"I was born and brought up in Bhopal.. academically a Policy Maker, Communication Designer, and Filmmaker.. studied at NIT Bhopal and the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. For the past 6 years, I have been working as an indie audio-visual composer, academic and writer.. dwelling in film, animation, space design, soundscape ecology and communication design."

A Bhaskar Rao, a.k.a Mustard Lake, is an interdisciplinary artist making music, conceptually based around nature and it's limitless manifestations. Bhaskar has recently released an album titled 'Particles of A Cloud" featuring five compositions. Described by the artist as "being present and being a part of the soundscape being generated, physically." Bhaskar wants to "translate the experience of ‘nature’... rhythm of the natural world through a human perspective... accepting the in-comprehensible, as a legit experience in itself". There are very few artists in India who align their creativity around nature and it's evident breakdown (climate change, global warming, loss of habitat etc). Can music help us create kinship with nature? We feel that it's pertinent to amplify the effort of any such artist, which in consequence encourages other artists, especially from the generation facing the incoming future.

What draws you to nature and music?
In essence, I am trying to translate the experience of ‘nature’. As a way to comprehend the pace and rhythm of the natural world, through a human perspective. And more importantly accepting the incomprehensible, as an experience in itself. It was about asking questions,while brutally swaying between a personal outcry and trying to find out the means to resonate with the universal. Nature can be the root source to observe and listen (experience).

The realm is endless, the fabric of nature which embodies lives and livelihoods. Also as a sonic realm, to interpret and understand social, economic, cultural, political, and environmental dynamics around us. A source of query and curiosity also... Grappling with questions like - Can I locate the infinite sphere of nature? Can my thoughts run faster than the tectonic plates? Do I actually chase a sunset? Is it okay to find a forest fire, beautiful? And after all these thoughts stretching the depths of my mind, finding myself overwhelmed by a recurring dream. A dream in which a person I love is always wearing white... Why so?


About Buddhijeev Studios in Bir (Himachal Pradesh)?
The album and it's surrounding project is an outcome of a storytelling residency at
Buddhijeev Studios in Bir. A quaint little valley located in the mid-range of the Himalayas, is also host to monasteries, farmers, an Indo-Tibetan community and a grassroots institution like Buddhijeev. Interdisciplinary in nature, at the crossroads of Indian art, culture and the political landscape, the objective at buddhijeev is lucid. "To create content for the common public through which they can think about and understand the world around them better..."

As an artist, what is your future direction like?
I am currently working on a sound installation project exploring settlements around rivers. It's centered around the river Godavari, in and around the city of Nashik. The place is of tremendous diversity, in terms of it's culture, history, religion and nature.

Moving towards site specific work. Compositions inspired by the environment and respective ecosystems. I wish to study a variety of natural and human ecosystems. I also want to create collaborative platforms for people working along these lines. To materialize future projects, with a bigger projection than what I am currently operating out of...

https://buddhijeev.in/particles-of-a-cloud

"Kinship"
Definition : A "system of social organization based on blood based family ties..." (Encyclopaedia Britannica). That organization also exists within nature, culture, language, arts and interpersonal relationships. Numerous types of kinship, extended, temporal, living or dead.

Professor Emerita, eco-feminist and writer Donna J. Haraway has progressively amplified the concept of kinship, as a direction, leading us out of the Anthropocene (our current age). The missing kinship we need, to face the perilous state of the living planet. She’s been at it for decades now! Her landmark 1985 “A Cyborg Manifesto” was a bit of an "earthquake" within prevailing feminist theory. In 2003, "The Companion Species Manifesto" examined our innate connection to dogs, as well as other non-human “critters” (a favorite Haraway word). By early 2000, Donna Haraway was an emerging figure in animal studies, ecology and feminism. Her background as a scientist and cultural scholar, extended her influence beyond academia, inspiring a generation of artists, writers and new scientists. Haraway is insisting, with brilliant insight, backed by scientific power, that our relationship with nature has fundamentally gone wrong. And that broken status is getting worse, and is missing 'kinship'. Now think of "kin” and “kind” - etymologically they’re closely related. To be kind is to be kin, but kin is not kind. "Kin is often quite the opposite of kind. Not necessarily be biologically related but in some consequential way belong in the same category, group, species etc with positive and negative consequences..." says Haraway.

Kinship is one of the most important organizing components of society. Kinship has been part of our evolution, some argue even before the dawn of Homo Sapiens. What is referred as social, is an invisible but universal institution that ties individuals and groups together. Hosting relationships of layered complexities amongst us all. Haraway points out that some of these institutions, over millennia have failed to progress and hence elicit change. With a sense of emergency she explains "making kin seems to me, is most in need in a culture that rips us apart from each other, in a world that already hosts almost 8 billion human beings, with very unequal and unjust patterns of suffering and well-being. By kin I mean those who have an enduring mutual, obligatory, non-optional, you-can’t-just-cast-that-away-when-it-gets-inconvenient, types of 'relatedness that carries consequences'... as we relate to our children and they relate to us.. I have a cousin, the cousin has me; I have a dog, a dog has me; i have the earth and the earth has me..."

In her book Staying With The Trouble (2017), Donna Haraway insists on "stirring up" and "confronting troubled times". She compels us to feel the indigenous people's kinship to natural systems (rivers, mountains, forests etc). She describes how the Anthropocene has rapidly run off the rails. "We live in such mixed up times... made of so much unnecessarily killing... the ongoing mass extinction and severely impoverished ecosystems... society constantly fluctuating between anxiety, pain, speculation and momentary joy". Haraway insists that by making new kin, new relationships, "new trouble" and "clearing away past myths", we stand a chance to make way for a future, which will not be based on "salvation, magic or technological progress". She eschews, gradually divesting from the current epoch (the Anthropocene), moving into what she conceptualizes as the "Chthulucene". The book vividly describes a future landscape of unforeseen bio-mutation, not so far away, where the human and non-human are inextricably linked in "tentacular" forms and practices. "I imagine those replete with tentacles, feelers, digits, cords, whip-tales, spider legs and unruly hair... Multi-species with the ability to share ecosystems in harmony.. very different from the sky gazing Homo Sapiens 10,000 years ago...". Oh! sounds like another Hollywood 'alien mutation' meets 70s Sci-Fi? Actually far from it.

Influenced by the flowering of feminist science fiction of the ’70s and 80s, Haraway cites books which could be seen as radical, dark and beautiful, like Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, Joanna Russ’s The Female Man, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren, and the Tales of Nevèrÿon to name a few. Haraway went on to create her "little skein of fibers based on science fiction, like 'string figures, speculative fabulation, science fact, speculative feminism, and even so far". However Haraway is not merely amplifying nostalgia and science fiction. While on one hand she retains a clear kinship with the above writers, yet on the other hand she presents new horizons, based on emerging science and ecology, new ways of thinking to be precise. Her implications of kin versus family are vast. Revised, of kinship which encompasses all non-human relations.

That kinship which gradually removes the Homo Sapien from it's dominant position. She slams at the old farcical myths and idiotic notions of glory that we have held on for centuries. Haraway unboxes her ideas, with the objective to improve our relationship with the planet, at micro and macro levels. Haraway is no moralist. She is replacing 'human relations' with 'kin' which arguably brings about a transformation. A revolution of our hierarchies and priorities. The very definition of what amounts to a family and why kinship goes way beyond blood, race and language relationships. Why not care as much about a Mudskipper as you do about your niece or a Blue Whale or a Panda? Sounds too far out?! Perhaps we are struck down by our own limitations, unable to re-imagine and re-act.

Haraway's argument and imagination is linked to the evolution of bio-science - made of ecology, genetics, marine biology, medicine, stem-cell research etc. For about forty years now, Haraway has connected analysis and activism. Staying With The Trouble (2017) transcends disciplinary boundaries. Traversing biology, science studies, art history and philosophy with fiction, political activism and new Etymologies. She insists that we learn to tell new stories, that strengthen ecological response-ability and individual resilience. She warns with duress, that a world characterized by ongoing environmental irresponsibility and irrevocable faith in technology, is both "appallingly murderous and leading us even closer to ecocide...". 

Haraway questions our food and agriculture. The system of mono-cropping has yielded an epic disaster in slow motion. From America to China to Chile to India, the impact of modern agriculture resonates with Haraway's conclusion. "When you take the complex biodiversity of a given region, and you not only radically simplify its ecology, but you also rapidly reduce the kinds of organisms, flora and fauna that live there. Then, you displace the labor force that’s already there and import a new labor force, using various forms of force, contract, even violence and indentured servitude. You bring in new crops, seeds, fertilizers, chemicals and irrigation systems, that promise higher and higher yields, proffered by the global markets and economics... the state and private corporations also bring in a labor force that literally can’t run away... At the same time, we begin to notice how bankrupt the ecosystems have become.. And you call all that “agriculture”? questions Haraway in a recent interview.

