I will be on the panel of a workshop at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum 2010 called “Picturing climate change – is there a conflict sensitive approach?” – it is hosted by Felix Koltermann, representing the organization Pecojon (Peace & Conflict Journalism Network) and the University of Augsburg. Further participants are the photographer Christoph Bangert, Peter Bitzer of laif and Elke Grittmann, Professor for Communication Studies at the University of Augsburg.

I wrote more about the topic in German language for the press blog of Deutsche Welle.

I did not find the time yet – but this is a very rare interview Malcom McLaren gave to me, who died on 8 April 2010. Probably one of his last? I talked to him in Stockholm on 14 November 2006 about the renaissance of the romantics, the punk aesthetics and the era of bullshit.

Picutre: Malcolm McLaren on stage of the Future Design Days November 2006 in Stockholm. © Marco Siebertz

Marco Siebertz: You say that you dedicated your life to being a flamboyant and magnificent failure. What is so beneficial in failing?

Malcolm McLaren: For artists from the 19th century like Blake, Byron, Shelley or maybe even Vincent van Gogh the artistic process was one long eternal struggle, which never ends and never ever succeeds. And the only great art comes out of that struggle. It’s like being on a train. There maybe a destination but you never arrive t here – because when you do, you are dead! So, in this romantic age still prevailing in the 1960s, you were taught that from day one. Today, if people were told that, they’d probably drop dead in front of that lecture because they’re such scaredy-dares now! They can’t cope with such thoughts! Those thoughts are far too deep today.

Being a failure was part of an old-fashioned, authentic, romantic way of life and vision for an artist. Today the process of creativity can be better compared to a Karaoke-like experience – an “Ersatz”-world, where the messiness, where the struggle doesn’t exist. In a Karaoke world everything is made easy, you never fail. But in an authentic world failure is something you embrace. It’s almost a noble pursuit. I come from that world – it supported me in creating the punk aesthetic.

How was the punk movement connected to this old-fashioned, artistic way of life?

Malcolm McLaren: The punk aesthetic was the last major romantic attack against an oncoming onslaught of a corporate world. That’s what punk was about. It wasn’t about music – that was just ten percent, that was just an ingredient, that was the salt and pepper on the mix of whatever else was going on that plate. It was a decision of some of us, a few disenfranchised art students, embarking into the real world after the 60s and thinking: ‘How are we going to live in this world and find a window where we can become magnificent and brilliant and flamboyant failures rather than some kind of benign success? How can we contribute? We don’t want to while our way in an attic painting a picture!’ We’ve already tasted the wine of Andy Warhol that was coming in from another ocean. We were no longer living in a culture of necessity. We were now living under the dominant culture of the United States, which was a culture of desires. We were having to deal with that and also with imparting that same old fashioned romantic vision.

Did you honestly believe you could stop the commercialisation of the world?

Malcolm McLaren: We sat about the task by declaring ourselves not for sale and creating little torpedo missions: some of them in the form of a group like the Sex Pistols – which we knew was going to fail, but no problem! Suicide bombers go to kill American tanks and know that they are going to die and fail. By the same time you do it because it is for a greater course than just yourself. And so – in some respect – there’s a kingship spirit between that suicide bomber and terrorist to us back then, who were unquestionably culture terrorists of a similar nature.

We were fighting what was an obvious, difficult, never-ending and probably impossible struggle to shoot arrows at this oncoming juggernaut of what was a corporate machine that was going to sweep us away and turn this whole culture into nothing more than a Karaoke playground. And once you understand that, you understand there’s a balance: there’s a Karaoke culture and there’s an authentic culture. The authentic culture is probably not very big right now. If you look around here and try to find something authentic, it’s like looking for a ruby in a field of tin – impossible to find!

What will there be after this »Karaoke« culture? What comes next?

Malcolm McLaren: I kind of conceived that the romantic age is coming back in a very different form but very much within the new generation of the computer-literate of this century, which are the seven-year-olds, who unquestionably can understand Contemporary Art and its references, because from the day they’re born they can see what an »M« means. Before they can read they know that this is McD…, the place where you buy fast food. The same respect to Contemporary Art: they can understand all the multi-references – they can read the logo. Their ability to understand Contemporary Art at a very early age, their ability to google up any kind of information they want, means the intelligentsia of this generation is probably, unquestionably I think, going to be far, far, far better informed than any generation previously. That means if you take that as a leap of faith, even before they reach puberty they could be far more informed than the older generation who are in their early twenties. And far more adept at manipulating the culture than the generation earlier.

