Wednesday, January 30, 2008

World without oil photo essay (part two)

U.S. Route 71 near Arkansas state line, Louisiana.
30 December 020XX.











[Back to part one | on to part three]

2 comments:

WriTerGuy said...

Hey Stuart, some other photo examples inspired by World Without Oil:

nofood by nitefoll

Autofreie Autobahn by isnochrys

Photos from a green zone by mtalon

Refinery security by clever pig

Boise With Less Oil by ThaJinx

Hard Times Hit Brittany by kervision_aude

To The Slow Food Market With My Rations! by MiaWithoutOil

My Neighborhood Takes Action by Dessum9

Local Prices for Roxy's Favorite Drink by FallingIntoSin

Roar Of A Wave That Could Drown The Whole World by hymir

WWO USA by jwiv

Soaring Like Bald Eagles by Le Tuna Man

OH, HAI. by Pachinko_Chance

Pictures of the Statue of Liberty beheaded or on fire are all very well, but I think we're all pretty wise to the Hollywood Spectacle machine. I think it's cool the way people can turn something pretty innocuous into something sinister or evocative with just a hint of context, a carefully selected viewpoint or a dab of PhotoShop. Thanks for the pics!

Stuart Candy said...

These are terrific, Ken. Thanks for sharing.

I think it's cool the way people can turn something pretty innocuous into something sinister or evocative with just a hint of context, a carefully selected viewpoint or a dab of PhotoShop.

Yes! I fully agree about the more subtle approach to visualising futures being potentially more effective. Most of our future (like most of our present, and past) is made up of pretty mundane stuff, not the spectacular Hollywood moments. I think we futurists could aspire to doing a lot better in communicating everyday futures.

This type of image you were talking about in your earlier comment -- evidence of functional adaptation -- puts me in mind of Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn (not a book about futures per se, but one which dwells on this variety of adaptation, which is a hugely important part of change processes).

Actually, this category of adaptive future image or artifact may be a little neglected, compared to the other types I seem to encounter more often. Just this month, we've had disaster imagery galore; lots of pics depicting technological innovation in products and services, satirical futuristic advertisements, as well as unphotoshopped pictures implying the potential spread of a phenomenon already observable today.

So, I visited all the links you posted above, but didn't see the shots of the ingenious post-oil "hacks" noted in your remarks ...Hummer car dealership that's now a refugee camp, the gutted Honda that now uses its alternator as a windmill.... Did I just overlook them, or are they posted somewhere else?