Kinship is vital to the well being of a person and a community. Because different societies define kinship differently, they also set varied rules governing kinship. Given certain rules impose limitations, setting boundaries, fostering myths. Many times such kinship is detrimental, divisive to the way we connect (and view) others. 'Don't talk to strangers'! The "non-kin" such as other species, other races, languages, customs and cultures. Wild animals are not how the dominant culture frames them. Countless doltish animated 'Hakuna Matata' movies or lavish hi-definition documentaries enable such false narratives and myths to perpetuate. The loss is ours however, and not of the "critters". Haraway laments how generations of children have been force fed such detrimental narratives, while she opines on the need to challenge (and divest) such traditional forms of kinship.

At the heart of Donna Haraway's vision is a marriage of science, activism and art. A regenerative state between human beings and nature. In her numerous lectures and presentations, we begin to understand some of the practices for becoming "more worldly and less clan type". Especially in a time of unprecedented environmental destruction, mass extinction and exodus, ongoing war and a chaotic overloaded civilization. When asked if she is speculating a better future in the face of collapse denial? She replies "No! For one thing, I think that’s cheap... that I can just go on enjoying myself or suffer chronically in despair? Or join a closed group or embrace new green myths. It’s lazy. It's a dead end of sorts... I’m neither optimistic nor pessimistic. Those are but extremes...The book I wrote was called Staying with the Trouble on purpose, and yes I am against techno-optimism..."

"We are on course for 4°C of heating... 4°C future is incompatible with an organized global community... is likely to go beyond simple ‘adaptation’ and 'transition'... devastating a majority of ecosystems” – Prof Kevin Anderson 2020

We Didn't Start The Fire !?
We didn't start the fire .. It was always burning, since the world's been turning!
We didn't start the fire .. No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it…

Truth be told, and no disrespect to Billy Joel, collectively as a species, we did cause an immense warming coupled with mass destruction. The consequences of which are unfolding everyday. Fires and floods, spilling out as climate fury, making daily headlines, replete with stories of loss, migration and incoming global chaos. The recent COP26, United Nation’s climate summit ended in Glasgow Scotland, yet again unable to align industrial civilization with the ecosystem. Instead opposing sides argued over economic deals, carbon budgets, energy transition and net zero futures… all on paper though! Described as “epic fail” and “mere headlines”, 26 COPS later it is quite obvious, that all such summits are in essence a mighty flop! COP could be renamed as ‘Climate Opportunity Politics’, and dare we say that it merits public divestment. Boycott and move beyond the terrible (25 years) quagmire and impotency. COP is a reflection of a “a broken world” and an “appalling addiction to energy”. By now it’s apparent, that the current capitalist economic model of endless (exponential) growth on a finite planet is clearly unsustainable. Simply not possible! By definition, that means that it must come to an end. The only question is whether we will choose to end it, or whether it “ends via system collapse”. This essay is an appeal, distressing but resilient, at a personal and collective level, about transition and transformation - of our relationship with the ecosystem. How we view and use energy, land, water, food and every naturally available resource. Why that rapport has to change...

The last time (3 million years ago) there was this much CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere, the Earth was about 3°C warmer than today. The oceans were almost 30 feet higher than today! Industrial activity over the last 150 years has decimated life across the planet. This "scale of destruction" effectively cuts the brakes, of our current trajectory as well as accelerating the Earth rapidly into a new state “that will be alien to human systems”. Scientific data shows “tipping points” within erratic climate patterns have already been reached. Scientists fear is that one tipping point could trigger another, thus causing a cascade of collapsing environments, driving the planet irreversibly to a far "hotter state". We must remind ourselves, as ordinary citizens, why all such important predicaments are largely absent from climate conferences, greenwash capitalism, agendas set by solar, wind and nuclear energy and also mainstream media. Why are we being lied to? 

Policy makers and the enablers of green-tech and capitalism are trumpeting a new schema: “Carbon budgets”. The premise in a nutshell, is the amount of CO2 we could 'still' collectively release and hope to remain below certain temperature limits. The "underlying fault with such policy" (or many similar ones) are two crucial conditions, effectively ignored. One being Overshoot and Collapse, the other being Jevon's Paradox. Something is "terribly wrong" in the world of economics...

