Changing Cycles

An ongoing project exploring the use of the arts as a form of action to ensure the sustainability of the planet. and stuff.

Friday, February 09, 2007

Slow progress


I'm finding it hard to juggle the things I have to do to make a living (ie running youth arts projects/workshops etc) with the things that are ultimately most important and inspiring to me (ie writing this show, and keeping all my other creative irons in the fire), but I am making progress, albeit a bit glacial (mind you, with the effect of global warming, the rate of movement that metaphor implies is speeding up a bit...).
I'm still going over my original research, trying to answer questions about my central trickster character that I never properly answered in the first script. Weighty mythological questions about who the gods are and what Tali's relationship is with them (I've decided that making corporations the gods is too simplistic, and gives them too much power...), but also more practical problems about the piece such as if this is supposed to be an interventionist piece of art that stimulates action, what pragmatic solutions to global meltdown can I offer when my protagonist is a mythical being capable of magical feats beyond the average mortal? Hmm... I can feel a headache forming.
My course in London is proving very stimulating anyway, particularly for asking, if not answering, these sorts of questions. This week we will be talking about a recent PLATFORM project 'And While London Burns' - a walking opera around London that you download onto an MP3 player.
Meanwhile, an excellent alert was sent out by Media Lens this week in response to the hypocrisy of papers like the Guardian and the Indepent reporting on the most recent doom-laden report on climate change by the IPCC, interspersed with the usual adverts for gas-guzzling cars, cheap flights and all the usual consumer nonsense. The alert can be found here, I recommend a read, and then maybe a letter to one of the editors...