The gigantic spaceship Aniara is on the way from the destroyed Earth against the newly-colonized Mars when an accident occurs. In the film adaptation of Harry martinson’s epos “Aniara” (directed by Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja) we get to see how the ship begins to levitate out of the black space. The years go by, a fatalistic everyday life, not without crisis and panic, to appear. But so lit a new hope when a räddningssond is visible in the distance.
Destruction in fiction is often depicted as the result of a specific event, such as an infinitely-sad howl, or a nuclear war. When the dust settles, there is (usually) a chance to start again. Hope alive, despite everything. It is a narrative that gives comfort but Roy Scranton does not give much for it.
– the End will not come as a single event, it is a process that is going on now, on a daily basis.
during the Göteborg international film festival, referring to Roy Scranton, who normally teaches at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, to a variety of data which he claims shows that it is too late to do anything about the negative climate and how the coal-fired capitalism caused the disaster after the disaster.
He published on the subject in The New York Times already in 2013. The essay ”Learning to die in the anthropocene” received a lot of attention and then became a book, which, in may, in a Swedish translation.
the Message is clear: Hope is out there. Even if it would pop up some astounding new technology with the potential to save us as there is an absence of global political will to implement it.
” Yes.” I have not seen any evidence that they would bother. Keep Elon Musk on and invent a way to freeze the polaris? And now in Davos, where the talking to the politicians about automation. In some sense, they need to think of a future where they can sit in their fort with security guards and a private jet and replace people with robots.
” I would not say that she is wasting their time. She is a brave young woman and it is the way she feels meaning in their life. But it will not stop climate change and I wonder how she will feel if five, ten years when her project has failed.
We are all passengers on Aniara. And instead of hoping on the where räddningssonden so should we reflect on the end. Roy Scranton has no given answers about the future, but one thing that he advocates is meditation, to create space for silence.
– Panic only leads to violence. And we will of course see a lot more of in the future. But in the silence there is an opportunity to take in what happens, grieve and listen to the last bird and consider how we ethically should live and how we should reorganize our societies.
” Yes, I do and I try to pull down on the performances. It is hard for me too, and I’d rather spend the rest of my time to be with my daughter and read poetry and write. There is really nothing more to say.