What does this development mean for Contemporary Art?

Malcolm McLaren: I honestly believe that Contemporary Art is the mainstream of culture now! It is the last bastion of culture that has some kind of integrity, because it is unique. And that’s what we all look for. As it usually is not for sale, it has a provenance as something we desire the most. Fashion has become far too corporate – we don’t care. Product design – we don’t care. The idea of communicating is in Contemporary Art! It measures everything. That’s the centre and the mainstream of our culture now. Just as we had teen-pop-idols in the 50s or in the 60s, we could now have teen-artists, because music as you know, as we all know, has moved to the side. It’s no longer in the centre. It can’t fulfil it. There’s not sufficient intellectual curiosity in the people doing it or expressing themselves in it to give us what we truly need: which is a real critique in this world right now.

So the future is not sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll but teen artists?

Malcolm McLaren: I think at the moment they’re going to think that sex is very overrated. And I think the reason is because it’s associated with bullshit – for example Volvo Cars doing advertising with a girl in a Bikini. Every time they see sex, it’s kind of located to something bullshit. So it looses its integrity. It’s like you are pouring more and more water on the wine. Sex has been abused in that regard. It will have to be found in some other arena. I always thought when punk rock exploded that it was better than sex. I think we’d love to see the next generation finding something else of a similar nature. It’s all too obvious, this culture at the moment. I don’t believe in it!

Bangladesh - women moves with children after Cyclone Aila hits, Picture: Oxfam International

Another way to symbolize climate change is to show humans that suffer from the effects of it. Here is for example a picture of a family that is effected by the cyclone Aila. Those pictures naturally cause compassion – and it is always a tough decision whether it is right or wrong to play on one’s heart strings. In matters of climate change (at least the one we have been talking about lately) it must be said that there are floodings in Bangladesh since centuries already.

Rescued Katrina victims on Coast Guard helicopter (CG photo) by johnmcq (Flickr)

Still it is important to show those who are suffering from the effects of extreme wheather – as it is our first reference that makes us understand what is happening. So as soon as certain ethical borders are not crossed, pictures of victims are a legitmate means.

grangemouth
Originally uploaded by _gee_

There are many phenomenons in our changing environment that cannot securely be classified whether they are caused by human-made global warming or by climate change that happens naturally.

So one of the safest possiblities to get the message of global warming across is to display one of the causers of climate change – in this case it is the industry and its emission of carbon dioxide.

Industrial chimneys are probably the most impressive objects in that regard – here we can even see a very pleasing, almost romantic version of stacks.

However it is not only the industry that is responsible for the world climate, it is also the trillions of cars that are run by indiviuals. Still very impressive pictures to show – especially if it takes place in an environment that seems to smell through your computer monitor. But fog is not necessarily a phenomenon that is primarily connected to global climate change but rather a local weather occurence. Here is a picture showing smog in London in the early Ninetees.

A cow [15/365]
by Dave Wild // publicenergy.co.uk’s (via Flickr)

Some months ago I had the chance to design the key visual for the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum 2010. As the title “The Heat Is On – Climate Change and the Media” reveals, subject of the conference is our global environment which is heating up. Now as there are some problems in credibility recently (remember the hacked e-mails from a British University where scientist showed that they are ready to “tune up” statistics to keep the topic of climate change “hot” or the falling-down of climate star Al Gore’s respectability) it is even more important to picture the subject-matter in an objective manner. Let’s have a look on the approaches that exist to visualize climate change.

Within the next I will typify different approaches to the subject.

Members of Jeudi Noir

More than 8% of the houses in Paris (data of the city administration) stand empty. Supposably the real number is much higher. On the other hand even sharing a flat costs at least 400 Euros. This is a big problem for a city that is connected with terms like art and creativityWhat will the future be like if a city cannot offer space to live and work for upcoming younger talents that do not belong to the group of top earners? It’s of course possible that the mayor of Paris does not know about the importance of the creative industries and if he one day will know it might take years till a dull city administration will react on the issue.

