A digression, but with a connection to the view from space, or...

A digression, but with a connection to the view from space, or at least a very great height...

Holidaying at present and my wanderings took me in to the Guangdong Museum of Art. Previous visits have been thought provoking and today was no exception. They are currently exhibiting the 6th Guangzhou triennial. The theme this time "As we may think: Feed forward" has taken the contributors in directions of the digital environment, sustainability, GMO, and general flights of future fancy.

I wandered in to the first room and there was a video screening - beautiful blues, turquoise and greens filled the screen. Looks like Lithium ponds, I think, and so it was. It was filmed in the Atacama with magnificent drone shots of mountains, salt crust, and ponds. A liberal sprinkling of starry night skies and a synchronised ballet of a field of radio telescope dishes was also woven in to the story line. It was a visually stunning work - part creation story, part future story.  The video was entitled "The Breast Milk of the Volcano" (referencing Pachamama...?) and was the work of a pair of artists (one an Australian) under the moniker "Unknown Fields". Lithium as art was an unexpected and good start...

A little while later and I found myself explaining to niu junior, the principles of GMO, the potentials, and the paranoias. My explanations were met with the probing questions of a child - guaranteed to test adult logic. If it is ok for HIV researchers to have them, why can't we all have glow in the dark cats? - it sure would help reduce the night time kill of nocturnal animals...   

And then came the exhibit that stopped us in our tracks. "The Incredible Shrinking Man". The work of a 2m tall Dutch artist who has mused on the possibility of a more sustainable future where the human species downsizes to a height of just 50cm. Sort of a Homo Floresiensis by choice. He argues that our intellectual evolution has made the gradual evolution of taller humans somewhat irrelevant for individual survival and, at the same time, a drag on the resources necessary for our collective survival. Thus insular dwarfism on our global island makes a lot of sense and could be a conscious evolutionary choice. Poster after poster of beautiful graphics and thought provoking text had junior ordering me to slow down - there was so much to take in. The guy has a website where he explores some of these thoughts in a less Artsy but no less thought provoking way. http://www.the-incredible-shrinking-man.net/
A whole new take on sustainability and well worth a look for anyone who has pondered a Malthusian future...

Anyway, enough of that... Happy New Year everyone. One hour in, and fireworks are going off somewhere across the river. 2019 has a good feel to it already...