#thejaymo

I spoke about Solarpunk and my forthcoming book Land As Platform at/on Thursday Night Live! Terraforming Earth! at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam.

Jaya Klara Brekke was my co-speaker at the event and we also discussed the potential of blockchain technology and decentralised renewable energy, and the effect of spiralling technological indeterminacy.

I was asked to submit a talk to a HUGE conference over in Berlin to talk about Solarpunk and what it’s like to have been involved in the genre from the very beginning as an admin over on @solarpunks​. I found out this week that it wasn’t accepted, but some other solarpunks were - watch solarpunks.net for more info.

I’m posting my talk proposal below as it’s the first time that I’ve written something on solarpunk. Some of the wording and phrasing as become important to me especially the lines about not being able to speak for other solarpunks.

“Dirt Behind Our Ears” : On Solarpunk and the Need for New Futures

Give a short and catchy idea about your main argument. This text will be used publicly once your session is accepted, so it's worth proofreading it.

500 Char Public Thesis - ~ 75 Words

Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?”.  

The future does not passively ‘arrive’ fully formed  from the aether, we must first meet it the way humanity has always done: though dreams, stories and song. This session will cover the story of the nascent genre of solarpunk and the communities attempts to ‘remake our present and future history’.

Please describe what your session is about, how you want to proceed and what methods you are going to use. Be clear and check orthography and grammar. This text will be used publicly once your session is accepted, so it's worth proofreading it.

2000 Char Description - ~ 300 Words

The emerging science fictional genre and aesthetic of “solarpunk” begins with ‘Infrastructure as a form of resistance’.

In 2014 the EIA, CIA, & World Bank published a graph charting the falling cost of solar energy and titled it ‘Welcome to the Terrordome’. The upcoming 21st Century shift toward clean energy opens the future to an age of ‘innovative dissent’.

But we don’t see terror in this future. Solarpunk envisions a world where the drastic technological shift towards renewables and decentralisation empowers movements for social justice and economic liberation. It attempts to foster a socio-cultural environment which emphasises individual autonomy, consent, unity-in-diversity, with the free egalitarian distribution of power. It creates a multitude of spaces for indigenous sovereignties, reproductive justice, and radical queer politics. Of course with these principles comes polyphony, one cannot speak for other solarpunks, only be in dialogue and occasional chorus with them. Some solarpunks recognize it was a great tragedy that the alternate historical genre of steampunk was not decolonial to its core from its inception. Others call for the recognition of rights for the ‘non-human’: trees, rivers and mountains. And technologists building decentralised P2P social networks are doing so under a solarpunk banner. The genre provides a rich soil of ideas and action from which our struggles en route to a better world can grow.