The Future is Bright

Hi and thank you for reading.

Everytime I get stuck in traffic while commuting to work, I can’t help but think something went horribly wrong in our society.
My mother would say I should thank the lord for still having a job in these dangerous times and that I should not overthink about it because that’s the way life goes.

Still, I overthink about it.

Millions of people every morning get stuck in traffic jam. Of course, many of us use public transport, but that’s not the point…

Every day we coordinate our efforts through chaos and, as a single body, proceed to shape our future.

Still, our future doesn’t seem bright from here.

We need to work together to overcome the many challenges that will arise. We need to imagine a new, better, way of living.

But can we imagine a new way of living while being stuck in our daily routines?

Obviously I can’t, and this was a terrible way to start this newsletter. But I am a true fan of people and movements that try to reimagine future.

The latest addition to my personal collection of favourite utopias is Solarpunk.

Ok, this was originally a yoghurt commercial but is one of the most beautiful rendition of solarpunk ever made.

Solarpunk was born as a literary sub-genre of science fiction and evolved through the years into both an artistic and a political movement.

Solarpunk is a movement as much as it is a genre: it is not just about the stories, it is also about how we can get there.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350104461_Art_Energy_and_Technology_the_Solarpunk_Movement

What really made me fall in love to Solarpunk, as an ideology, was this beautiful article written by Andrew Dana Hudson:

On the Political Dimensions of Solarpunk

What is solarpunk? I hesitate to define it, and therefore limit it, for the thousands now exploring its possibilities. Let’s tentatively call it a speculative movement: a collaborative effort to imagine and design a world of prosperity, peace, sustainability and beauty, achievable with what we have from where we are.

I really encourage you to read the whole article.

Solarpunk is basically ecology, green thinking and utopia permeated with optimism and faith in technology.

Obviously, science and technology are driving the whole renewable energy related topic but not only. They also permeate many other different fields of interests, from permaculture, to urban sustainability, to solar cookers.

Solar cookers and solar ovens are one of my favourite solarpunk related discoveries so far. And for a good reason, they solve a complex problem in a simple, scientific but low-tech way, while being also incredibly energy efficient.

As you can tell, just as energy exploitation, utilization, and its environmental effects are central in our industrialized societies, so is the energetic dilemma a crucial theme of solarpunk debate.

Democratizing and decolonizing energy are two of the biggest challenges in the solarpunk agenda. Especially now that energy lobbies and corporations are finding new ways to exploit territories, in the name of ecological transition and green capitalism, since those new green tinted energy projects, often promoted by governments, usually have negative impact on local populations and the lands they inhabit and depend on.

I find particularly fascinating that this global movement, capable of creating an international panel on so many complex and universal themes, sprung from some speculative fiction short stories and a few illustrations on Tumblr. “All power to the immagination” was a popular slogan back in the 1968 and I think it could perfectly suit also solarpunk movements.

https://solarpunk-art.tumblr.com/post/660784871064715265/art-by-%E3%81%AC%E3%81%93%E3%83%9E%E3%82%B9

So, let’s imagine a better future, together, and start today to live a better present. Read some sci-fi solarpunk inspired novels, join your local solarpunk community, and partecipate to the solarpunk global debate on your favourite social media.

But wait, isn’t this a mailing list about electronic music?
So here’s my selection of solarpunk inspired electronic music.

And yes, it could sound dangerously like new age music! But I love it nonetheless.