[-empyre-] AMAZON IS BURNING
Shu Lea Cheang
shulea at earthlink.net
Wed Sep 18 00:53:52 AEST 2019
oh, Lucas, thought you would be deep into preparing your feature film
about disappearing landscapes... so ask you for a drive by front line
post of the film in development!
a proper introduce is due.
Lucas is a friend and an artist I respect a lot, somehow we tend to run
into each other in festivals in European cities, but indeed, i havent
seen Lucas around for a few years now.
Lucas Bambozzi creates media-based works such as video, live AV,
installations and interactive projects. His pieces have been shown in
more than 40 countries, held by organizations such as Moma NY, ZKM,
Frankfurter Kunstverein, ISEA-Ruhr, ISEA/Albuquerque, Laboral, Http
Gallery in London, Havana Biennale, ŠKUC gallery, WRO Biennale, Zero1
San Jose, and many venues in Brazil, such as the São Paulo Biennale.
Lucas was one of the initiators of arte.mov, Mobile Art Festival. His
projects Mobile Crash and Labmovel got Honorary Mentions at Ars
Eletronica. In his most recent projects Lucas has been engaged in
critical approaches involving informational spaces and electromagnetic
fields in public realm. He recently concluded his PhD at FAUUSP and
currently teaches at FAAP in São Paulo.
If indeed, Lucas can hang around a bit with us, i am super grateful.
Let me bring up these points of debate-
Lucas Bambozzi posted: Lavra is a film about disappearing landscapes,
the losses of a world and the attempts to recover them, in the ongoing
war between capitalism and nature.
While doing the film, we have been witnessing the upraising of awareness
movements, such as MAM – Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens
<http://mamnacional.org.br/> and MAB – Movimento dos Atingidos por
Barragens <https://www.mabnacional.org.br/>, assisting impacted
communities about their rights and also helping people to review one's
relationship with nature, consumption. and the notion of progress.
and to echo Fabi's remarks, "The developmentalist project is still in
full swing and the consciousness of the earth, interspecies relations,
ayahuasca rituals, organic gardens, the diversity of peoples and their
modes of existence are still largely ghetto conversations that do not
earn enough in the world of market or stock market.......
if Europe now want to take an interesting political stance on the
importation of soybeans, meat, food from Brazil, it should invest a
large part of its money buying from the Landless workersMovements, those
trained in what is most accurate in terms of agroecology (not all of
them, but many). $100 milhons is still little, but already gives a
boost. *And Keep the value dispute."*
Would you two care to elebarate on the 'movements' happening? We should
remain hopeful.
thanks much
sl
On 17.09.19 03:35, Lucas Bambozzi [comum] wrote:
> Dear Shu Lea,
>
> Thank you for encouraging my participation on this topic.
>
> There is a long time I do not engage on any discussion on any list, so
> forgive me for the eventual lack of proper net-etiquette.
>
> It seems I was not introduced as part of a joined team, so my bio was
> not listed, but I am proud to be mentioned by Shu as one of those
> coming "from the frontline of resistance". Thanks ;-)
>
> I was grown and raised in Minas Gerais, Brazil and saw whole mountains
> being wiped out and landscapes being destroyed by multinational
> companies behind mass exploitation of iron ore in the region, in the
> sake of an economy driven by international interests and national
> submission since the early times of the colonization to the
> post-industrial capitalism in the country.
>
> On November 5, 2015, Mariana, a small city in the countryside of Minas
> Gerais gained international prominence due to the massive
> socio-environmental disaster resulting from the disruption of Barragem
> do Fundão (a big iron ore dam). About 60 million m3 of iron ore
> tailings were released directly into the environment, sweeping two
> entire communities, producing irreparable damage to a whole river (Rio
> Doce) and leaving destruction and death behind. About 20 people died
> and the toxic mud followed the river, leaving a trail of destruction
> and death.
>
> Since then, I am dealing with a feature film about this context,
> following the environmental tragic consequences, mapping the related
> conflicts in the state – saying it again, a region historically
> impacted by colonialist exploitation practices since the diamond and
> gold ages, and is still one of the largest exporters of iron ore in
> the world.The project has been taking shape of a hybrid documentary,
> made possible through a series of journeys around regions impacted by
> the iron ore tailings in the state, drifting through themes such as
> topophilia and solastalgia.
>
> From the bucolic landscape of mountains that was part of one's
> affective memory [this was once very commonly associated to the state
> of Minas Gerais] only huge craters remained. While on the trip we meet
> locals who have lost all they had and are facing an uncertain future.
> The meetings has been conducted by Camilla, a character who sees
> herself straightening her empathy in relation to the people's big
> losses, while facing their attachment to the environment.
