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WEEK TWO  /  TASK TWO.

01 .     PROPOSAL FOR ASSESSMENT TOPIC. 

For this quarter’s assessment, I will be continuing my previous project and developing it further. I felt that the work I did last quarter only scratched the surface of what I could delve into with my take on a solarpunk utopia and how we could integrate it into our modern lifestyles.

I want to re-emphasize indigenous and cultural values that could better inform the solarpunk genre, as much of its aesthetics have been based on Asian and African cultures. I mentioned in my reflection at the end of my last project that I wanted to focus on the Japanes concept of ikigai, as the Māori values of hau and mana taonga.

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WEEK ONE  /  TASK ONE (CONTINUED).

02 .     STATEMENT & ARGUMENT. Write a short argument statement that takes up 1 or 2  points. Use both texts in relation to those points to argue for how we could live differently.

Cultural and indigenous values should be emphasized in New Zealand society as a whole, rather than in isolated indigenous communities communities of color. With the current emphasis on materialistic and economic value that dictates the driving incentive in our daily lives, integrating indigenous values into our mindset would rearrange our priorities on human rights and environmental issues for the better, which are prevalent topics in today’s day and age. Dismissing morals that have been nuanced and treasured through cultures that predate modern Western-centric systems seems like an extremely foolish thing to do.

Integrating cultural and indigenous values from beyond indigenous communities and communities of color also means that the responsibility for addressing colonization’s negative impact is distributed amongst everyone, and not just on the shoulders of indigenous peoples. This also ensures that our efforts in undoing the negative impacts of colonization are genuine instead of actions of tokenism.

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WEEK ONE  /  TASK ONE.

01 .     VIDEO: MAX HARRIS SHOW. Take some notes on 4 ways Harris makes on how we can live differently.

–   Acknowledging and undoing the negative impacts of colonization: re-centering the indigenous views. Integrating teachings of language, culture, and history that aren’t Euro-centric, such as centering Māori stories and history in school curriculum as well. Having conversations with non-Māori peoples about decolonization, not leaving all the work to Māori people as it is Pākehā people who inflicted the damage and created the problem in the first place.

–   Learning Te Reo Māori: acknowledging and understanding New Zealand’s place in the world and its own unique cultural identity. ‘Language is the window into the culture’: the double definitions in Māori help us in understanding Māori values. Also helps the brain to pick up new language as learning one more language helps the learning of other languages in the future.

–   Looking at a country’s success away from economic value: GDP, which is only a measure of materialistic consumption, is not a good way of measuring a country’s health or success. Integrating Māori values into our view of our country’s success can give us a broader view and the flow of benefits economically is also possible.

–   Emphasizing the importance of the Treaty of Waitangi and reassessing our views on how the Treaty should be honored: Instead of looking at the Treaty as a contract that has already been satisfied (which, in its history of the British Crown inconsistently honoring the Treaty, has arguably fallen short of ‘satisfaction’ for Māori peoples), it should be seen as a covenant that continues to be honored throughout time. Treating it as a way of living alongside each other as different cultures rather than a relic of the past. 

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SEMESTER TWO   /   SECOND QUARTER.

29 MAY 2019.

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WEEK 1: TASK 3  /   ANALYSIS FOR UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA EXHIBITION

01.     EVERYDAY UTOPIAS — WOLFGANG TILLMANS

Tillmans’ Everyday Utopia carried a vision of hope for me because it showed that hope could be found in the present mundane situation, i.e. a club located in the UK while the music is booming and people are dancing. Light in itself holds symbolic importance to the concept of hope and future, and I think its fitting that it would be one of the major subjects/aspects in Tillmans’ art piece. 

The message of hope being able to be found in the everyday, here and now, makes me think that ‘utopia’ can be found in other mundane, present situations outside of the nightclub scene Tillmans chose for his art piece. That if social norms and blockades can be overcome in atmosphere of a nightclub of all places, that this idea of ‘utopia’ can be grasped in such a space, it can also be grasped and worked towards outside of it.

