Skeletal Air-Involver: a series of AI generated images as an exploration of acoustic musical instruments in a forest environment

 

Manufacturing a Society of Sustainable Decadence

 Manufacturing a Society of Sustainable Decadence Nicholas Agafontsev

The purpose of this post is to propose a speculative design that is written as a play but meant to be interpreted as a documentary. Artists are meant to be the primary audience.

It relates to my professional development because most of my speculative design is meant to usher or be an artifact of an unusual state of being in society: Sustainable Decadence.

I want to make a world that is more friendly to artists and to the more-than-humans that surround them.

The post is meant to explain the need for such a society and it is also meant to outline what may be the first steps people would take to make a prototype of a community of artists that live in Sustainable Decadence.

Feel free to repost on whatever blog or social media you like, it is like a manifesto in this sense.

The views here are quite radical so prepare yourself for a change in perspectives.

Read it as if it is a documentary.

Fiction injustices to bring about a world of creative chaos!

Please enjoy yourself!

Scene 1

 

Title Card, red text over a dark blue background

Manufacturing a Society of Sustainable Decadence

Autarky means self sufficiency

Scene 2

Sunrise over a forested landscape with an unidentified early medieval town seen from up high as the camera pans.

Narrator: In ancient times people lived in much smaller communities, although trade existed, all needs for the basic functioning of a village could be satisfied locally. Certain necessities that would normally be imported such as salt can be made from certain plants in an emergency when a natural source is particularly far away. In ancient times villages could be self-sufficient -autarkic . 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autarky

Montage of a person weaving a basket, another forging a hot piece of iron, a third painting a wood panel, lit like a Rembrandt painting (in front of a dark background).

Scene 3

Images of Art Nouveau palaces, early 20th century bathhouses, greenhouses.

Narrator: The Art Nouveau movement used modern knowledge of materials to help artists craft some of the most exquisite structures ever conceived -the last attempt at a crafts-based world?

https://www.gaudiallgaudi.com/gaudi-architectural-technology/

Scene 4

Images of historic footage from car manufacturing companies in the US.

Narrator: As mass production widened it’s reach, power and a pressure to conform made art and craftsmanship considered irresponsibly bourgeois and elitist. When cheap, mass produced products became widespread people no longer had to make many of the things they used to. 

https://vimeo.com/423440878

Scene 5

Images of kids in a school system, piles of paperwork

Narrator: The side-effect of mass production was that it created boring jobs, the menial work of a factory worker, the boring paper-work used to regulate the machines, people being put into machines (the public school system). We lost physical control and influence over our own lives in return for cheap consumer products.

Scene 6 

Piles of electronics trash in developing countries, logging in the amazon, images of electronics factories with suicide nets, polluted rivers in india, massive servers of companies like google, people at a mall, website of a large brand with blurred out logo with clothes for sale. 

Narrator: Since the original buy-in we have been fooled with products that are cheaper and that last less, and in the developed world digital high-tech has made wastefulness and removal of our control over our own physical reality less visible than it has ever been before. Digital technology has supercharged consumerism and social degradation through a reduction of real life social interaction to an incredible extent. 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085809/

Scene 7 

Animals, insects in a forest, logged old growth, coral reefs

Narrator: More than humans are also suffering at the hands of this evil, complex societies of various sentient beings are being reduced to the point of extinction, their meekness and lack of an ability to conform is making them the victims of out of sight out of mind murder. 

Pollution from chemicals used in industrial farming, big textiles, mining of rare substance used to produce digital tech and power is introducing bad actors into air and water streams that were previously adapted by biological life to help other biological life live.

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/why-we-need-a-speed-limit-for-the-internet/

Scene 8

Images of medieval alchemists at work, images of contemporary sculptors at work, images of a potter at work

Narrator: The best way to regulate environmental degradation is to make the consequences of our actions immediately visible to ourselves. Decentralization of industry, placing industry into the hands of artists degrowths industry and bureaucracy to a single generalist with a specialty. A small group that is self-sufficient would take care of all steps of production, from extraction from the earth to the disposal of a used object. In this paradigm certain technologies would be out of reach.

High-tech, I have found, is currently outside the realm of a self sufficient society of artists.

Scene 9

(pause)

Images of Bauhaus, the workshops

Narrator: Design Schools, beginning with the Bauhaus have had sufficient facilities to make almost everything

Beauty is within the realm of a society of artists.

https://bauhauskooperation.com/knowledge/the-bauhaus/training/workshops

Scene 10

(sudden commencement of nondescript distorted, reverberating hyperpop music) Images of malls full of people, a porn website with blurred photos, flow of traffic at a drive-thru, advertisements, drug use etc.

Narrator: Our Society Is Made Of Hedonists!

Scene 11

 

Man playing a drum at a bathhouse, delicious vegetables being cooked, in a manmade place with a wild beauty like a rock-garden, queer-looking people in conversation and amusement, as well as in a pensive state, reading books, drinking tea

Narrator: Let’s figure out how we can be Enlightened hedonists.

We musn’t actually consume too much to enjoy ourselves.

Oh! We can be positively decadent!

We can be sustainably decadent.

