It goes without saying that the world has significantly changed since my last digest. I went through a period where reading anything other than the news was difficult. That gave way to a period where I became more deeply acquainted with the fact that life would be different now, and that a more reclusive day-to-day existence was the new norm for many people, including myself. At that point, reading the news became difficult.
I’ve given much thought about how to respond to the current situation through art. I couldn’t come up with, and I still do not have an answer. I’ve been making pictures still, slowly, when I feel like it, with some themes in mind. There’s no pressure to “produce” at the moment. This is perhaps a good thing.
To my mind, the climate crisis is still the crisis of our time. The pandemic only serves to amplify and clarify the forces that have resulted in this situation to begin with. The runaway, lasting exploitation of the land and the resulting structural inequalities only become more clear. Rampant disinformation campaigns, dehumanization campaigns, the bad-faith politicization of data, of the politicization of logical, low-risk high reward preventative measures (from composting to mask-wearing) etc. – all are connected to the climate crisis. The climate crisis, amazingly, burns a bit more invisibly, a bit more abstractly, a bit more slowly than a pandemic does.
Additionally, there is still the question of how this pandemic itself can actually be attributed to the forces that have caused climate change (i.e. rampant expansion).
So I have returned to taking cues from exploring music, philosophy and environmental writing, as I had before. This time has only reminded me that there is a trove of rich cultural output to explore and that I will never have enough time for all of it.
Listen:
Read: