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Lemon

4 mesi fa • •

Lemon
4 mesi fa • •

A rant on why I think we need realistic Solarpunk, plus some other thing 1/2 ☀️

Felt compelled to make this. It will finally stop floating around in my head 🎉

Podcast over here if you're interested: podcast.tomasino.org/@Solarpun…

#solarPunk #hopePunk #art #myArt #comics #sustainability

Page 1 of comic. The uppermost caption states: "I like realistic Solarpunk. I think it's the best kind, actually!" Under it is a horizontal space filled with doodles: someone exiting a tool library, a girl holding a mended sock, a chama group is pooling donations, a woman browses Wikipedia, a volunteer is filling a bowl with free soup.
"By realistic I mean grounded. Something that we could imagine happening in our real world. No magic (a drawing of a girl with fire powers), no supernatural elements unless you know what you're doing (a talking cat), no cure-all tech (a man is claiming a tiny piece of tech is going to solve everything).
The artist appears. "I feel that way because of my answer to this question: what is Solarpunk for?"

Page 2. "Well, let's see...Solarpunk isn't just an aesthetic, it's an emerging genre and artistic movement." The statement is accompanied by mandala-like drawing of several hands drawing the Solarpunk symbol.
Then there's a dualistic drawing: Cyberpunk and Solarpunk next to each other. In the Cyberpunk drawing, a man is holding a gun, and in the other he is unloading soil from a big bag into a garden bed. Three tiny people are floating next to the Solarpunk man, imagining what tasty stuff can grow from that soil.
The caption reads: "Solarpunk is also sort of CyberPunk's counterpart. While Cyberpunk concerns itself with wrecking bad old systems, Solarpunk is about building new, better ones. SolarPunk's creation was very intentional - it's for letting us imagine a tomorrow that's not a fucking shitshow."
In the corner, the artist points at a box labeled "future" and asks "If it's alive, what do you reckon it looks like?"

Page 3. "And that tomorrow part is important! When it comes to technology, we can stop climate change and achieve a sustainable world right now." A whole section next to this text is filled with various sustainable technologies: perma- and polyculture, wind turbines, vernacular architecture, reforestation, libraries of everything, trains, trams, bikes, solar panels, habitat restoration, degrowth etc.
"We don't need to wait until a fancy piece of tech comes along and fixes everything." There's a rendition of that meme where people are huddling together to discuss something. A contraption called "carbon sucker 9000 appears". The group gives it a thumbs up and continues discussing their own stuff like minimizing plane travel.

"What we need is large cultural and societal change. But most people struggle to imagine anything but dystopia."
In a frame nearby, a rich guy gleefully puts his foot on a pair of scales, favoring a bag of money over the planet. However, just out of frame is a group of people with tools, ready to take the planet back.

"Solarpunk is for filling that blank space! And a grounded, though not unambitious, approach makes it feel more achievable to the average person."

Page 4. "If we can imagine absolute Cyberpunk dystopia with ease but not the opposite, it's because we don't have enough popular stories yet which would showcase that believable alternative." A lady is reading a Solarpunk book. She exclaims: "So you're telling me people can just do stuff without a monetary incentive or the risk of hunger and homelessness? Movie number 3752 about robots enslaving humanity was much more realistic!"
"The hard part for Solarpunks is imagining what the culture and structure of this new society would look like. How would it operate?" Drawing: the author sits gloomily at a desk, mumbling "I wish I could try out this hobby but the tools are so expensive, and I don't even know if it'll be a long-term interest or not...". But then they have an epiphany. "Wait, I could literally just go to the library!"
"How does this new world think? And what do we change about ourselves to get closer to it?" The final doodle is of a man stating we must ensure economic growth until the end of time, though the woman next to him retorts: "You and what endless planetary resources?" She then suggests that we instead produce what's necessary and give it to those who need it.

#sustainability #Art #solarpunk #comics #myart #Hopepunk

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Lemon

in reply to Lemon • 4 mesi fa • •

A rant on why I think we need realistic Solarpunk, plus some other thing 2/2 ☀️

Page 5. "I find that thinking about the way we do particular things now, and then trying to restructure them in a solarpunk way helps a lot (if said things are worth keeping in the first place). Like, how would (insert thing) work if we gave a damn about its environmental and societal consequences? What are the large and small effects of it?"
Then there's three sections, each dealing with a different issue.
First, "What does free access to information and the dissolution of copyright and patents help achieve?" Drawing: a lady is reading - quote "literally any book or study" - on an e-reader. In her arm she has an implant, a glucose monitor that is free to both obtain and maintain.
Second, "How does library culture affect societal attitudes? How are people with compulsive hoarding treated? What assumptions exist in such a world?" Drawing: two girls are chatting. One says she has like 20 borrowings lying around at home, and at that the other covers her mouth with her hands. "Girl, what? Return them immediately!"
Lastly, "How are people with so-called shitty though important jobs get treated when money isn't a factor anymore?" Drawing: a man announces to his partner that he feels like janitor-ing for a bit. The partner sees no problem in it.

