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Last year, the astrophysicist Adam Frank implored an audience at Google that we see climate change – and the newly baptised geological age of the Anthropocene – against this cosmological backdrop. The Anthropocene refers to the effects of humanity’s energy-intensive activities upon Earth. Could it be that we do not see evidence of space-faring galactic civilisations because, due to resource exhaustion and subsequent climate collapse, none of them ever get that far? If so, why should we be any different?

A few months after Frank’s talk, in October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s update on global warming caused a stir. It predicted a sombre future if we do not decarbonise. And in May, amid Extinction Rebellion’s protests, a new climate report upped the ante, warning: “Human life on earth may be on the way to extinction.”

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… apocalyptic prophecies are designed to reveal the ultimate moral meaning of things. It’s in the name: apocalypse means revelation. Extinction, by direct contrast, reveals precisely nothing and this is because it instead predicts the end of meaning and morality itself – if there are no humans, there is nothing humanly meaningful left.

The end of the world: a history of how a silent cosmos led humans to fear the worst

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THOMAS MOYNIHAN MAY 11, 2020

PALLADIUM

GOVERNANCE FUTURISM

Our Visions of the Future Determine Our Society Today

“The future may not look like satanic mills in space, after all.”

1362 – Our Planet (TV Mini-Series 2019)

Our Planet is a British nature documentary series made for Netflix. The series is narrated by David Attenborough and produced by Silverback Films, led by Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey, who also created BBC documentary series Planet Earth, Frozen Planet and The Blue Planet, in collaboration with the conservation charity World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

The series addresses issues of conservation while featuring these disparate animals in their respective home regions, and has been noted for its greater focus on humans’ impact on the environment than traditional nature documentaries; centering around how climate change impacts all living creatures. It marked the first nature documentary Netflix has ever made. All episodes were released on 5 April 2019. A behind the scenes documentary was released onto Netflix on 2 August 2019.

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1349 – Aniara (2018)

timespace coordinates: 2038 (+) Aniara, a luxurious spaceship carrying settlers from Earth to Mars

Aniara is a 2018 Swedish-Danish co-production co-directed by Pella Kagerman and Hugo Lilja. The film is an adaptation of the 1956 Swedish epic poem of the same name by Harry Martinson.

The film is set in a dystopian future where climate change has left Earth ravaged, forcing people to resettle from Earth to Mars. When such a routine trip veers off course the passengers struggle to cope with their new lives. (wiki)

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Director Pella Kagerman & Hugo Lilja on the end of the world in Aniara

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1330 – Ruiner (2017 video game)

timespace coordinates: cyber metropolis Rengkok / nightscapes and industrial jungles of a grit-tech 2091

Ruiner is a brutal cyberpunk top-down shooter / isometric slasher video game developed by Polish indie game studio Reikon Games and published by Devolver Digital. The game was released for Linux, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One on 26 September 2017. Omri Pettite of PC Gamer stated that “Ruiner is gorgeous, a sensory feast inspired by the works of cyberpunk’s 1980s heyday, in which a silent, masked protagonist travels through the nightscapes and industrial jungles of a grit-tech 2091. Underneath, a thumping top-down action game delivers sword-sharp combat, the familiarity of its design offset by the constant urge to simply stand still and drink everything in.”

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (MINIMUM): Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system /  OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 x64 / Processor: Intel Core i5-760 (4 * 2800) or equivalent / AMD Athlon II X4 645 AM3 (4 * 3100) or equivalent / Memory: 4 GB RAM / Graphics: GeForce GTX 460 (1024 MB) / Radeon HD 6850 (1024 MB) / Storage: 10 GB available space

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1324 – Strange Days (1995)

timespace coordinates: 1999, turn of the century (near-future) Los Angeles (racial war zone / New Year’s Eve party) 

Strange Days is a 1995 American science fiction thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow, written by James Cameron and Jay Cocks, and produced by Cameron and Steven-Charles Jaffe. It stars Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, and Tom Sizemore. Set in the last two days of 1999, the film follows the story of a black marketeer of SQUID discs, recordings that allow a user to experience the recorder’s memories and physical sensations, as he attempts to uncover the truth behind the murder of a prostitute.

Blending science fiction with film noir conventions, Strange Days explores themes such as racism, abuse of power, rape, and voyeurism. Although the story was conceived by Cameron around 1986, Bigelow found inspiration after incidents such as the Lorena Bobbitt trial and the 1992 Los Angeles riots that followed the Rodney King verdict.

Strange Days was a commercial failure and almost derailed Bigelow’s career (…) Nevertheless, the film’s critical standing has improved over the years, with many fans feeling that the film has been overlooked by a casual mass audience and misguided critics.

The scene where the crowd celebrates the turn of the new century at the end of the film was shot at the corner of the 5th and Flower streets, between the Westin Bonaventure Hotel and the Los Angeles Public Library. Over 50 off-duty police officers were hired to control an assembled crowd of 10,000 people, who had to pay $10 in advance to attend the event. The film-makers also hired rave promoters Moss Jacobs and Philip Blaine to produce performances featuring Aphex Twin, Deee-Lite, as well as “all the cyber-techno bands they could garner”.

In 2015, The Washington Post editor Sonny Bunch felt that Strange Days was still relevant, comparing the imagery captured by the SQUID units to that of first-person shooters or cellphone videos on YouTube. He added that events such as Jeriko One’s murder and the subsequent coverup of the crime contribute to activist movements like Black Lives Matter, and that their media documentation amplifies their reception and consequences. (read more: Themes)

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