Coalition of the willing

‘Coalition of the Willing’ now has its own contributors’ blog. I’ll be posting there as well as here in the coming months.

On green imagery

The film director Werner Herzog is rarely short of something interesting to say. He didn’t disappoint in a recent interview at BFI Southbank, in which he spoke about the importance of creating new images to tackle climate change.

‘Interviewer: You once said that the creation of new images in the world was one of the most central things to sustaining human life on the planet.

Herzog: In a way, yes, because if we don’t start to adapt, through language and through images, to new and unforeseen situations, we will be somehow stunted in our growth. We will not be adaptable to challenges that are coming at us at a very rapid rate. I think it has to do with human ingenuity and human intelligence. And it ultimately translates in our language skills and how we refresh and recreate language day after day after day, and create images that are adequate and are not at a standstill for 50, 60, 70 years. There are certain images that are totally at a standstill and are just without meaning. … [I]t’s a dangerous thing. Without image and language adaptations, we will not really be able to adapt to unforeseen challenges, like global warming, which is just one problem.’

Herzog is the best kind of public philosopher. His reference to global warming got me thinking: what image adaptations do we need to tackle a problem of this order?

One possible answer is that we need more images that represent human beings as a species, as opposed to a bunch of different nationalities and ethnicities. Perhaps images too of the earth from space, evoking the fragility of life on the blue planet and our isolation in the void.

Most of all, we need images of human collaboration. The myriad problems thrown-up by climate change will not be solved by celebrities and reformers. We need new images to remind ourselves of what tremendous things we’ve accomplished through mass collaboration.

I’ve recently worked with Simon Robson on a film about how new Web 2.0 platforms could be used to muster and facilitate grassroots collaboration to tackle global warming. Over several months, I’ve had the opportunity of being able to watch, listen, discuss, and co-create with numerous artists and studios about the world, which has been a fantastic experience. What has blown me away has been the creativity and intelligence on the part of the animators and designers dealing with the visual landscapes of the film. It is as if everyone working on the film realizes that what is really at stake is the opportunity to create a new visual landscape for the war on global warming — new images for the reimagining of the struggle and its possibilities.

Swarm politics

I spoke about swarm politics at the F5 Creativity Festival in NYC in April 2009.  Simon Robson and I were there to present shots from our upcoming film, ‘Coalition of the Willing’. Popdesign captured the moment and put it  flickr. Thank you Popdesign. To see the photos of Simon and I, you can either scroll left through the photostream or follow a tag (better).

If you’d like to watch the video of our presentation at F5, you’ll find it here. Thanks very much to Justin Cone for posting this video on the F5 site.

Alternatively, you can watch the clip on the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ blog’, where you’ll also find storyboards and shots from the film.