6th and final page. "If you want more ideas to think about, check out the Solarpunk Prompts podcast." There's a link to it in the post below.
"Things need not be perfect, they just have to be better on the whole." Then there's another horizontal spread. On the left, a person is asking another to fix their phone. The second one seems impressed by how old the model is. The first person says they've had it since they were 15. On the right, a young girl is asking her dad if it's true that "water was forbidden" in the past. He looks a little dazed, saying "well, sort of?" and thinking "oh boy, it's time for the talk". In the middle is a city landscape with lots of fruit trees, a bike lane, a tramline. People are chatting, a kid is drawing on the pavement, someone sits on a bench, a bird nibbles on an apple.

"Just because something is hard to imagine doesn't mean it's impossible. Unless it's magic. Magic is pretty impossible. Anyway...Go forth! Imagine shit! Lest the doomerism fungus consume us!"
End of comic.

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tsadilas

in reply to Lemon • 4 mesi fa • •

@the_lemonaut

@Lemon

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Charlie Stross

in reply to Lemon • 4 mesi fa • •

@qlaras You just reinvented the Mundane SF movement from 20 years ago.

@Qlaras

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cwicseolfor (has moved!)

in reply to Charlie Stross • 4 mesi fa • •

@cstross @qlaras This variation on solarpunk, under the solarpunk name, has been pretty prominent for a decade or so (though it’s being brilliantly summed up and illustrated here in my absolute favorite iteration of itself.) Most the major citations date to the early twenty-teens.

@Charlie Stross @Qlaras

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alxd of the Story Seed Library

in reply to cwicseolfor (has moved!) • 4 mesi fa • •

@cwicseolfor @qlaras

Hey @cstross - first, let me thank you for your books, Accelerando inspired me to be who I am today!

I'm one of the writers of the @SolarpunkPrompts podcast @the_lemonaut mentions and wrote quite a few essays on the movement.

Solarpunk doesn't claim to be anything new, it's just a label people are rallying around to imagine how a future could look like if we are to become a sustainable civilization.

Something which is still way too hard to imagine.

@Solarpunk Prompts @Charlie Stross @cwicseolfor (has moved!) @Qlaras @Lemon

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Leather Daddy but Straight 🏴

in reply to alxd of the Story Seed Library • 4 mesi fa • •

@alxd @cwicseolfor @qlaras @cstross @SolarpunkPrompts I would propose: (and this may be controversial, I’m open to being told I’m wrong) that if solarpunk is to be worth an ounce it cannot be only an artistic movement. It must be something that is, as @the_lemonaut proposes, a behavior or a design that materially impacts the world. Otherwise it’s just another demonstration of what Vonnegut said about Vietnam.

Maybe I’m full of shit

@alxd of the Story Seed Library @Solarpunk Prompts @Charlie Stross @cwicseolfor (has moved!) @Qlaras @Lemon

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alxd of the Story Seed Library

in reply to Leather Daddy but Straight 🏴 • 4 mesi fa • •

@Jetengineweasel @cwicseolfor @qlaras @cstross @SolarpunkPrompts
Or maybe it already is a movement, one which couldn't find a name before, all these technologies from the Global South, open source and open culture values from Wikipedia to Appropedia, Safecasts and more? ;)

I wrote about it extensively at lenses.alxd.org/ !

I came to Solarpunk because I had no other language to tell the real stories I saw.

Solarpunk: lenses and foundations

Round Mirror by Ethan Sees Last year I published a lengthy videoessay on Solarpunk as a part of collaboration with a philosophical YouTube channel "Myśleć Głębiej" (Think That Through in English).

^{alxd - solarpunk hacker}

@Solarpunk Prompts @Charlie Stross @cwicseolfor (has moved!) @Qlaras @Leather Daddy but Straight 🏴

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Neil Kandalgaonkar

in reply to Lemon • 4 mesi fa • •

I really appreciate this

My exposure to solarpunk has been a) a yogurt commercial, b) thanks to super-technology, cats are enthusiastic partcipants in the weekly commune meetings*

In theory I liked the genre but I didn't see anything I really identified with. Subbing to the pod for more.