>
>
> The company behind the environmental crime (the transnational Vale,
> formerly a national company founded in 1942 to sustain Brazilian's
> path to the industry, which was then privatized in 1988 after a boom
> on neo-liberal politics in the country) brings up the idea of
> repeating itself both as tragedy and as farce. At the beginning of
> this year, on January 25, another dam broke, in Brumadinho, this time
> killing more than 300 people (!) and another river, Paraopeba, was
> also sentenced to death. As if the state were a minefield, two other
> villages were evacuated for risk of dam rupture - Macacos and Barão de
> Cocais. As a sudden, another 40 dams were put at risk only in 2019,
> some of them nearby bigger cities in the state, which evidences that
> it is not just a single event, but a whole region is threatened. It
> has been clear that managing the risk by installing and exception
> state, helps the company to better manage the land by expanding its
> borders and mining fields through the conflict areas. It all has been
> happening in a complex thread involving big amounts of compensation
> for the damages it caused, but in a context where the government
> policies does not have environment protection aimed as a political
> agenda.
>
> Fear is generalized: for many communities, the exploitation companies
> provide employment and income, since most people depend on the mining
> activities for their jobs. But the harm is everywhere, the damage has
> been deeply impacting their life, their small properties, their
> livelihoods. A whole landscape is altered.
>
> As such, Lavra is a film about disappearing landscapes, the losses of
> a world and the attempts to recover them, in the ongoing war between
> capitalism and nature.
>
> While doing the film, we have been witnessing the upraising of
> awareness movements, such as MAM – Movimento dos Atingidos por
> Barragens <http://mamnacional.org.br/> and MAB – Movimento dos
> Atingidos por Barragens <https://www.mabnacional.org.br/>, assisting
> impacted communities about their rights and also helping people to
> review one's relationship with nature, consumption. and the notion of
> progress.
>
> /References:/
>
> LAVRA [teaser] <https://vimeo.com/manage/327084774/general> –
> password: lavra
> REVENGE IS A KIND OF WILD JUSTICE
> <http://www.lucasbambozzi.net/projetosprojects/a-vinganca-e-uma-especie-de-justica-selvagem>(2016)
> [ongoing project, about nature and industrialization]
>
> /Previous related films:/
>
> ACROSS THE RIVER <https://vimeo.com/197975316> (Oiapoque - English
> sutitles)
>
> O FIM DO SEM FIM <https://vimeo.com/169642027> [English subtitles]
>
> /Related authors: /
>
> Guimarães Rosa, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Christiane Tassis [my
> script writer], Walter de Maria, Robert Smithson, Cildo Meirelles,
> Nelson Felix, Paulo Nazareth, Robert Kramer [Route One], Jorge
> Bodanzky [Iracema], Walter Benjamin, Georges Didi-Huberman, Stephan
> Lessenich, Suely Rolnik.
>
>
> *Lucas Bambozzi*
> *www.lucasbambozzi.net <http://www.lucasbambozzi.net>
> *
> *
> *
> *FAU USP
> LabOUTROS
> *
> *http://outrosurbanismos.fau.usp.br/author/laboutros*
> *
> *
> *Labmovel*
> *https://labmovel.net/*
> *
> *
> *AVXLab
> <http://avxlab.org/>*
> *http://avxlab.org/*
>
> *Faap [visual arts]*
> www.faap.br <http://www.faap.br>
>
>
> Em seg, 16 de set de 2019 às 11:25, Shu Lea Cheang
> <shulea at earthlink.net <mailto:shulea at earthlink.net>> escreveu:
>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> dear Brian
>
> So good to hear from you!!! and thanks for always here! I read
> you,. yes, washington post article definitely.
>
> There was this landmark case took place at the Supreme Court of
> the United States , Bowman v, Monsanto Co.ET AL.
>
> https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-796_c07d.pdf
>
> At issue is the patented Roundup Ready soybean seeds by Monsanto,
> the farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman lost the case in 2013.
>
> and i made a web work out of this case-
> http://fields.seedsunderground.net/
>
> the site renders the entirecourt document taken from theSupreme
> Court of the United States’ Vernon Hugh Bowman v. Monsanto case
> (held inWashington, D.C.onFebruary 19, 2013) into ever-replicating
> seeds, transmitted by divine wind and distributed by human/machine
> power across the vast farmland.
>
> (totally forgot this work, but it was included in FIELDS
> exhibition (Rixc, Riga) curated by the late Armin Medosch.
>
> soybeans!
>
>
> I quote also a newly published article at MAKERY (fr) by Ewen
> Chardronnet in which it recounts Dimension Plus' Soybean Futures
> exhibition at STWST48x5 this past september.
> http://www.makery.info/en/2019/09/10/les-futurs-du-soja-nourrissent-le-debat-en-marge-dars-electronica/
>
> i trust Escher Tsai of Dimension Plus will also be join us here
> with a focus of soybean war between China and Taiwan.