Mid 1970s, Donella Meadows, a scientist working at MIT, proposed that "the current trajectory of growth and required energy will rapidly reach a state of overshoot, and consequently lead to collapse". Her visionary work, backed by computer models using multiple positive / negative feedback loops showed how animals (big and small) and human societies (tribal or modern) have gone through cycles of overshoot and collapse, and the same predicament can be applied to a massive industrial civilization. Back then, she was largely ignored by the scientific sorority, mainstream economists, the IMF, World Bank and United Nations. "Any species, big or small, in the long term is generally defined by the limits imposed by the ecosystem (carrying capacity) and not the other way around" Donella said in 1976. Donella passed away in 2001, yet her legacy of ecologically motivated science grew into an open-source international foundation, with thousands of members proliferating her ideas of "stable systems". Is it vital for us? We, the consequence of overshoot, facing the possibility of collapse. Donella's attempt to combine scientific, philosophical and ecological vision can be felt in her brilliant essay (1985) titled 'Dancing With Systems'.

"The drivers of global economics and the energy needs of 5 billion people may coincide for the moment. However, no one seems to be bothered about how this 'party' will eventually wind down, or worse, just crash..." wrote Prof. William R Catton in his book 'Overshoot' in 1982. Even as Catton's book did not make an impact on the thousands of well meaning economists, scientists, industrialists and politicians, it panned out to show how disaster prone and shortsighted we are, as a species. The book does not roll out prophecies - instead it explains that the "combined overshoot" of population, consumption, emissions, pollution, production and industry would lead to an eventual overall collapse, stretching hundreds of years, before returning to normalcy (stability). "The predicament that we face now is that our population (size) is vastly outgrowing the carrying capacity of the ecosystem. It does not matter if we solve one carrying capacity (say food shortage) as multiple feedback loops effect the rise and decline of any species.. despite our technical superiority, civilization is defined by the limits of the ecosystem" states Catton in a 1988 interview. For decades his book and several papers were ignored by mainstream science and media, even as he worked as a consultant for the World Bank. Today the world is openly grappling with Catton's predicament!

"Carrying capacity of our civilization is clearly in deficit, irrespective of the fixes suggested by science and neoliberal reforms..." Catton said in 1991. "We have been stealing from the future for a long time ... our energy demands are generated by systems which cannot be replenished in the short term ... we are changing the basic conditions of life on earth... from the pristine to the abandoned or ruined.." (Overshoot 1982). 

The deep faith in technology that industrial civilization is vested upon, is described as a condition called "Cargoism" by Catton, as early as 1981. New Delhi, the world's most polluted city is a perfect example of Cargoism. 22 million people living inside a massive 'gas chamber', where decades of technology based intervention has failed to curb pollution, contamination and widespread rise of respiratory diseases. Yet Catton was ignored like Kepler! "It's an astonishing fact that we have managed to destroy vast parts of the ecosystem, without violating a single law. If destruction leads to profit, it's legal!"(Overshoot 1982). Till the end of his life, he maintained a realistic type of optimism, encouraging us to think and act ecologically, as well as enjoy life despite the catastrophes invoked by industrial civilization. We urge the reader to read Overshoot! (Open Source Book)

The foxes in charge of the hen-house! A brief look at how COP summits are organized reveals the farce and eventual mockery of climate justice. COP is divided into two zones - blue and green. Both zones are manned by the United Nations and it's own police. While activists, journalists, NGOs and scientists interact inside the green zone - the politicians, lobbyists of green-tech, agents of the fossil fuel industry, economists, celebrities and VIPs are busy making future deals inside the blue zone. A common citizen has no access to the blue zone, yet shelling out approximately 100+ euros per day, to be able to access the green zone. "COP organizers (United Nations) don't keep a count of the carbon emissions of the summit itself. There were zero CO2 detectors placed at the conference... flights and hotel prices four times higher than usual..." states Canadian climate scientist Paul Beckwith. Mass media laps up, amplifying the green lies, mandates and mantras. "This is climate countdown" cried the simple minded liberal Amy Goodman! Majority of the speakers and presentations at COP26 belonged to the global north, plus the cherry-picked climate celebrities like Greta Thundberg, Leonardo Di Caprio etc taking up needless space and attention, while thousands of activists, scientists and NGOs from the global south stuck outside Scotland, most of them denied entry into U.K due to Covid. "Hundreds of delegates were ripped off, having to pay thousands of euros for accommodation, local transport, food and even water, all mandated by the British Government..." states a Scotland based newspaper.

