The Complex Christ

China Power Station | The Old World Is Gone

Organised by the Serpentine Gallery, a group of video artists from China have been given space in and around Battersea Power Station to show their work. It's one of the best shows I've been too for a long time, for a number of reasons.

Primarily, the location is iconic. The power station at Battersea stands overlooking the Thames, the vast wasteland around it criss-crossed by railways. One of those buildings that is so large it is difficult to get perspective on it. The chimneys stand higher than the Statue of Liberty. The turbine halls dwarfing those at London's other converted power station, Tate Modern.

Also, it was just before we started Vaux that the four of us who were about to kick it off stumbled on an 'open day' at there about 8 years ago. No one seemed to know about it, so we were given a guided tour of the wrecked site. It is beautiful in its woundedness. The old world has gone: coal, smoke and ash and brick. Industrial massiveness. It lies abandoned, permanently hung with brick-tint melancholy.

This makes it the perfect place for the work on display. China, the raging economy building coal-fired power stations bigger than this every week... It's artists already critiquing the utopia their leaders think they are building, their visions projected among our industrial wreckage.

The exhibition is only on until 5th November, and tickets are limited, so pre-booking is essential. It's really not to be missed - this is the last time the public will be allowed onto the site before contractors move in and turn the whole place into an arts/commercial complex. There's something about that that makes me sad. Which is why I had to go and take some photos. Thankfully there is a beautiful tea-house that's been constructed (see pictures), serving wonderful tea and Chinese treats.

Technorati Tags: Art, Battersea Power Station, China Power Station, London

Insert Coin [3] | Final Fantasy

[Level 1]  [Level 2]

Emerging Church: Game or Ritual?

As The Believer points out, one aspect of games such as Dungeons and Dragons is that of fantasy. When you enter a game, you are entering 'role play' - becoming someone else. Becoming a fantasy self.

This is something I have critiqued in more detail here. But to summarize, if the Emerging Church risks being seen as a game for some - with rules and power accumulating - then the parallel risk is that it becomes a fantasy, and will inevitably suffer collapse at the end of a fantasy cycle. It will become an ecclesiastic Gizmondo (beautiful article, well worth reading).

So what might be a way forward? How do we avoid the game, with its disjunctive effects, de-marking winners and losers? How do we avoid the unhealthy tendency to masculine competitiveness?

We might meditate on the gospel as a D&D scenario. A wise wizard gathers characters around him. They journey from place to place, meeting monsters, overcoming problems, asking questions. They have a quest, they are immersing themselves in a new kingdom. For some, the quest is a game - there are going to be winners and losers. And certainly, Jesus plays within a defined set of rules. He plays a part.

But, firstly, he also subverts the games different groups want him to play: he plays dirty. By bending the rules he subverts the the boundaries of the game, and thus begins to play in a whole new dimension. Others cry 'foul' and get him sent off... But it's at that point that Jesus refuses to engage in this mission as a game at all. By dying, by 'losing', he presents the ultimate criticism of the competitive, religious fantasies that both his followers and opponents projected onto him.

Secondly, he presents a criticism of the power-accumulation that defines 'good play' in so many games. He empties himself. He works in the economy of gift, passing things on rather than pooling wealth.

Thirdly, he rises again to present an entirely new concept of play. The universe is now fluid and self-organizing. Where there were once rules, there are now governing dynamics. Where there were once blocked walls, places our characters could not go, limiting screens, there is now freedom to roam. Spirit. No temple.

Interestingly, it seems that games are heading that way too. Check out Spore (review here) - a game from the creator of the Sims series that begins in the primordial soup, and can zoom in and out between organism and galactic levels. Players evolve species - and their characteristics are totally within their own control. The game doesn't have a stock list, its governing dynamics simply work out how a fish with 3 legs and a huge head might move. Species then create cities, interact on-line with other cities other players have created, and take on whole different galaxies. Due to be released in Spring next year, it promises to be an extraordinary experience.

If we can face down the fantasy-self of the emerging expressions we are a part of - as Christ did in the desert - we can evolve something truly new. But unless we do so, we are destined to create something competitive and regulated, with its own winners and losers, its own D&D neeks and sports jocks. Let's hope we do so. Let's pray we don't go Gizmondo: promising so much, disappointing so many, costing someone a fortune.

Technorati Tags: Arcade Game, Dirt, Dungeons and Dragons, Gaming, Gizmondo, Religion, Spore

Insert Coin [2] | Weapons::Rules::Power

[First Level]

Game or Ritual? This was the key question addressed in Level One.

Lévi-Strauss made the distinction between Games ("they end in the establishment of a difference between players or teams where originally there was no indication of inequality") and Rituals ("it brings about a union, or in any case, an organic relation between two initially separate groups") and I proposed that it might be fruitful to meditate on whether our expression of Church was one or the other. Certainly, from the initial responses, it seems people have identified an unhelpful spirit of competition in Emerging Churches, which may be a hangover from their very masculine roots.

Dungeons and Dragons, about which an article in The Believer inspired this series, inhabits a grey (actually, misty, foggy or windswept might be better adjectives) area between game and ritual. It was perhaps a (knee)jerk reaction to jock sports - which are heavy on winners - but still definitely has aspects of a true game.

