reality with much that is being sold to the general public as the “acceptable norm.” Because of this willingness to “seek the truth”, they tend to see through Media Misinformation even when doing so is not in fashion.
Creating a Dialogue when None Exists
“Plunderground is a ongoing project in détournement and civil disobedience. Détournement, a now common practice continuingly being reinvented by activists and artists the world over, from the Situationaist International to adbusters. The Plunderground project has its inspirational roots both in the historical trend of this process and in the current wave of anti-capitalist campaigning, specifically the online campaign group 38 Degrees.
The project poses the question – to what extent can the citizen participate in the economo-politico process created by state capitulation to private finance? Reclaiming public space and generating a dialogue when none exists, is the perceived purpose of protest, but in what other ways can this be done?
An act of violence masterfully commands media attention through its condemnation by the mainstream, while action that fails to provide the sufficient raw material of gratuitous photo journalism produced by violence is ignored. How do we generate a sufficient debate around issues that matter and create the required perspective and social condition necessary for change when the ballot box or polling booth fail to do so?”
Lawful Criminal Damage
“The aim of the Plunderground intervention is direct and simple. Prevent the theft of UK taxpayers property, namely the evaded tax by corporate and government corruption via the use of lawful criminal damage.
Approximately 600 CBS Fire board adverts removed from the London Underground network, silk-screen printed on the reverse with mock Department of Work and Pensions anti benefit fraud ads naming and shaming corporate crooks.”
Section 5: Preventing a Greater Crime
“Section 5 of the Criminal Damage Act, Lawful excuse; proportional damage of property, with the honest belief that it is to prevent a greater crime, is not an offence in UK legislation.
Two Plunderground agents were arrested during the dissemination of the subverts.
Despite carrying and serving in advance, notices outlining exactly what, why and how was being done and that it resulted from an honest belief (bone fide) that property was under threat, they were charged for the offence of Criminal Damage.”
Not in the Public Interest
“The Crown concluded that it was not in the public interest to pursue the charge and that the Plunderground agents should not have been arrested.
They were dismissed with no further action and reimursed for the expenses.
For the purposes of the project the arrests and dismissed court action have presented the opportunity to galvanise its legal standing.
This process is not a one-off, nor is it unique to Plunderground and can be done by anyone.”
PLUNDERGROUND is an ongoing project and is an AGITARTWORKS production.
www.agitartworks.com
info@agitartworks.com
