http://transnationaltemps.net/spill/
Opening: July 30th, 2010
MediaNoche’s gallery space at 102nd Street / Park Ave.
New York City
6-8pm
Exhibition running from July 30-September 21, 2010
Hours: Wednesday – Friday, 3-7pm

Responding to what has been called the United States’ worst ever environmental crisis, the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico frames this forward-looking group exhibition. Following on the heels of a decidedly unsuccessful round of climate negotiations in Copenhagen, the months of news coverage of oil gushing into the Gulf have provoked widespread unease with business as usual. As BP desperately attempts to recover both the oil and its public image, artists and designers from around the world are wrestling with the question of sustainability in the aftermath of these shocking events.

The Deepwater Horizon accident coincided with the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, a custom that itself came about partly in response to the Union Oil Platform A oil spill in Santa Barbara (1969). That spill, relatively small in comparison, catalyzed an environmental movement and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States. It remains to be seen what lessons and institutions may arise from this summer of junk shots and containment domes, but there can be little doubt that the stakes are high. The Gulf of Mexico, already reeling from deoxygenated ‘dead zones’ due to pollution arriving via the Mississippi River, now faces unprecedented ecological challenges stemming from both the oil and chemical dispersants. Moreover, these events call attention to the problem of fossil fuel dependency in this era of global warming. The passionate and incisive responses of contemporary artists, unencumbered by journalistic norms of decorum, are an opportunity to see these historic events through the eyes of others who are fed up with humanity’s unintended war on the environment.

>>

MediaNoche is the place where art, technology and community converge. We offer artists working in new media exhibition space and residencies in order to provoke a dialogue that blurs all lines of marginality and alterity. Unique among art and technology groups, MediaNoche is directly linked to the oldest Latino community of New York City, Spanish Harlem, and has showcased a roster of local and international new media artists. http://MediaNoche.us

>>

Transnational Temps is an international arts collective concerned with ecology, sustainability, and media. Since its formation in 2001 it has produced a series of critically acclaimed works and exhibitions under the banner Earth Art for the 21st Century. Working primarily from Europe and the United States, works to date have emphasized participation, tactical media, and spanning the sometimes awkward divide between activist advocacy and aesthetics. http://TransnationalTemps.net

Walmart announced in March 2007 that it would begin featuring flourescent light bulbs in an effort to
reduce energy consumption.

Manufacturing

Computers and cars require more fossil fuels to make than you might think. Link
Despite this situation, some companies are beginning to address the need for recycling if not reduced consumption.

Karma Offsets

Starbucks has come under fire for its exploitation of coffee growers. They’ve responded by producing a environmentalist online game. While Starbucks has many areas in which it could improve its own environmental footprint, its primary reasons for making the game could be considered sincere. As a broad policy question, however, is it not important to unite with labor rights campaigners to prevent the environment from becoming a wedge issue that gives corporations a free pass on other issues? Link

Food Fight

Not strictly greenwashing but a new low in marketing to children, nevertheless Link

Love for Sale

Meanwhile, the antidote must not be aired on MTV! What does the censorship of this type of video say about American “freedom of speech”?

http://www.spike.com/video/talking-heads-love/2788523

Con

The Utter Waste of Recycling By Alan Caruba.

Pro

Does Recyling Really Help?

Some responses from student readers.

[The latter] is a very interesting article on landfills (but long with small font so remember to exercise your eyes!) Whatever you do, DONT PRINT IT OUT! Paper is the #1 component of landfills, and no, it does not biodegrade! One study found a decade old hotdog in a landfill. Yum. Anyway, most landfills do not provide an environment where biodegrading can occur, however, this is mostly favorable since biodegrading releases toxic gases and materials. We make a lot of trash and yes, this is sad but remember to recycle your paper products and you’ll be doing a big help to decrease landfill space.
http://www.plasticsresource.com/s_plasticsresource/doc.asp?TRACKID=&DID=487&CID=175

Pro-recycling information seems vague and limited. However, those outspoken against recycling, while more specific, seem to have an agenda of their own, mainly, bashing the “left-wing greens” (YIKES! is that us?). Let’s be civilized about it! The main concern seems to be landfill space. While Mt. Trashmore isn’t my idea of a great national monument, what about all the space recycling processing plants take up? Do they smell any better? And do they save any energy?

