Why does someone throw a can of soup against a van Gogh? Everyone was shocked. Either because of the van Gogh, how dare they, or because of the soup, from a multinational company, not an oil company or something, or because of the ‘soup-against-art’. What a strange way to bring attention to the problem, the reactions went.
Well, there was glass in front of it but still…. I must say, I also found it all a bit disjointed. The message they expressed also had little coherence: stop oil, and then say that people didn’t have money to heat a can of soup ? And the link to the painting wasn’t clear either. But it must be said, it did get attention.
At first the because of painting, oh my, how dare they: Calm down, there was glass in front… etc etc. And then much debate about ‘attacking art’? Why? Because if anything is not really harmful , it is smearing a little paint on a canvas. Of course, art is virtually without impact, that bit of paint and canvas, for example. You don’t gain anything from it, in terms of energy or food, but it doesn’t really harm either. Right, is it?
However, suppose you don’t buy anything anymore , because you turn your back on the consumer society, and thus hope to bring down the system. Then what else should you do? Make paintings, for example. But if everyone thinks like that, then 8 billion people will paint. And if everyone would make 1 painting every week, times 52 weeks that’s about 400 billion paintings every year. Now it becomes a different matter… Then even innocent time passing like art painting , has become a major culprit. Matter of Volume , speed and energy.
Nothing is without guilt…
In terms of paint, just doing some math: a layer of 0,1 liter of acrylic paint per m2 of painting. (1 mm layer), on a average painting of a quarter m2 (0.4×0.6), is totaling 100 billion m2 of paintings and 10 billion liters of paint per year. The production energy is 70 Mj per kg, or a total of 200 Billion kWh. In solar panels: the output of 1 billion m2 , or 1000 km2 of solar panel alone for the embodied energy EE of paint. Not counting wood for 400 billion frames and 100 billion m2 of linen cloth….
OK, not everyone is going to do a painting every week, but it is the reference needed to judge any activity objectively. I mean: the reference is the effect when 8 billion people do something. Whatever they do.
Same with electric car’s, if you suppose 8 billion are entitled to one, it is impossible, so a nonsense solution. [1] It seems ok on a small scale, some car , some painting, but is not a permanent solution for everything and everyone. As with everything.
Important point is also that Art , although not very relevant as a required consumptive item, is worth a lot of money. And thus encourages people to make a lot of money, because with a lot of money you can buy a van Gogh for your house. Which is the reason of having a lot of money, isn’t it: that you can permit anything, whatever you think of, and then do it, somewhere in the world, and show it off? Like buying a van Gogh? So art is not innocent in that respect either.
But to make a lot of money, to be able to buy such a painting, you have to find a way to extort money from others. And we see plenty of examples of that these days.
Take the latest hype: NFTs. The digital sale of art (of rights) . You buy something but don’t get it. Really, have people never heard the fairy tale of the emperor’s clothes? And for all that money in NFT’s, we again deplete resources and waste energy, to extort money from others.
And some become even mega-rich with that, and start doing strange things.
Take Bill Gates with microsoft. Never understood why everyone works with Microsoft software. It makes a few become very rich, as well as knowing everything about us, and keep us on a string. While there is also Linux, (Ubuntu e.g.) which works great, for free, and maintained by the collective community. But nobody advertises it, so can’t it be good? So we use Microsoft and make Bill Gates rich, who is then going to tell us what is and isn’t good in the world, and how we can solve the climate crisis… By more technology…, which in turn makes more money. [2]
Multinational corporations? Oil? Art? It is money, disconnected from any physical reality by money grubbers over the years, [3] which is the cause. The emperor’s clothes, and we just stand by and watch it happen.
As it is collected by that other charlatan, that shrewd car dealer, who seduces us to buy electric cars. And everybody buys the story. He was already wealthy, and is only getting richer. And if only he would spent his money buying expensive paintings. But no, he is spending the money to exploit space, with his hundreds of satellites around the earth. No one asks any questions, and soon he will control the earth. The first signs are already there: He opened up his satellite communication system free of charge for Internet in Ukraine, since the military needed them to control their communications. Just recently he wanted Ukraine to start negotiating with Russia, otherwise he would disconnect them. What the Hell was he thinking? Ruler of the world? Next, and you could wait for it, he also wanted money for the use of his satellites in Ukraine…. Getting rich from the war. While saying that he wants to improve the world….
We are being screwed as we stand by an watch.
By the way, he just bought twitter . To control and brainwash us even further: he is China squared: soon he controls society, not of a country, but of a planet. Space belongs to no one, and he is now conquering it. It’s a bigger danger as Putin, I’m telling you. In the chaos to come created by climate catastrophes, soon 1 man will control communications in the world.
He is holding us hostage, and we stand by and watch it happen: It is almost art…, the way we are manipulated. Like by someone who can sit down at a table in a museum hall , without saying anything and with an empty chair in front of her: and we stare at it mesmerized. The current action , “soup against painting,” , has become, by all the attention itself , Art as well, same kind of performance art.
And we stand by, and watch.
Oh, I nearly forgot: it was about climate action, that I started writing about. Let that be clear. But I am afraid such actions won’t help, as long as the financial system is not adapted. Too many are too rich, and want to spend the money. And as a result, CO2 is still rising, and limiting climate change to 1,5 degree is no longer achievable , as the IPCC announced this week. Its a system turn over, that is required. Not trying to solve things within the current system organization. Of money and financial economy, and legal systems that put mankind central, in stead of mankind as part of the natural system. Which requires much more as performance art. Though I admit: I neither do know exactly how. I am afraid it might be that we have to hit a wall first.
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.(edited 011122)
PS. I wondered, regarding Musk, am I now a conspiracy thinker ?
But No, this is not a hidden conspiracy, its just happening in all openness, and everybody can see it. : 1 person has a Satelite network around the Globe, and is owner of a social nework that works on it.
Moreover, a conspiracy should be conscious, and of a group of people. But even if its unintentionally, how this situation grows , it is nevertheless there right now, and can be used at the whim of 1 person, without any kind of control. And things that can happen will happen. As he is already using it….
At the national level there are all kinds of formal and legal control mechanisms, at the global level there are none, only voluntary agreements, like within the UN, and at planetary level and the space around it, its wild west, there are no rules, and no control.…
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[1] http://www.ronaldrovers.com/electric-cars-the-broader-story/
[2] http://www.ronaldrovers.com/faster-to-destruction-with-bill-gates/
[3] the book: Value of everything – Mariana Mazzucato