We cannot alter climate change and global warming. Both are well in motion in thousands of ways. The gap between those (billions) worst effected by global warming and climate and those (few thousands) who are swearing by unsustainable policies (and getting richer) is widening. The young climate activist who swears by Green-Energy is as delusional as the agents of Exxon, Shell, Mercedes and Toyota selling lies about a future long cancelled. Is why COP and all such institutionally controlled affairs, will always serve economics and industry, and not nature. "There's a great awakening across the world, however small in numbers, after almost 600 years.. people who are rising up against the murder of the planet... That it's NOT OK anymore, to take another person's life, NOT OK to destroy rivers, oceans and forests.. world leaders and the dominant way of thinking cannot provide us with answers nor security..." underlines award-winning writer and journalist Dahr Jamail.

Breath...

As individuals, without passing the blame, without heckling and wasting time, we are compelled to take our first steps towards transition. Align our lifestyles rapidly over time, building loyalty towards ecology and the living planet (or what remains of it). There's got to be 'enoughness' which is not linked to success, wealth and endless material growth. Love, clarity and compassion over personal ambition and success. Even if we are set for extinction, we seek resilience, adaptation and empathy. Out of that realization comes the will to change. Converging at a personal and collective level, as artists, creators and innovators, we are planting new seeds of transition based on shared visions. Join us?

Given that a big part of current computing and information technology contributes to pollution, contamination and is totally based on extraction, mining and fossil fuel based energy : the question we are compelled to ask the curators and institutions, is the obvious need (call it responsibility) of reducing harmful emissions, e-consumerism and the environmental impact of non-degradable electronic waste? On many instances, AI and ML are seen as "part" of the solution, born of digital technology, helping us understand and perhaps combat climate change. The array of AI applications within 'climate-tech' can have major implications in future policy making . There are lots of exciting "point solutions", but there’s no real example of AI directly (and meaningfully) reducing global emissions yet. In fact it adds to global emissions. A fact that every time we get on a virtual video conference or create an elaborate stage for artistic expression or take a flight, we are emitting and polluting. Like digital art, video and music, AI and ML are also hooked on energy. Radical ideas of degrowth, deep adaptation, collapse resilience and change of lifestyle seem to be omitted currently, from the discourses within Tech-Art, AI and ML - consequently the general objectives are aligned with the mainstream culture, call it emphasis on technology, to be able to combat climate change.

In the near future, we foresee AI and ML practitioners working within institutions and with individuals (artists, scientists, entrepreneurs etc) offering experience, solutions, utilities and practical nuggets of "deep learning". Tech-Art is a rapidly evolving arena and primarily open-source. Initiatives like BeFantastic are promising and supportive at the same time. Especially for the younger generation, who are at the receiving end of climate change as well as the global policies being framed for the future. Often institutions and individuals avoid discussing their own emissions and carbon footprint, however adding up tons of CO2 every year if not every month. Yet the culture is changing bit by bit - as we are told by Pro Helvetia that " following the Swiss Arts Council's “Guidelines for ecological sustainability at work” Pro Helvetia is dedicated to creating resource-friendly and ecologically sustainable working practices and makes an annual CO2 compensation payment for all air travels undertaken by its employees worldwide. In addition, it has the carbon footprint of its infrastructure assessed once per funding period".  

With BeFantastic, optimistically we anticipate similar progressive steps to be taken by more institutions, technologists, artists and policy makers alike. Steps and pathways be they collective or individual, that lead to an overall positive impact upon the ecosystem. However, the equation between climate change and our current levels of consumption, output and emissions cannot be solved by 'techno-fixes'. Tech-Art should address people and their ecosystems, and not just shine the light on technology. People and art play an essential role together, in shaping imagination and finding solutions. What's most encouraging is that a majority of the voices and speakers of BeFantastic's initiatives are female - making the dialogue and future outcomes a lot more democratic and diverse. BeFantastic Together is inviting young artists, environmentalists, technologists, programmers, climate activists and community makers to join through their fellowship program.

for more information write to : coordinator@aaga.in