Scene 12

 

Title Card, red text over a dark blue background

SUSTAINABLE DECADENCE

The Actionable Steps

ARTISTS CAN INSPIRE THE REST OF SOCIETY

Autarky means self sufficiency

Scene 13

Images of gardens, chinese and egyptian, persian 

Narrator: Art can manipulate and convey radiation, solids, gasses, and fluids, both in it’s flows and vibrations.

Art can create environments.

Healthy environments will support life.

Scene 14

Images of artists studios

Narrator: Beauty is evidence of life

Larger society is made of hedonists, an example of a place that seems more pleasurable than their own will spark desire in the ordinary viewer.

Artists show evidence of life in every object they make, 

A world made by artists will be more pleasurable because of its beauty.

Scene 15

Title Card, red text over a dark blue background

Physical prototype of a sustainable society

Narrator: If a group of artists can prototype a sustainable society then it is the viable way to get the rest of society on board. 

Scene 16

Images of fruit walls, high-end food, ferrocement sculptural architecture, fountains

Narrator: Don’t worry, art can meet our human needs 

Artwork can make architecture and it can make environments

Artwork can make food and it can make it interesting.

Artwork can make shelter and it can make it strange. 

A strange hut stands in the middle of a forest, a person is faintly visible inside reading a book while wearing a ‘Santa hat’

Artwork can provide water and it can make it beautiful. 

Islands of mysterious white poles stick out of the ground in an arid climate, upon closer inspection it is noticed that they are leaking water out in small quantities. A rabbit, a goat and a person are seen sipping from these artworks.

Scene 17

Images of the tools described

Narrator: Some of the most basic tools in their various forms can process almost all materials, allowing the artist to become an alchemist who can create the materials they need directly from the Earth.

-Kiln/oven, for achieving high heat

-Distillation pots, for the separation of substances by heat

-Crucible, for chemistry, smelting at high heat

-hammer/chisel, for the division of material into manageable pieces

-knife, for harvesting and processing plant materials

-mortar and pestle, for making fine powders

-pots, for cooking

-loom, for weaving

-Bellows, pipes, for breath in the kiln

-Brush for cleaning and painting

-Etc.

Scene 18

Image of land near water, farmland with woods nearby, outdoor sculpture parks

Narrator: The proposed prototype of a sustainably decadent society of artists would have certain requirements for its intended functioning which are partially described here:

1. Must be possible to walk from the land to a body of water that provides indirect/direct access to the sea to access rare natural resources outside the area of the prototype.
2. Must be enough land to provide for food, biomass and energy for the production /processing of materials.
3. Population should be limited to a number where social pressure alone is enough to keep things in order, alleviating the need for police, fixed or institutionalized hierarchy, although a permanent resident would be randomly selected every month to have a VETO of decision-making.
4. Performance art and Fluxus rituals can be used to inform a non-religion of creativity and life.
5. People can join and leave as they want, it would be like an artists residency except the artists can stay as long as they want. 
6. The worst troublemakers could be sent off the prototype to another place. 
7. The living arrangement would strive to maximize sharing of resources to allow the society to share permanent sources of enjoyment and employment, such as libraries, tools, bathhouses, greenhouses and venues.
8. Individuals will own their items as property and rights to use land will be given based on a collective consensus of the needs within the prototype.
9. The prototype sustainably decadent society will own itself as a family of people which live in it
10. Prototypes can freely spawn off the last, taking over the world’s surface like a healing mold

Imagery relating with the points

Scene 19

Madness! 

Narrator: (screaming straight into your newly opened conscience) 

Use your creativity to begin to liberate yourself from the cycles of mass production and consumption.

Educate yourself in agriculture, mining and build your knowledge of science and primitive technology.

Scene 20

Narrator: Do your hands Itch? Click and read

An amazing website/blog:

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/

And another great website by the same author:

https://www.notechmagazine.com/

A great resource on some of the most fundamental basics:

https://www.youtube.com/@primitivetechnology9550

A fantastic resource 

https://simplifier.neocities.org/

Many projects to help you realize that much of technology IS within your abilities to create.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4AkVj-qnJxNtKuz3rkq16A

Boats!

https://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/?m=1

Permaculture!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

An amazing book:

https://www.lo-tek.com/

Sitting on a sofa in a forest in an old fashioned leather office chair, next to him a small round table with a candle on the table lighting the scene, he spins in your direction and begins talking

Hello, this is Nicholas Agath.

I am the creator of this manifesto.

If you are interested in contributing to my vision contact me through my instagram or discord at nick_primevalfuturism. 

I am an artist and speculative designer based in west vancouver, british columbia as a humble, uninvited guest on the unseeded lands of various nations.

Using dream research I, Nicholas Agafontsev envision ways diverse modes of play/create(ing) with nature can be made accessible through intuitive pan-material sculpture (music/puppets), slow living and low-tech means, creating sustainable decadence.

More of me, my art and my Ideas:

Art:

https://www.instagram.com/nick_primevalfuturism/

Writings:

https://primevalfuturism.blogspot.com/?m=1

Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-8rXSN6NWGPfT4qBWs2xmw

NICHOLAS AGAFONTSEV