I’m sure ideally recycling can reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, but I’m not sure recycled materials offset the demand for cutting down tree or producing new materials. I have the feeling we are just consuming too much and companies will keep creating new materials so long as there is a demand. Aha! So maybe if we buy recycled materials we can make a difference.

Some ideas circulating in the crowd:

Get Inspired:http://www.thetruth.com

http://adbusters.org/home/

http://www.breathingplanet.net/whirl/

Get off the couch:1. Culture Jamming Culture Jamming combines activism with performance art, guerilla tactics of protest, ritual resistance against mass media corporate commercialism. Visit http://www.thevacuumcleaner.co.uk/whirl.html, to view videos of the ritual resistance, known as “whirlmart”. Or take advertising into your own hands by exposing the greenwasher of your choice and wheatpaste an anti-propaganda poster over or near the companies original ad.2.Buy a bullhorn3.Participate in a protest. 4.If you can’t find one, organize one.Educate the public about the issue. Write letters to newspaper editors, participate in town hall meetings. Publicize the meetings to local papers. Pick a highly visible location or centralized shopping area.

Make a difference – dailyBuy compact fluorescent light bulbs. These energy saving light bulbs are standardized to fit in regular sockets, and not only do they last longer than incandescent bulbs, they can save $30 or more in energy costs over the bulbs lifetime.If every one of 110 million American households bought just one compact fluorescent light bulb, replaced an ordinary 60-watt bulb with it, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads. Read this article to learn more: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/108/open_lightbulbs.html

See “The Geoengineering Option” in Foreign Affairs V.88, No. 2

There is such a machine — it’s called the ‘plant.’

When some of the largest media corporations are owned by industrial manufacturers, and institutions sponsored by taxes have no teeth, clearly there’s a lack of oversight. Fortunately a combination of whistle-blowing and citizen zeal has brought to light many serious problems. This has created some pressure. The very existence of greenwashing is evidence that corporations recognize their vulnerability to coordinated criticism. Yet it’s also evidence that public relations projects are viewed as cheaper than redressing the wrongs that create popular unrest. G.E. was forced to disclose that it had spent $800 million to avoid dredging the Hudson River, into which it had dumped millions of pounds of PCBs.

As sources of globally accessible information have proliferated with the emergence of the World Wide Web, the situation has gotten more complicated for corporations with bad environmental “externalities” (a term from economics which describes costs shirked by the corporations, such as costs to the environment). Marketing campaigns have in some cases become stealth activities. Exxon-Mobil has been very agressive in creating front groups that express Exxon-Mobil’s opinions but with names that imply citizen action. Telecommunications giants like Verizon have done the same. During the intense 2006 campaign to denigrate “Net Neutrality” many articles sprang up to explain who was behind the various organizations that claimed to be champions freedom.

Who would suspect groups with names like “Consumers for Cable Choice”, “Freedom Works”, and “Progress and Freedom Foundation”? As it turns out, they’re all “astroturf” (false grass-roots) organizations set up to misinform the public by the telecommunications giants. Link “Hands off the Internet” sounds like activists wanting to protect the Internet. But it’s really an industry-backed organization that spent $20,000 a day on television commercials aimed at eliminating long-standing net neutrality protections so that telephone and cable companies could maximize their profits and minimize competition.

What would motivate commercial media to attack this type of activity? These front groups are a an additional source of advertising revenue! Even when the media organs aren’t directly owned by polluters (e.g. MSNBC and NBC owned by General Electric), the entanglements of overt and covert advertising are enough to prevent the media from agressive self-regulation of this type of deception.

Many companies have indeed come around, and deserve their new badge of honor. But some paint themselves green no matter how much harm they do. From Exxon to Ford, from Mobil to Monsanto, the world’s worst polluters buy fuzzy, feel-good advertising with an environmental message. Columnists and politicians who’ve pushed catastrophic policies like utility deregulation and the war in Iraq now genuflect at the media’s green altar. Without a hint of irony, some claim authorship of a movement they’ve scorned for decades. Link

Roach analyzes advertising, myth, and ideology. Taking automobile advertising of the 90s as her central material, she delves into strange conquest fantasies that are being peddled by Madison Avenue. Roach addresses the negative dimension of representations of Mother Nature in several SUV ads. She also interjects the “medieval Christian scholastic concept of ‘aseity’” into her interpretation of advertising messages.

Further reading: Roach’s Mother / Nature: Popular Culture and Environmental Ethics