>
>
> thanks
>
> sl
>
>
>
>
>
> On 16.09.19 15:28, Brian Holmes wrote:
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>
>>
>> The global political economy alters the face of the earth.
>>
>> Since the introduction of GMO soybeans in 1996, followed by the
>> entry of China into the World Trade Organization in 2001,
>> land-use changes across the southern half of Latin America have
>> been extreme. Pools of financial investors gather capital for
>> slash-and-burn conversion of lightly forested land where cattle
>> were formerly run. The "technological package" of modified seeds,
>> no-till sowing, and heavy doses of RoundUp is applied to vast
>> acreages under corporate ownership, dwarfing the size of US
>> farms. Airplanes slosh pesticides over oceans of fresh green beans.
>>
>> In 2003, a notorious advertisement of the Syngenta corporation
>> proclaimed the "Republic of Soy," a new territory governed by
>> agro-capital, including parts of Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay,
>> Uruguay and Argentina. Most of the beans will be made into animal
>> feed to meet the rising demand for meat among the new planetary
>> middle classes. Soy is to South America what fracking is to the
>> North: a consequence of inceasing world population and burgeoning
>> desire, coupled with the capitalist search for profit in an
>> expanded global market.
>>
>> In Chicago, which is surrounded by an infinity of GMO corn and
>> soy, we partnered with folks in Argentina and Brazil to do an
>> exhibition about exactly these issues. It was also shown in
>> Carbondale, Illinois; Portland, Oregon; and Rosario, Argentina:
>>
>> https://www.regionalrelationships.org/tewna
>>
>> Concerning the article that Shu Lea sent, it's good and I have no
>> doubt that the demand for soybeans contributes to the fires. But
>> this piece from the Washington Post is a little more precise
>> about everything:
>>
>> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/05/were-thinking-about-amazon-fires-all-wrong-these-maps-show-why
>>
>> best, Brian
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 1:53 AM Shu Lea Cheang
>> <shulea at earthlink.net <mailto:shulea at earthlink.net>> wrote:
>>
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>
>> to empyre-ers
>>
>> We start the third week of STAY UNFINISHEDxxxYours Sincerely,
>> a special month long online edition of STWST48x5 EXPANDED
>> hosted by -empyre-.
>>
>> This past August, news from the streets of Hong Kong hit us
>> with tear gas, cannons of blue water, batons and sticks,
>> meanwhile, AMAZON is burning.
>> The fire spread, The Brazilian government refused any help
>> from the 'first' world. Let it burn!! Some speculative news
>> articles started showing up in various press.
>> Soybean, trade war with China and amazon fires, can you weave
>> these threads?
>> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-08-25/china-s-soybean-demand-in-trade-war-could-fuel-amazon-fires?
>>
>>
>> forest, cows, soybeans, machines, trades, global food/trade
>> politics++++++
>>
>> Some keywords to start this week.
>>
>>
>> I have invited Margaretha Haughwout, who also serves as a
>> empyre board of director, to be the moderator for this week's
>> discussion.
>>
>> Margaretha's personal and collaborative artwork is perhaps
>> best understood as a kind of /multispecies worlding, /a
>> co-becoming that
>>
>> occurs through entanglements with other life forms. Moving
>> across technology and wilderness, digital networks and the
>> urban commons,
>>
>> cybernetics and whole systems permaculture, her practice
>> seeks to antagonize proprietary regimes, colonial
>> temporalities, and capitalist forms of labor.
>>
>> For STWST48x5 (Linz, September 6-8), Margaretha presented her
>> recent collaborative project, APRIORI, a faux research and
>> development group
>>
>> that uncovers revolutionary ecologies between plants and
>> machines with Efrén Cortés Cruz, Lynn DeSilva Johnson[Elæ],
>> and Suzanne Husky.
>>
>>
>> We are joined by
>>
>> Fabi Borges (Brazil)
>>
>> Amanda McDonald Crowley (USA)
>>
>> Oliver Kellhammer (USA)
>>
>> Escher Tsai (Taiwan)
>>
>> Dawn Weleski (USA)
>>
>> Dan Phiffer (USA)
>>
>> who Margaretha will further introduce.
>>
>> From the frontline of resistance, we also hope to bring in
>> updates from Lucas Bambozzi (Sao Paulo) who is working on
>> disappearing landscapes and jamie.kelsey-fry(London) of
>>
>> #ExtinctionRebellion.
>>
>>
>> Has the fall arrived in your part of the timezone yet?
>>
>> We surely welcome all insights, input from you, the readers,
>> the lurkers, let the amazon fire smokes you out of the cave!!
>>
>>
>> sl
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
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