Hard-solarpunk? Though "hard" has the wrong connotations

* Extremely unrealistic, obviously the cats would skip them

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alxd of the Story Seed Library

in reply to Neil Kandalgaonkar • 4 mesi fa • •

@neilk I'm one of the proponents of such hard solarpunk - and while I don't know if we have a label, together with @the_lemonaut and a dozen other artists we created storyseedlibrary.org/ to promote more grounded climate future art! 😀

Welcome to Story Seed Library!

A library of Solarpunk art and story seeds helping you imagine a better climate future!

^{Story Seed Library}

@Neil Kandalgaonkar @Lemon

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Neil Kandalgaonkar

in reply to alxd of the Story Seed Library • 4 mesi fa • •

@alxd I tried listening to this but I realized it’s intended for writers

I’m not sure I approve of this tbh. There are two independent premises that are assumed true: that there is an optimistic future, and that it has the solarpunk aesthetic. Then we’re supposed to construct rationalizations for it

I could understand the prompt to be optimistic xor to write about future communitarianism but both simultaneously? idk. Le Guin would never.

@alxd of the Story Seed Library

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Lemon

in reply to Neil Kandalgaonkar • 4 mesi fa • •

@neilk, not sure what the problem is in this situation, or whether you're being serious at all (apologies if you are). Why is a suggestion to write speculative fiction that combines multiple premises bad? Is giving a prompt "write a story set in a world where robots have gained sentience AND where humanity has colonized Mars" automatically unviable? Why? 🤔 These premises don't exist to divine the future. Also...the podcast is called Solarpunk Prompts. What else could the premises be?

@Neil Kandalgaonkar

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Neil Kandalgaonkar

in reply to Lemon • 4 mesi fa • •

Perhaps I should not have said anything. You have a project and it gives you hope. There is lots of undiscovered country even within the parameters you have set

In my defense. I’m very suspicious of anything that constrains the artist to affirm a vision of the future. Been there done that. My reference to Le Guin was that she could only offer “ambiguous” utopias because she understood people all too well

inventwithpython.com/theguyial…

The Guy I Almost Was | Graphic Novel by Patrick Sean Farley

The Guy I Almost Was by Patrick Farley

^{inventwithpython.com}

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Lemon

in reply to Neil Kandalgaonkar • 4 mesi fa • •

@neilk, it's is A version of A future, and also nobody is forcing anyone to fit the stated parameters. If they feel like it too limiting they can just...not follow them 🤷 And they don't have to follow them forever in every piece they make

Creative prompts specifically suggest frames within which people can create, if they find the idea interesting or compelling. There is also the concept of creative limitation.

I am very curious to know what you had expected to see from this podcast instead

@Neil Kandalgaonkar

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Neil Kandalgaonkar

in reply to Lemon • 4 mesi fa • •

It’s what I expected but it raised some other things in me

I think it’s just not for me. I should have let it alone

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alxd of the Story Seed Library

in reply to Neil Kandalgaonkar • 4 mesi fa • •

@neilk
Out of curiosity - if I told you about a (possibly utopian) country, would you believe that it's achievable within the next few decades?

It's powered by 80-90% renewable energy. 65+% of people work in co-ops, which generate at least 33% of the GDP. The transport is not even public, it's communal - local co-ops own it. Public healthcare. Every child speaks 2-4 languages from the very beginning. Three major religions exist there without big tensions.

@Neil Kandalgaonkar

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Neil Kandalgaonkar

in reply to alxd of the Story Seed Library • 4 mesi fa • •

@alxd
*sigh*

You’re pushing on an open door. I am not the person you need to convince that ways of living, other than what white suburbanites in the US know about, are possible and even exist today

I just don’t believe that writing narratives with the overarching purpose of prefiguring some desired political or economic end state makes for good art. That’s just reverse Ayn Rand.

@alxd of the Story Seed Library

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alxd of the Story Seed Library

in reply to Neil Kandalgaonkar • 4 mesi fa • •

@neilk
and I'm trying to show you something else here. Because I am not trying to write art.

I am trying to write reporting.

What I described in the message above is just modern day Kenya. With its own share of problems, but a lot of _good_ things we don't notice.

I started looking into Solarpunk because I needed to have a new language for describing the reality around me that people wouldn't notice, wouldn't listen to normally!

lenses.alxd.org/

Solarpunk: lenses and foundations

Round Mirror by Ethan Sees Last year I published a lengthy videoessay on Solarpunk as a part of collaboration with a philosophical YouTube channel "Myśleć Głębiej" (Think That Through in English).

^{alxd - solarpunk hacker}

@Neil Kandalgaonkar

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