HyperNormalisation
This project discusses the relation between Capitalism and Nature.
Socio-economic reflection of human control over nature, resulting in a progressive impact of global disease and climate change that cyclically attacks the most vulnerable communities.
Proposed Project: Hypernormalisation created by Juls Gabs
After only 260 years of industrial revolution the continuity of climate and life as we know it is at a not-recovery point. What are the solutions proposed by governments and economies? This piece reviews and criticises some of them. Using the power of the Image, I spread consciousness in restoring Nature and ensuring its free access to all communities on Earth.
ECONOMY
In this anti-natural behaviour, The drastic climate changes are affecting economies, so financial agents are suddenly considering Natural Resources as Economical Assets.
A newly invented sector of the economy, called Natural Capital Accounting, aims to combine People, Planet and Profit; and measure the changes in the upcoming years. Natural Capital has financial value as it drives many businesses and International matters.
Besides the immediate positive effect that Capital Accounting brings: institutional attention and protection to our Natural assets, there is a potential threat: if we apply a value to a tree or a rock, we might provoke a privatisation of our Natural Assets by the monopoly international companies or governments too big to be challenged or defeated. The abduction or limitation of clean water, fresh air, wild forests or the survivance of bees are threatened, by the rise of economies and the difference of classes.
(Silly/simple example: pollination by bees does not affect the economy, however, the extinction of bees and replacement by robotic bees needs a technological investment of billions of dollars and a future controlled new industry)
IMAGE
What would we have left? The idea of Nature - a render.
For us, busy city workers, nature becomes a relief to our mental pressure, the space we can escape after a stressful week, or the coping mechanism during a working day when we research for our next holidays. If the privatisation of Natural Assets occurs, the promise of nature can become a motivational tactic to boost productivity, or perhaps a non-taxable promise for a retirement plan.
In the privatisation of Natural Assets, what we will have left will be an idyllic landscape, an idealised promise of retirement. An award for a life in compliance. Will these idealised and platonic images become the cover page of your retirement PowerPoint? Perhaps cis-men-podcasters turn a muddy lake into a stock market opportunity for people looking into a shortcut in money-making without knowledge.
All these capital opportunities will be pitched with an Ultra Natural, Extra Coloured, Eye Catching, Supra Perfected and Hyper Normalised render of nature.
HyperNormalisation is an ongoing Installation that evolves and reacts to global decisions that affect Climate Change. I started to work on the concept in 2022 and the first version of the research at that moment was exhibited in the exhibition Ex_xTension at V.O Curations in London (UK). The images below belong to that exhibition. After continuing researching on the subject through 2023 I am currently producing the next extensions (see details in the render/first image at this page). This work will continue evolving and spreading awareness of the situation as long as the global climate continues to be damaged and affect vulnerable communities on the planet.
Extender Text and Original Idea In the 21st century, we have almost exhausted all natural resources and contaminated our atmosphere with CO2 emissions. Working with the resources around us was our type of living, but the Industrial Revolution 260 years ago, speeded mass production and has put us at an edge. The drastic climate changes are affecting economies, so financial agents are suddenly considering natural resources as economical assets. Ecological capital is the principal stock of ecosystems that provide a flow of goods for public benefits and trades in markets. For example, a tree is a natural filter that absorbs CO2 from the Atmosphere. The price of the tree is not the wood produced, but the cost of the CO2 released in the climate by not having that tree. It is the implication that cutting the tree will have on the ecosystem and groups of people around. This proves how it finally has our attention, but humans will do what humans do best: look for benefits. Every asset will become a number, in a series of formulas and predictions. In the painting, there are small repetitions: bushes are the same, animals are hidden in the grass, herbs, flowers and stones, all come from the same pattern. This new sector of the economy is called Natural Capital Accounting, and it is a tool to measure the changes, based on the SEEA* statistics, in the stock of natural capital. It aims to combine People, Planet and Profit. Natural capital has financial value as it drives many businesses and International matters. *System of Environmental Economic Accounting This economical study undoubtedly will help us improve in our fight against climate change, but there is also the possibility that could lead us to the privatisation of natural resources. Like in the access to water in Chile, referred in the installation with the Glass Sculptures containing inaccessible water. This is producing social disparity: big companies can pay for access to water for their agriculture, but smaller farmers are left aside in poverty and dehydration. These giant bubbles will grow from small to 50cm in height and will be positioned on top of the pond and around the gallery space. This piece reflects the urge to save the planet from us, and the importance of finding solutions for CO2 emissions and accumulation of waste. But at the same time is alerting on possible threads if nature becomes another coin. Nature grows above and below our cities. Nature is not rigid and structural, and is not square, as we like to portray it and hang on our walls. It expands organically and leaks through every breach we have in the form of weeds, taking over the floor space in the gallery and provoking an invitation to coexist together and to walk on the painting feet naked. The painting grows with gravity as one of Faig Ahmed's works. Its sculptures of glass and textiles grow bigger trying to become Megaliths, the farther the are from the artificial rectangle, towards physicality and reality. As in the image, the piece concludes with soft textiles created by hand tufting and hand-knitted objects.