David+Cross+Open+Seminars

David Cross Open Seminars

Tuesday 9 March, 11am—1pm Small Lecture Theatre, Wilson Road
Open Seminar one Film screening: //The Age of Stupid// (Directed by Franny Armstrong, 2008) Set in a dystopian future, the narrative takes place aboard an offshore structure that houses the world’s museum store of ecological specimens and cultural artefacts. Facing a computer touch-screen, the lone Keeper of the store addresses the viewer while navigating a video archive of news, documentary footage and animation from the present. The cinema screen thus serves as a rhetorical two-way mirror, the interface through which the viewers’ scepticism and resistance meets the Keeper’s uncertainty as to whether his message will reach its audience. Confronted by current material seen from a possible future, the viewer’s relation to the events depicted resonates between recollection and speculation. A montage portrait of our time — and ourselves — emerges, characterized by situations in which conflicting groups, though aware of the risks, seem unwilling or unable to transcend their personal interests in the common good.

Tuesday 16 March, 11am—1pm
Open Seminar two //Measure or Value?// After years of corporate disinformation, the world's leading scientists are warning that industrial consumer society is accelerating dangerously beyond the ecological carrying capacity of the planet. Recent social science research suggests an inverse relationship between material wealth and mental health and wellbeing, and offers a compelling picture of the failure of consumerism to deliver on its promise of security and happiness. Good intentions are essential, yet without a critical attitude they are dangerous. We may be willing cut our consumption radically, but to make informed choices as consumers, we need to know which parts of our activities cause the most harm, and which the least. For the second Open Seminar, we will consider the ecological ‘footprint’ in relation to ecological activism: the aim being to promote social and cultural, rather than technical approaches to the contested ideal of sustainable development.