Taking on some pointers made during the tutor meeting with Clive, I wanted to look into some material on certain subject matters in more detail to help develop the ideas myself and Alex had for the further fine tuning of our projects ethos.
When trying to develop a project idea early on, I knew I wanted the ideas behind the project to stem from my own concerns around the issues we face as a species, that seem to be withdrawn from our knowledge.
‘The Big Oil Lie’ was a video I had come across last year that reinforced my interest in the subject of the pending energy crisis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvoSuRXsklQ
It seems that the issues what we as a species are heading towards are not transparently being spoken about towards the general population, being left for the discussions to take place between the ‘conspiracy theorists’ wearing their tin foil hats.
I have always felt strongly towards to seeming ‘lack on interest’ of these huge issues, both within mainstream media.
My first exposure to these subject matter was through my interest in Radiohead’s Thom Yorke.
Thom Yorke’s solo album The Eraser features the song Harrowdown Hill, a song that expresses Thom Yorkes anger over the death of Dr David Kelly and the circumstances that surrounded it.
The events surrounding the death of David Kelly have still not been fully disclosed, resulting in the continued questioning by a select percentage of the population.
This led (and continues to lead) people to question the real reasoning behind the UK government’s decision to go to war in Iraq.
The following link is an article explaining the events surrounding Dr. David Kelly 10 years on:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jul/16/david-kelly-death-10-years-on
During the talk with our tutor it was mentioned that our projects ethos was extremely similar to the moon project.
It was at this point that Clive pointed us towards two different documentaries, Collapse and fahrenheit 9/11.
The first documentary that I watched was Collapse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPL2CReZaHI
The documentary is based around the life time research of Michael Ruppert and his findings into how the government are keeping the rate at which oil is being used a secret from the population.
He also explains how there is basically no real alternative for the future production of energy… which is a scary thought considering the lack of information we are currently being told as a population on this subject.
The main factor of this documentary that concerns me is, again, the obvious lack of transparency between the population and what is really going on in the world.
Another aspect to the Collapse film that resonates with me is Ruppert’s quote of Thomas Jefferson 40 seconds into the film, stating that we need ‘a revolution every generation’ and that we are currently ‘many generations overdue a revolution in terms of our thinking’.
It was this statement when listened to that made myself feel that the whole concept of Planets of Change should be worked towards the fueling of a revolution such as this.
The original basis of the project idea was focused towards getting users to explore these current issues to revolutionise the way we think as a collective community.
However after the tutor talk with Clive it was clear that we needed to work on the way in which our project will be further developed. Stepping what we have at the moment away from being too similar to the Moon project.
The next stage of the projects development is to work on how our project idea can be worked on to build a stronger ethos.
– Michael