🍄 The Speculative Present

Hidden in Plain Sight: solarpunk, lunarpunk, afrofuturism. Some wonderings on the signposts we see changing the future.

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the speculative present

Solarpunk stands in opposition to the increasingly mainstream position that we live in a world with no future. Emerging is a narrative strategy for creating a speculative present in which we mine the depths of the imagination for better possibilities. There is no one fixed future but, given the choice between ‘the only solution’ and ‘possible options,’ pragmatic optimists will always choose the latter.

Get ready to be punked!

solarpunk: a container for more fertile futures

In this piece written for the launch issue of Solarpunk Magazine, Jay Springett reviews the foundational ideas of the movement, why it exists, what it aims to foster, and some of the most important aspects of this growing wave of “practical utopianism.”

In his 2011 essay "Innovation Starvation,"cyberpunk author Neal Stephenson proposed that fictional visions of the future act as hieroglyphs: simple, recognizable symbols on whose significance everyone agrees.

Another early solarpunk steward Adam Flynn wrote in his essay “Solarpunk: Notes toward a Manifesto” “We need these Big Futures in new directions, towards things beyond cool toys for rich people. We are trying to make Solarpunk a concept / an aesthetic / a design fiction movement / a setting for roleplaying games because we need banners to rally around, and there is power in forming subcultures around ideas.”

#solarpunk today across any social media platform and you will see it more of a 'container" for anyone to place their ideas about the future inside of. It’s a radically evolving sustainability mindset that Springett explains as "the resulting solarpunk worlding process of conceptual bricolage creates a polyphonic future texture from which even newer ideas of the future can emerge."

SOURCE: Jay Springett, Solarpunk Magazine

lunarpunk: a new sci-fi subgenre that mixes darkness with optimism

Where there's light, there's also dark. Lunarpunk gives us both. A recent spinout of solarpunk, lunarpunk similarly holds fast to improved societies emerging from environmental and sociopolitical crises, but with a different philosophical spin and artistic look. Where solarpunk has communitarian ethos, Lunarpunk emphasizes individualism highlighting the loners who think and act in a recovering world, while still blaming capitalism for much of what went wrong. Like its solar sister, lunarpunk imagines environmentally-friendly technologies; but with a spiritual and mystical view that illustrates future science converging with the supernatural or occult. The two aesthetics say it all: earth colors and daylight dominate solarpunk imagery; lunarpunk goes dark with nocturnal scenes and eerie glows.

Lunarpunks are having their moment, especially in the the strange times of today. Luber writes: "In recent years, political turmoil has been intense, reminiscent of the late-1960s and early-1970s but with nothing like the cultural florescence of the earlier time. Much spirituality has been distorted by paranoid right-wing fevers... By contrast, a literary and artistic movement offering inclusive visions of spirituality, coupled with an affinity for science and technology, is a healthy development. One needn’t embrace lunarpunk’s anti-capitalist political assumptions to value its optimism and experimentation; its healthy embrace of the dark and mysterious in seeking a better world."

To get a good sense of the subgenre, check out the stories and poems of  Bioluminescent: A Lunarpunk Anthology (Android Press, Jan. 24).

SOURCE: Kenneth Silber, Splice Today

the politics of science fiction and the rise of solarpunk

It's hard not to speculate about a dystopian future given the world of extremes we live in today with cold and complex technologies, abundant but often toxic air, rising temperatures and the forms of protective gear to shield us from the sun’s harmful rays. Sound familiar? 

In her essay "Greener Horizons: 5 Solarpunk Views of the Near and Distant Futures," Kendall Farris posits "the future tends to look shiny and sterilized in a way reminiscent of a band-aid meticulously placed over the various wounds inflicted on planet Earth by our own hands. But there does exist a lush, green alternative to the futures we so often see depicted in the media that could just as easily become a reality — if we truly cared enough to make it happen."

For example, Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Ministry of the Future, uses his knowledge of hard science to create science fiction stories that realize more utopian (or solarpunk) themed outcomes. Robinson looks beyond the debate of climate science to position solarpunk as literature’s parallel to a political revolution that could create an ecotopian society.

Explore these five inspiring books that represent a solarpunk alternative to the near and distant futures.

SOURCE: Kendall Ferris, Book Tribe

afrofuturism

The solarpunk aesthetic overlaps with that of Afrofuturism, that blends the African diaspora with science, philosophy and technology. Afrofuturism is a literary genre, aesthetic, and musical and cultural movement that celebrates Black traditions and culture. Some examples include the art of Basquiat, music of Sun Ra, and literature of W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, and Octavia Butler.

Though the term ‘Afrofuturism’ was not coined until the 1990s, Afrofuturistic music and aesthetics became culturally apparent in the 1950s—the same era when science fiction gained prominence. Today there are many interpretations of Afrofuturism, apparent in the iconic Marvel characters of T'Challa the Black Panther and Storm, superheroes and superhumans who use science to fight for justice.

Although the interpretations of Afrofuturism differ, the common themes of reclamation, liberation, and revisioning of the past and predictions of the future through a black cultural lens are aligned with the solarpunk quest for climate, planet and social justice.

Check out: 

• Black Panther — the comic book and hit Marvel movie 
•“Dirty Computer” — a studio album and “emotion picture” by Janelle Monae 
• Lilith’s Brood — also called the Xenogenesis trilogy, a compilation of three works by Octavia Butler: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago
•“Black Futures: An Ode to Freedom Summer” — a short film created by the Movement for Black Lives
SOURCE: Claire Elise Thompson, Grist

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