One of those key aspects is the emphasis on accumulation. Though there may not be 'winners' and 'losers' as such, 'good' play is exhibited by the accumulation of power and wealth: special weapons, keys to open secret doors, coins which give leverage in various ways. The more explicit connection came later in arcade games such as Super Mario: more stuff meant longer life and greater power. (My personal favourite: Xybots. An absolute classic. After each level you basically descended to a shop, where you could cash your coins in for bigger weapons, better shields etc.) The parallels for us are obvious enough.

One thing that both rituals and games have in common is the need for rules - boundaries around which the action takes place. Elsewhere in the issue The Believer looks at Oulipian literature. Oulipo stands for "Ouvoir de littérature potentielle", a loose gather of French writers who write within close constraints precisely because they believe that the constraints can be very creative. Similarly, Thomas Vinterberg and Lars Van Trier explored the Dogme 95 system of film making as a creative, not restrictive act.

The really good rituals or games are those where the rules are fixed enough for there to be tensions created, and not so fixed that the action either becomes totally predictable, or so free that things degenerate into chaos.

In our meditation on rituals and games as they might impact the Emerging Church, we might thus far conclude that a) power is more obviously accumulated in games, but power-games exist very clearly under the surface in rituals too (which will bring us back to connect with Gift), and b) games and rituals both need rules - the issue is the extent to which those rules create disjunction, rather than union. Rules ought to be creative. Too intimately linked with power accumulation, they become divisive, promote unhealthy competition, which leads to denominations of 'winners' and 'losers'.

As the Emerging Church continues to... emerge/solidify/denominate, I wonder: is it becoming more game-like? The rules, though never written, are becoming clearer, and some might argue that power-resource-accumulation is already happening around certain people/movements. Perception or reality, the disjunctive effects of that could be dangerous.

Level 3 soon...

Technorati Tags: Dungeons and Dragons, Gaming, Power, Arcade Game, Religion, Theology

Creation>Preservation>Destruction | Genesis in Reverse?

Part of my timetable this year is teaching some RE. It's been a fascinating change. One of the things I've been covering is the Genesis story with a group of 11 year olds.

Reading through the story and analysing the day-by-day creation, one student commented on the environmental obligation that the text suggested. In the following discussion, the deep symbolism of the story really began to strike me: the pattern of the days rolls from separation of water into sea and rain, the appearance of land, the plants, the animals and finally mankind.

And the way this pattern of the days is creeping into reverse.

Possibly hundreds of species becoming extinct each day, rain-forests decimated... and the sea rising again to take the poisoned land back.

I was talking to someone at dinner at a wedding on Saturday - a research biochemist - and he was explaining his support for Richard Dawkins. His view is the planet will survive, and some new form of life will evolve. We are simply hurrying an inevitable new ice-age.

I'd obviously argue that a key point of the birth of consciousness has been missed - a unique intervention that breaks into this cycle and leaves us with a responsibility to take care of this amazing gift we've been bestowed with.

It's a gift we've been completely trashing. The meeting of the World's Top Polluting Countries is a crisis meeting. Real action has to be taken at inter-governmental level. And what is depressing from the initial conversations is that many are saying 'sorry, our economies have to come first.' We can't afford to save the planet. Money has finally won. Seems Dawkins' 'Selfish Gene' was about right after all.

Technorati Tags: Civilization, Environment, Sustainable Growth, Technology

Double Bind | Should Environmentalists Buy up Gas-Guzzlers?

Our car, a truly horrible beast, has been making strange noises from the engine for about a year. In January our mechanic deemed it a fatal problem: it wasn't worth the cost of fixing, and it might run for 2/20/200/2000 miles.

It did about the 2000. Which got us over the Severn Bridge into Wales late on Friday night before we ground to a halt. It was clearly terminal.
So we get put on the back of a lorry and taken back home, a nice weekend away abandoned.

The question is, what to do now. Someone has given us a car they had just replaced. But the fuel economy is not good. So do we refuse it? Do we let them sell it and buy something more economic ourselves or do without a car at all? We actually drive much less than most - neither of us commute to work, and we deliberately use the trains whenever we can. So refusing this thing and buying something more efficient might end up with us using an efficient car a little, and someone else taking the gas-guzzler and using it much more than we would.

Much of the carbon foot-print of vehicles is obviously their production - the energy to actually manufacture it. So by not buying a new car you are avoiding that energy use.

I think the best thing we could do is take the car and never use it. Reduce our car travel to zero. That's never quite going to happen, but we'll do our best. We could convert to LPG, but there's an issue with capital there. Capital we need to save to replace the boiler in the house with a high-efficiency condensing system. All donations accepted ;-)

Any better ideas?

Technorati Tags: Environment, Technology

Would The Real Islam Please... Sit Down?

"You say I'm violent once more, and I swear I'll smack your head in"

The furore over the Pope's ill-chosen comments created an interesting debate on the radio this morning. It seems that his apology has not been enough for many Muslims, who have reacted to his perceived accusation of Islam being a violent religion with... acts of violence. A nun has been murdered, churches in the Middle East firebombed, and one Imam has called for a 'day of anger'.

