#rob cameron

Chris at LandCon with some of the Outlander cast.

And with fans…

I'm more relieved that Roger didn't meet Black Jack tho. That whole scene in the book had me Panicking. That serial killer makes my skin crawl in the worst way.

Chris Fulton at the Berlin Premiere of Falling Into Place

CHRIS FULTON as ROB CAMERON

Outlander 7.05 "Singapore"

Promised Land: Religious Ideology and Solarpunk Science Fiction

Another absolutely fantastic essay from Rob Cameron. Building on his previous 2 part essay ‘In Search of Afro-Solarpunk’ for tor.com. (Which we thought was ‘the single most important essay about solarpunk that has been written this year (2019)’).  Cameron casts his eye over the forrest stories and imaginaries that make up solarpunk as a whole and lays out its tenets in the most concise manner we’ve seen to date. Cameron then goes on to critique and gesture towards some of the genre’s elements that remain ‘under construction’. Namely coherent and vibrant inner lives. 

“Imagining ways to create new from old, inducing change and being changed, interacting more mindfully with the environment and other people — this is the solarpunk mission. But to transform others, it would help if solarpunk becomes more open to self-transformation from unexpected places like spiritual traditions, which it has traditionally rejected. “

We know that there are witches, buddhists, occultists, traditional practitioners, and people of all faiths involved in solarpunk. Both as a movement and speculative fiction genre. But as Cameron notes this fundamental element of what it means to be human has yet to prominently make its way into its many worlds. 

If solarpunk is to fully realise its potential as a collective ‘Memetic Engine’ - A cultural construct, or tool that powers and provides the ‘re-futuring’ of our collective imaginations. Then mechanisms for accepting and amplifying individuals inner worlds must activated, aligned and developed. This blog has been around since 2012, before solarpunk was really even ‘a thing’. We wondered allowed back then what were the “ways to make life more wonderful for us right now, and more importantly for the generations that follow us”. Solarpunk is (we think), at a point where the community is established enough to engage with both individual and collective reckonings of ‘the spirt’ in its worlds. With the nuance, understanding and generosity of thought and heart that such a subject deserves (and requires). 

These conversations have been already happening slowly and discretely. Indeed, one of the the first solarpunk zines we acquired was on the ‘Sacred’. But it is perhaps time to to create and imagine stories of the sacred under the brilliant light of the sun. Whilst recognising that one cannot speak for other solarpunks. One can only ever be in dialogue and occasional chorus them. 🙏

As Cemeron concludes in his essay:

“People are less likely to take risks on new ideas when hope is precarious. Anything new may be automatically categorized as dangerous and invasive. But if it’s coming from within their own narrative, a solarpunk rewiring would not be so scary. Indeed, it might be a revelation of the Promised Land.”

Each year millions of visitors walk through the cobbled streets of Prague's Old Town - without realising, most likely, that many of the stones below their feet have been looted from what was meant to be sacred ground. The BBC's Rob Cameron only recently learned their secret.

We stood, blocking the pedestrian traffic, on one of the busiest streets in the Czech capital. A steady stream of people pushed by us muttering as they clutched bags of Christmas shopping and souvenirs and we peered at the ground.

In the distance, at the bottom of Wenceslas Square, crowds congregated around street performers and kiosks selling sausages and beer.

"There," said Leo Pavlat, the owlish, bearded director of the Prague Jewish Museum, pointing at a thin strip of dark, square cobblestones at our feet. "There! You see? All along there." He looked up, his eyes following the strip as it ran along the short pedestrianised street.

He delved into a plastic bag and brought out two cobblestones. They were almost identical to those embedded in the ground below us. But these ones you could turn over in your fingers, revealing a single smooth side of polished granite that would otherwise have been hidden face down.

One bore fragments of a date, 1895. The other featured three letters of the Hebrew alphabet - he, vav, bet, the gold paint which lined the chiselled inscriptions glinting in the winter sun.

New photo of Chris Fulton at the Berlin Premiere of Falling Into Place