Tag Archives: Trump

The Space Race

Standing in space. Wide open away from any barrier, wall, manmade or natural object. Humans have a strange desire to be next to or under something. Taking a pee by a lonely tree. Creating an arch for your wedding, framing the lovely couple within the view. Grounding them. Why not have the wide expanse of the Arizona Desert rolling out before you, untethered, unleashed. But you take a picture by the only cactus within 20 miles. There needs to be a prop. Something to contextualise your presence on earth. Which makes it all the more bizarre that we seem so obsessed with travel into space. Space Twitter or X as it is now called. Putting the first people on the moon in 1968 then just waiting around until 2030 until we do it again. Apollo disasters halting any idea of mass migration to outer space. Elon Musk and Trump hoping to control the planet by regulating the space all around. They will charge us to breathe air before you know it. There is a fascination to searching the solar system, looking for likeminded inhabitants. So far though no one has turned up, except perhaps the clangers, trumpeting around with almost discernible presence. A fascination to look on where we all reside from a vantage point, from above, all trying to be gods, what an unbelievable waste of time and money. Fools fantasy. The planet is dying, yes, but rather than rush for the escape pod then surely it needs some TLC. People need help. Not some hair brained multi trillion dollar experiment. Imagine what you could do with the money. Applying for some small creative arts funds takes weeks of your life, jumping through ever decreasing hoops until you are squeezed by a Boa Constrictor. Review after review then your bid is deemed worthy of submission. Weeks of waiting, heart beating faster when any email pings into your inbox with the message “the quality of applications was very high…..”. And then, oh sorry you haven’t been successful this time. Please resubmit though, changing all your budget forecasts and being more realistic with your project aims. Be more realistic. Blimey. Fortunes are being spent propelling people into other orbits. You want me to be more realistic and less arty? Space travel is the ultimate rich persons folly. Pure art. Pointless. An inevitable outcome of greed and power searching. Can’t we just be happy in our communities rather than trying to form a space station on the boiling mess that is Mars. I mean a Mars a day helps you work, rest and dream of flying into the great beyond. Refugees, fleeing war torn nations battle across lands, rejected and looked down upon before reaching waters edge, crammed into flimsy life or death rafts, desperate for a life on earth. Do their kids wonder about life on mars, do they look at the moon and wish they could set foot on it or do they just wish for a safe place. Home. Not under siege. A place where they can exist. Not heading to some otherworldly final frontier but to real end points. Spaces to live within. A tree.

Manekins who I see as humans, in a shop window

Conspiracies 

Today I heard the latest conspiracy theory. That planes were being flown in the sky to break up the atmosphere through spraying chemicals which then caused rain to occur. Crazy stuff. It has rained a lot this year. The Covid 19 pandemic started off in a wave of beautiful weather in the UK creating a bucolic gorgeous spring where the blossom was richer, the smells more fragrant and the light sharper. Exactly three years it is yet another dank dull day. Dreary me. If planes could cause the weather to change, then surely this is what could happen over drought ridden expanses. It could be the work for Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry of the Future. Conspiracy theories provide realism, a connection to world, an ideal that we can change things. Perversely they provide reasoning. Everyone talks about the weather, especially in the UK, where patterns are difficult to follow due to the almost constant variance. In the 1990s I buried myself amongst conspiracy, David Icke the TV presenting goalkeeper who took me into debates about Lady Diana and Dodie, the Twin Towers, and finally that the UK royal family were lizards. Now this just took me too far. The others have intrigue and possibility but amphibian transformation amongst the blue blooded was a step too far. Mayan conspiracies, Graham Hancock’s Fingerprints of the gods, redefining history, challenging norms, great stories. Truth. It has been battered. Donald Trump, that mainstream conspiracy dude, stolen election, Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Covid again. Hopefully, the UK election culminating on July 4th 2024 will provide a break from populism, solutions to real world problems, a sense of care and compassion. Real people creating real world solutions, not just propaganda. No pie in the sky. We can but hope that the stars are aligned this time.

Collective Consciousness

Music connects to our worlds, what we perceive as life as A Tribe Called Quest extol in the brilliant Black Noise by Tricia Rose’s (1994, p.68), suggesting ‘the rhythmic instinction to yield to travel beyond existing forces in life. If you want to get rhythm then you need to join a tribe’. Natural cohesiveness that transcends our world, both imagined and real, featuring a collective consciousness that pervades and sweeps through the music. Modern Western cultures struggle with the concept of collective consciousness because there is often a negative impact that occurs. Within a scenius (a scene containing unusually high levels of genius) the group think supports positive elements, such as in the London Jazz scenius where places such as The Total Refreshment Centre and the Tomorrows Warriors school help people on a group path, showing value in nurturing communal musiking. Stories told within mainstream media rely on collective consciousness to push ideas, generally in a negative way. Get Brexit Done, Covid-19 lockdowns, the Middle East situation where a lack of historical knowledge is used to sway arguments. Which side are you on, the Palestinians or the Israelis, when the situation is much more nuanced, non linear. Chaos Theory is utilised to confuse and subvert populations. Obvious 20th Century examples include Stalin, Hitler, Apartheid, Anti- black racism, Trump, Johnson, Berlesconi. Dominic Cummings sadly slumped at a desk on live TV lying, needing an eye test to confirm that he was driving a car. If you can start to move the juggernaut of the group down one path then it is unstoppable as there is no room to turn around and the vessel is so large that it would take forever anyway. Brian Eno demonstrated Chaos Theory with his 2 handed pendulum, where simple motion on the first one creates infinite non repeated movements on the second. So a little nudge one way can send all kinds of confusion across the next, thereby subordinated populations. Collective consciousness came through in punk, hip hop, techno, jungle etc.. through commonalities of fashion, style, music, art, taste, lifestyle, place, rhythm, dance. There are instigators, those key people who lead the collective in a certain direction. We are all swayed in some way, which can be a positive in cultural scenes but have global destroying effects in political spheres.

Emma Warren – Total Refreshment Centre