(versão em Português abaixo)
World under Quarantine: Time to re-think our civilization and our relationship to mother Earth, using the power of art.
April, 9, 2020 -- Super Pink Moon
Vix Møra
Fellow artists, as we -- the lucky enough to have a home -- sit locked up from the world, 5G comes about, while kids are having school through their mobile phones. It's easy to imagine a matrix-meets-1984-type scenario where people would start living through alternative digital realities, in a place where they could have all the freedom in the world, be whoever they wish to be... but never actually see the sunrise again.
Although I am not a major follower of conspiracy theories I must say a phrase I saw the other day in some digital media platform resounded: "from all the ends of the world I've seen, this is the one that most looks like the world is actually ending".
In fact, the contagious virus is the least of our problems, as humanity today. We are currently living the free fall of the capitalist system. But the 'winners' of the capitalist game -- the ones who hold most of the wealth -- are quite determined not to let go.
The system sees imminent abyss coming from all sides, but the name of the single biggest 'asteroid' hitting the modern human society has a name: Sustainability.
But sustainability is also the solution.
São Paulo: Author Unknown
FREE FALL
Capitalism is a system based on growth, where the performance of countries are measured by their GDPs, or the amount of money they make. Since the industrial revolution, almost 300 years ago, countries have been growing their wealth, excavating the earth for precious minerals, devastating forests and seas, polluting...
But now this whole machine is faced with an underlying problem: the world simply cannot fit any more humans growing their daily consumption and waste.
Fact is that today it is undeniable that a massive change on the Earth's cycles and seasons is happening, which is affecting every being and every ecosystem. Tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, wildfires, new diseases, all have become a daily read on the news. We are already seeing immigration generating ethical crisis in Europe and the United States. Famine due to crop failure almost inevitably will make it worse, if the climate keeps getting warmer.
But still, while many activists, scientists and even governments around the world are raising their voices in calling for measures to contain the warming up of the planet, these voices, including the very United Nations as an institution, are still being undermined and the problem treated as a hoax by a handful of powerful leaders.
Fact is that capitalism has already collapsed some years ago. Figures such as Trump, Netanyahu, Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson, Bin Salaman and many others represent a post-capitalist system on the rise. "America First", Zionism, Brexit, militarism, fundamentalism and nationalism are the new flags being raised.
Instead of joining the global movement of change into a sustainable society, those who hold the trillions and the big weapons are moving to get hold of the world's basic resources, such as water, land and minerals, which will become each time more scarce in the coming decades.
The pandemic which has home-arrested the world was just the last drop for the capitalist system. In the brink of this global health emergency governments are inserting trillions in their economies, in order to keep the financial system going. In order to help the companies which are "too big to break", including banks and big oil.
How is this capitalism anymore? When multinational trillion-dollar companies that live above the laws of ordinary humans come back to the state looking for help from tax payer's money, when bad times come?! It's absurd!
It is clear as daylight that these companies and conglomerates have taken over the state, but the common person has become too blind to see it, due to the extent of manipulation of public opinion.
With the world under quarantine, governments are using the imposed state of emergency to track people's movements using their smartphones, talks about global vaccines containing microchips, robots being placed to protect "fundamental tasks" of society, and big data is gathering more information than ever about people.
More control, less rights... the outlook seems like a second version of the dark ages is on the rise. But while the dark ages left some deep scars in humanity, it also provoked the greatest leap in known history in terms of Science, Art and Freedom.
This leap is know as the Renaissance, or, re-birth.
Lacey
RENAISSANCE 2.0
In Tarot there is a card called 'the hanged man'. And it portrays a man who fell on a trap. Impeded from moving by circumstances beyond his control, there is nothing this man is able to do, other than just stay put and look at the world from a different perspective. During this process, the man attains enlightenment.
While humans are locked up in their houses and financial systems are crashing, nature, on the other hand, is taking a break. The level of global carbon emissions have shrank massively. Animals are leaving their hiding and exploring zones where humans had taken over. Planes aren't flying and cruise ships are docked. Buses, cars, all reduced to the necessary.
The planet is breathing again, and we can hear the birds singing.
Fact is that as this chaos is an opportunity for the oppressing forces, it is also for individual and global reassessment of our current way of life.
We find ourselves in a similar position to the hanged man. And it's our chance to use the time nature has imposed on us in order to grow and get to know ourselves better. To experience the world through new optics. To see how some of the problems happening outside are represented by habits and paradigms from the inside. And how a small change in the inside can have tremendous reverberations in the exterior.
Kandinsky, the Russian artist, wrote in his book The Spiritual in Art, 1911: “Artists are the spiritual teachers of the world”.
From Cromasomos' perspective, artists could also be the healers of the world, with the right knowledge about the frequencies which they manipulate.
While the others have the guns and the power, we have art. We have the power to project feelings, thoughts, information. We have the power to give shape, weight, sound, texture, color, to concepts which would be hard to communicate otherwise. To make knowledge graspable an immortal.
In fact, most of what we know from ancient civilizations it's because of the art they left engraved in stone. Tarot itself is thought to have been created by sages of the past as their civilizations came to an end, in order to keep knowledge alive through to the next generations.
As a community of artists with special interest on the subtle world of feelings, we must find a way to place ourselves at the service of humanity and of nature in the present time.
We must engrave feelings of resistance and awakening deep into humanity's soul.
istock
Pt
Ronny ou o Contraste dos Planos.
Retratado com os ombros levemente na diagonal Ronny olha diretamente para o espectador com um olhar que transparece calma, podendo até sugerir apreensão, mas sua postura erguida também nos inspira coragem e transmite confiança.
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En
Ronny or the Contrast of Plans.
Pictured with shoulders slightly diagonally vê looks directly at the viewer with eyes that appears calm, and may even suggest apprehension, but his upright posture also inspires courage and conveys confidence.
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Guilherme Aguiar