Visualising the Green Knowledge Trust

The latest development work through is from Cassiano Prado, Mario Sader and Ralph Piner. This three man team is realising the section which describes the Green Knowledge Trust; "A 'How-to' guide for developing low carbon societies". The team is working with the concept of how Dynamos use magnetic fields to convert mechanical rotation into a pulsing direct electric current. It's an analogy for how pairing reliable information with practical focus could create a green movement all by itself. The guys are taking quite a photo-realistic 3D approach to their section and Ralph's renders here show an amazing start...

A year ago today

I was clearing out our messy room in the flat over the week-end, when I came across a newspaper stuffed under a pile of used wrapping paper that Emma had 'salvaged' (She's a hoarder is Emma). I instantly remembered why I'd kept the paper; It's a Guardian that leads with an article that took me aback when I read the headline, "People power vital to climate deal - minister". Ed Miliband, our environment secretary was the guy behind the quote. If you read the article you'll see that he sites movements such as the suffragettes and the movements of the 60s counter-culture as key moments of 'people power' in the past. He mentions how we need movements like this to leverage government.

So i re-read the article and then checked the date; it was almost exactly a year ago that this article was published. Now at the time, Tim and I were around 5 months into developing our polemic for 'Coalition' and i remember feeling on reading the article
how we were now in-step with emerging thinking. I also remember wondering if our idea had 'missed the boat'. But looking back, I think Ed Miliband's thinking was flawed in one vital area, and as a politician it had to be:

I don't think the people's role is to leverage government on climate change. This time i don't think our role is to march in the streets, or to sign-petitions, or to bang pots together, or to call for our leaders to change and to lead the way. Our role is simply to do what what web 2.0 technologies now allow us to do, to collaborate and to swarm.

We need to create places where everyone can go to find out how they can green up, easily and efficiently. We need instant and reliable knowledge about which is the green product to buy (And just watch those who don't supply them products go bust). We need to re-discover community and build solutions together, micro economies are where it's going to be at. We need online places we can go to chip our good ideas in to problems and create solutions that will benefit us all. We need each other.

Governments are paranoid about being out of step with their public, it's their nightmare. This time the popular movement could go way beyond forcing the hand of government, governments will have to put on their running shoes to keep up.

Bear this in mind whilst hanging on every syndicated news snippet that comes your way from the Copenhagen conference. I don't mean be complacent, but what i do mean is that with the right application of the right tools by the right people, we could trigger a new era of global collaborative culture, never mind the cards the dealers in Copenhagen lay on the table.

Capitalism off guard - latest

Capitalism off guard - latest from Simon Robson on Vimeo.

Here's the latest version of 'Capitalism off guard'. Burnt match hands now pick up the little jumping characters, pull off their cork heads and their 'inner selves' spurt out and get bottled up for sale. All very symbolic don't you know...
The last sequence from spurts to bottle was all shot on the Clapham Rd multiplane, with tons of blue oil paint on the bottom plane for the background. The sequence took about 5 days to shoot, but it was worth it!
I'll start posting this sequence some time in the new year, doing a proper job on keying and adding backgrounds...More updates soon.