The response to this apparent contradiction was tackled by a representative from the Muslim Council of Britain who called on us to once and for all 'separate the idea of Islam from being Muslim.'

I fear this is an impossible task. He - quite rightly, and eloquently - denounced the violence done in Islam's name, and expounded a view of it as a religion of peace. But he seems to be a minority voice; his call to effectively deny Islamic status to those who promote violence would mean huge numbers of Islamists in the East and West being told they are not following Islam properly, something I think they would ferociously resist.

This confusion between the small voices of scholars who expound Islam as a peaceful religion, and the huge dynamite voices of those who explode that view is creating a massive problem - both within the world as a whole, and within Islam itself. (It is not dissimilar, of course, to the tension felt within Christianity - with the aggressive Zionist, fundamentalists on one side, and the way-of-peace movement on the other.)

My prayer is that the real Islam would... not stand up, not wave banners and shout for blood, but sit down and talk with us, and show us this religion of peace. Not to shut them up, but to teach us about the way of peace too. None of us follow our religion purely; we all need to try to lead by example better. And more than ever that leadership needs to be round the table.

Technorati Tags: Islam, Peace, Pope, Religion

The FlowMarket™

Thanks to Saga for this [link]

All products available from The Flowmarket™

Technorati Tags: Art, Consumption, Design, Flow Market

Shortcuts | Dirt | Journeys

I watched a student at school take a shortcut today. And then watched as they were followed by countless others, taking a few quick steps on a worn brambly path, while a few others took the concrete slab route round and about.

I'm guessing that eventually the school will give in to the inevitable, and formalize this route with proper paving. But for now it remains a dirty path.

The evolution of such short cuts tells us something about cities, about dirt, about our innate journeying. While the planners can spend millions trying to formalize the routes they want us to take, if they don't suit us, we will find shortcuts. Cut throughs, through hedges, or over small walls. Rather than being planned, these paths emerge, and tend to show us the way people really want to go. But, being informal, and unpaved, they tend to be dirty. Brambles might scratch, or mud get on the shoes. But we'd rather that than have to follow the official line. Sometimes the destination is the thing, and the journey adapts.

Perhaps this emerging movement is one example of an ecclesiastic shortcut. The official line, the routes we were meant to take, were dreary, and took us around the houses. So a new path emerged. Muddy. Messy. Unkempt. Useful.

I guess someone will come along and pave it one day. And we'll keep our shoes clean then. Our feet won't have to touch the earth.

Technorati Tags: Emergence, Environment, London, Religion, Urban Planning

Backside Cache | Dirt and Computing

Great article in Wired at: http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71763-0.html?tw=rss.index

At first sight, a computer is a system that seems "clean." Early mainframes were housed in dust-free rooms bathed in unvarying white light. Nobody ever got physically dirty handling a laptop. The computer-using proverb "garbage in, garbage out" is just a metaphor; nothing physical goes into a computer, and nothing physical comes out of it.

Then again, why would a "clean" system require so many filters? Spam filters, search filters, surf filters? Why would stuff we encounter on a computer screen be capable of making us feel dirty, or "infecting" our clean machines with a virus?

Just as every animal has a mouth and an ass, with processing stuff in between, a computer operating system has inputs, processing and outputs. We input content through a keyboard, a modem, a drawing tablet, USB or Firewire ports. Useful stuff is output via screen, printer, speakers or over the internet. The useless stuff -- dirty old computer waste -- leaves the system via a little desktop metaphor called the Recycle or Trash bin.

It might be refreshing if, one day, the people who made your computer's OS would call a spade a spade. In a section of his conference talk titled "The Geometry of Filth," Adam Jasper Smith gets to the uncomfortable yet unavoidable nub of the matter. "Dirt radiates out from us," he says. "The primal form of this dirt -- the perfect dirt -- is shit."
 

Chill Out | Air [Con]

The stats are simply astounding.

The US has approximately 5% of the world's population. And uses 25% of the world's electricity. And fully one third of that goes on air conditioning.

That's 8% of the world's electricity on keeping you guys cool.

7 billion gallons of petrol a year are used in US car air-con systems - equivalent to the total oil consumption of Indonesia, population 240 million.

What's more, the Chinese haven't even got started. Every ten days another coal-fired power plant opens somewhere in China big enough to serve all the households in Dallas. The Chinese already use more coal than the US, the EU and Japan combined. And they are getting the air-con bug: the market has grown by 70% each year.

The cultural effects have already taken their toll. Air con has made the Central/Southern American siesta redundant. The rise of the internet means warehouses of servers that need to be kept at low ambient temperatures - this alone was cited as a major reason for the rolling blackouts in California this summer. And the major problem is that air con is a con: it creates a positive feedback loop whereby the heat ejected raises the temperature for everyone else, and so more and more people end up getting them, which raises the temperature even more.

So what do we do? Turn it down. Chill out. Slow down. Take a bath. Have a siesta. Before we all fry.

//Check out the full article in Prospect [here]//

Technorati Tags: Environment, air conditioning