LIMIT CASES
credit: UN World Food Programme
Capacities are being breached around the world. A limit case unfolds- something once recognizable crosses into something else, its outcomes and effects too new to be recognizable. We live in a era of thresholds into limit cases. All forms of life and relationality have become multi-faceted and complex. They are existing at their apexes, edges and crests. They can do nothing but unfold into new forms of life, relationality, and at times permanent change from which we can't ever go back to what once was. What can we explore, learn and make from this intense and volatile edge?
DAILY LIFE >>> FOOD AND POPULATION CONVERGE AT THEIR LIMITS
"China’s population is forecast to peak at 1.5 billion in 2033. That growth, coupled with consequent demographic imbalances, will threaten social stability, the economy, the environment and jobs. By 2020, the report says, the number of men of marriageable age will outnumber women by 30 million. 'The resulting confusion in the social order will become a serious hidden problem influencing social stability'." --Jane Macartney, Times Online
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ART>>>WHEN LIFE IS BEYOND EXTREME AND ART IS THE ONLY RESPONSE
What happens with artists start to work collaboratively, locally, and in response to life-altering limit case-events such as Hurricane Katrina? Does art become something else? Might a new form of art emerge? Two artists, Paul Chan and Spike Lee, are responding at and to the limits.
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ENVIRONMENT >>> FORESTS BECOME ELSE
"Just two countries—Indonesia and Brazil—account for about ten per cent of the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. Neither possesses the type of heavy industry that can be found in the West, or for that matter in Russia or India. Still, only the United States and China are responsible for greater levels of emissions. That is because tropical forests in Indonesia and Brazil are disappearing with incredible speed."
--Michael Specter, The New Yorker,
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CONSUMER CULTURE>>>TOO COOL TO BUY
"These people haven't bought anything new in 352 days -- and counting. These 10 friends vowed last year not to purchase a single new thing in 2006 -- except food, the bare necessities for health and safety (toilet paper, brake fluid) and, thankfully, underwear, and maybe socks (they're still debating whether new socks are okay)." --"True Cost Economics", Utne Reader
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BUSINESS / ECONOMIES>>>BEYOND IT'S LIMITS: THE TRUE COST OF THE THING
True cost is ... "an economic model that seeks to include the cost of negative externalities into the pricing of goods and services. ... the cost of many goods and services that are currently affordable, and often taken for granted, could see an extreme rise in costs if their 'true costs' are accounted for. For example, if one accounted for air, noise and other types of pollution caused by the manufacturing and the use of a new car, then the price of the new car would, by estimates, raise by over $40,000." --Investopedia
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POLITICS>>>WAVE GOODBYE TO THE "FIRST WORLD:" AT THE LIMITS OF BEING "#1"
"The key second-world countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia are more than just 'emerging markets.' If you include China, they hold a majority of the world's foreign-exchange reserves and savings, and their spending power is making them the global economy's most important new consumer markets and thus engines of global growth -- not replacing the United States but not dependent on it either." --Parag Khanna, "Waving Goodbye to Hegemony"
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TECHNOLOGY / MEDIA>>>BREACHING THE LIMITS OF THE LIBRARY
"With the emergence of distributed forms of information the central role of the library as a repository of facts and information is changing. While it is still important to have this kind of resource, it has proven to be a diminishing draw in terms of library traffic." --The DaVinci Institute
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BE A FIRST RESPONDER
Buy nothing for a day. Keep a journal of your experiences and what kind of limits you experience in terms of safety, travel, comfort, relationships or fun. Detail how buying nothing transforms your day into something other than the days when you don't intentially avoid purchasing.
At some point during the day, while at home in your house or apartment, pause and document (through photography or a written list) every piece of plastic that creates your environment. Make sure you note every last piece within your field of vision. Then choose one piece of plastic that you think you can eliminate from your life, either by not buying again or by permanently removing it from your home. Then, eliminate it! After one week has passed, write a short reflection on what your reverse "true cost" has been. About the ways this change has affected your life. About whether you miss the object or product. About how this process has changed your life in anyway. The Deplastification Project
Visit a library on the other side of the world from where you live. Experience its online resources and if possible, its databases and catalogues. Annotate a Google map with a pin about your experiences of their online library. Inspirational Data>>> Aluka and The National Library of Korea, Google Maps
Submit a project about a limit-case situation or extreme media phenomenon to Conflux 2008. Conflux is the annual New York festival for contemporary psychogeography, the investigation of everyday urban life through emerging artistic, technological and social practice. At Conflux, visual and sound artists, writers, urban adventurers and the public gather for four days to explore their urban environment.
Submit your projects for publication in GEN U (the EMS showcase of user-generated work).
Help us update this flashpoint by posting your observations, documentations, and relevant links to the Tracking Flashpoints: LIMIT CASES section of the EMS blog.