Ellis’ tone is definitely positive and hopeful in Everyday Utopia’s description, influencing my interpretation of the work to be positive as well. While Ellis could have been condescending or critical of finding the grand idea of utopia in such small mundanity, Ellis instead emphasizes/rejoices in this juxtaposition.

02.     BUBBLE HOUSE — TACITA DEAN

Dean’s Bubble House comes off at first as grim and rather critical of past ideas about utopia, showing ruins and the impermanence of people’s idea of what is utopian. 

However, the abandonment of this ‘Bubble House’ — past architecture discarded for its ‘failure of utopian ambition’ — became less grim a thing for me when seen as a stepping stone. That in abandoning this old, outdated idea of utopia, we have moved on to updated imaginings and achievements that — although may not be the utopia we are striving for — can be part of humanity’s progress towards our goal. Evidence of failure can be taken as something to learn from, as well as the fact we have perhaps gained (or will gain) something better in its place.

Ellis presents both the grim and the hopeful in the description, and I thought the abandoned ruin being described as ‘[...] a present condition of generalised indifference and the failure of utopian ambition’ was an apt metaphor for what the ruin symbolized. I can see what Ellis was trying to do with ending the description on a positive/vague note, but my interpretation of the art piece did not resonate with it. However, I agree that both the grim and the hopeful is represented in this art piece.

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WEEK 1: TASK 2  /   NOTES FOR EXCERPT

EXCERPT ONE: TAONGA MAORI: ENCOMPASSING RIGHTS AND PROPERTY IN NEW ZEALAND

The term taonga can be best defined as ‘a treasure, something precious; hence an object of good or value', or as well defined as it can be in European terms.

A taonga can be material or immaterial, animate or inanimate; it could be historically, culturally, or personally important.

Mauss defines hau as something “carried by a gift”, or ‘the spirit of the gift. When a gift is given, he posits that a cycle of reciprocity is initiated from receiver and giver. 

Unlike Mauss, Ranapiri defines hau as the gift.

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WEEK 1: TASK 1  /   NOTES FOR ARTICLE

ARTICLE ONE: WHY SILICON VALLEY BILLIONAIRES ARE PREPPING FOR THE APOCALYPSE IN NEW ZEALAND

Peter Thiel; the billionaire venture captalist who co-founded PayPal, early investor in Facebook, profited in the mining industry, Trump supporter, applied for NZ citizenship in 2011 which was then approved, has a JRR Tolkien obsession

Sam Altman; one of Silicon Valley’s most influential entrepreneurs, has ‘made an arrangement’ with Thiel to abscond to New Zealand in the event of apocalypse.

Matt Nippert; reporter for the New Zealand Herald, uncovered Thiel’s shady citizenship grant

Peter Thiel owns a 477-acre South Island property for his apocalypse retreat, somehow avoiding the stringent government vetting process foreigners usually undergo in order to purchase significant amounts of New Zealand land. Thiel spent no more than 12 days in NZ, has not been seen in the country since, and did not need to travel to NZ for his citizenship grant. 

“New Zealand has come to be seen as a bolthole of choice for the Silicon Valley’s tech elite.” “And New Zealand, the furthest place from anywhere, is in this narrative as a kind of new Ararat: a place of shelter from the coming flood.” “...as an ideal location for this new class of sovereign individuals”. “If Silicon Valley types are welcomed here, it’s not because we’re particularly susceptible to libertarian ideas; it’s because we are complacent and naive.”

Anthony Byrt; New Zealand art critic, recommended the book ‘The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State’ written by James Dale Davidson (a private investor and advisor) and William Rees-Mogg (former editor of the Times). 

The rich would be the only ones safe from the societal collapse that will happen in the future because they are able to afford ‘the premium of salvation’. They are ‘the self-appointed “cognitive elite”, [...] content to see the unraveling of the world as long as they could carry on creating wealth in the end times — “highly sophisticated barbarism”.

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MAKING FUTURES / BLOG LAUNCH

2 MAR 2019 .