The group Jeudi Noir did not want to wait so long. Their approach is to occupy houses that are empty and unused. Last “project” is a splendid villa on the Place de Vosges no. 1b. On one of the most demanded addresses in Paris the “Squatteurs” occupied a 1,300 square metre house that is degenerating since 45 years.

Spaces out of real estate perfection and capital are rare our cities. But it is exactly those places that creativity needs to grow and evolve. Assumed that the squatters treat the building at least better than its owners or even better start renovating the objects, it is the best strategy for the ghost buildings. “Eigentum verpflichtet” (property obligates) – and if the owner is not interested in caring for it, why not let creative people do the job that really have a motivation for it?

More information in English, French or German (including video).

Written at Cafe Kislev in the centre of Cologne, an enjoyable place with WLAN in the Zülpicher quarter.

There could not have been a better place for this panel discussion: Galeria Kaufhof held this event not in its headquarters a short walk away but in its Cologne warehouse amidst the things that matter: products.

Discussion topic was “Universal Design” and accordingly “how attractive products for all generations can be”. A lively discussion took place that add times tried to define the empty term “Universal Design”. For Prof. Martin Topel, professor at the University of Wuppertal and owner of the design agency Squareone in Düsseldorf / Germany, the expression is just a rehashing of old ideas:

“In general the principles that lie behind the idea of Universal Design were already defined by Dieter Rams in his 10 design principles* years ago.”

It seems obvious that the subject grows in importance now as the baby-boomers with reliable spendings due to safe earnings and pensions from the golden times have a high potential in spending money in goods. So retailers get more and more attracted to the idea of “Universal Design”.

Galeria Kaufhof, one of Europe’s biggest warehouse companies, has a special focus on demographic shift: in May 2009 together with six other companies, Kaufhof signed the “Berlin Declaration” where they commit themselves to actively participate in framing a society that will decline and age in the next years. In presenting the exhibition “Universal Design – Designing Our Future” that is initiated by the International Design Center Berlin the retailer underlines its ambitions once again.

Claudia Reinery, member of the executive board, with high experience in discovering and fulfilling customer’s needs seemed to be open-minded for good ideas in the field of Universal Design. Probably the right contact person for experimental projects. More than that it is important that a company of the size of Galeria Kaufhof sends the right and particularly powerful signals to the manufacturers.

*Here’s again Dieter Rams’ 10 Design Principles:
Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design makes a product understandable.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is long-lasting.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Good design is environmentally friendly.
Good design is as little design as possible.

Patrick Martinez sent me his interesting idea about how to keep the good old light bulb alive. Of course the only way is to virtualize it. So he did and produced Blank Bubble a downloadable version of a light bulb that even changes colour in the way you conduct it. It is possible to even hide the light bulb when you only want to have the light itself.

His aesthetic design invites to sit around the computer screen with friends and talk about the good old days of the light bulb.

“How will the coming rise in gas prices change the world“ asks Jeninne Lee-St. John on TIME.COM Christopher Steiner, author of the book $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better. In his opinion at $10 a gallon (that’s € 2,65 per liter in Europe) gift cards will become biodegradable and have expiration dates and at $14 a gallon (€3,70/l) Wal-Mart might collapse and manufacturing in the U.S. would be reborn.

Probably also electric and hybrid cars might come into the game. But to get this shift to alternative ways of car power it needs to become part of our public reality. First step will now be done in Germany. One of the biggest energy suppliers, RWE, today presented its new electrical filling pump in Munich. The new pump which has been designed by designaffairs will soon be installed in Germany’s urban centres. Berlin alone will receive 1,000 pumps.

In the next days we then have to talk about what big amount of energy and raw materials the production of electric engines itself costs. Probably we have to think over our way of individual transport in the end? However – this is a good subject for the Blog Action Day ‘09 on Climate Change.

In a country where the government wants to stay in control of its citizens, it is hard to find private or secret space. The only way to disappear from the eyes of big brother is to hide yourself. Artist Liu Bolin found a way to do so – respectively without photoshop or other manipulations. He just paints himself away. Found via reddit.