Vanishing Asia. Meetup invite.
I have bought one of the most extraordinary travel photo books. 9,000 photos of a current and vanishing Asia. I listen to some of world’s best cello music. I consider emissions in going to Barcelona.
I have bought one of the most extraordinary travel photo books. 9,000 photos of a current and vanishing Asia. I listen to some of world’s best cello music. I consider emissions in going to Barcelona and the point of models.
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The UnConference on Sep 16. Do come! Sustainability Accelerator UnConferenceon the long-term. This is a different type of conference. You really should come!
Learning from Travel photos and Vanishing Asia (Kevin Kelly)
Listening and a visceral reaction to classical cello music
Learning about CO2 impacts from modelling my potential trip to Barcelona.
Links: Longtermism climate report. Corporate culture was weird. Bike infrastructure design. On importance of agency and natalism thoughts. COVID in England (What we are living with). The world is slowly getting bank accounts. Clean energy stats. Tiny animals moving in the night. Improving memory via electrical stimulation.
On travel photos. The average photo is not as “artful” as the equivalent from - for instance - a Magnum photographer but this is more than outweighed by the breadth of photographs and its glimpses of the “ordinary”.
When you think about the ordinary you can look at the work of - say - Martin Parr looking at the life of typical British people; their food, their culture, their breakfasts. Or, in the US, deceptively normally, or artfully plain work of William Eggleston. Eggleston influenced Parr and many of those who came after. Touches of Kelly’s photos capture this and his look at design, clothing, doors and the like. There is a touch of the pattern book. It does not step into the kitsch or the high (?) art of Eggleston but it steps into an important area of documentary, nevertheless.
In the US, there is the work of Diane Arbus for those who are more off-mainstream, or Robert Frank in the Americans. Or further back, Doreathea Lange. Or in another way, Cartier-Bresson. These capture the human portrait and way of an older American life. I see echoes of these in Kelly’s work.
I view all of those photographers as important in the history of visual art and photography and on their influence on culture (partly because of the artists and creatives they influence). I think this history is understudied.
In parallel, you have documentary of culture and people as the world has globalised. This is perhaps less serious for art collectors but no less important for our understanding of the world.
Kevin Kelly to my mind has photographed perhaps one of the single largest collection of visuals of Asia by a singular individual person over this time. (Selection below, found at Petal Pixel also including essay on his books)
A professional travel photographer such as Steve McCurry has perhaps a wider range of images and Magnum and professional travel photographers are more artful.
But, Kelly has specifically sought out a vanishing Asia. He has looked for places in people with traditional clothing, clothes and language. He observes that the first items to vanish are traditional costumes, then architecture then music, then food then language.
He notes while often beautiful this way of traditional living is often undesirably. It’s bad for health (indoor fires, poor heating and cooling). It’s bad for liberty and choice, ornate clothing and jewelry restricting movement and freedom.
He suggest despite the pollution, neglect and chaos of cities the transformational leap in opportunities for wealth and choice has driven 1 billion Asians to leave their traditional ways to join the cities. Exchanging beautiful homes built by their own hands, organic food grown themselves, dressed in fabrics made by their own hands too.
He ponders that he too would make the same shift. Kelly is a futurist and technologist. Arguably, also one of our greatest (as befits the founder of Wired, a curator of the Whole Earth Review, Perhaps, rarely and counterintuitively, Kell is very keen on remembering these old ways even as he is a supporter of mdoerisation.
The future never leaves the past behind; it carries the old forward. To steer this future, we need to recall and employ the richness of the past. … I made this book to help transmit this ancient richness into the future.
I agree with much of Kelly’s thinking. His pictures not only tell stories - as mine have done in, for instance, a part of Indonesia even Kelly - has not yet visited, eg Sulawesi - but they record designs, and patterns and ways of life. And with an eye for this, the book is something more than simple travel photos, part pattern book, part history Kelly documents something more than a vanishing beauty.
Almost $300 dollars for the collection but worth it. there I think will only be around 5,000 copies and over half (maybe most) have sold already. Amazon link here, but will come from third party sellers if any have stock.
My friend took me to see one of the world’s greatest cello players play with a world class pianist and clarinetist (Arguably some of the world’s best too). I find it somewhat extraordinary we can do this. Sit within a few metres and listen to people play at the height of human achievement.
I don’t communicate with classical music or any music at a skilled level. Unlike theatre or even painting, photography or poetry where I speak those languages at a certain level of skill. This is not the same for music for me.
However, music does speak to me at a visceral level. Certain pieces I know well also speak differently to me.
Steven Isserlis on cello, Charles Owen (piano) and Sasha Rattle on clarinet spoke to me at an extraordinary visceral level.
I didn’t need to know their reputations to feel this was a special level of playing.
My companions could also hear and voice the playing at technical levels and with their own musical voices playing back to their own stories. In the case of the cellist of our group, partly because it was their instrument and the fingering, technique and sound of Isserlis and his cello that resonate. And for the violinist, of our group, because she had played with the pianist before, recalling their own musical conversations and recalling the moments of all the music that resonate.
There’s a part of me forever sad, perhaps a touch jealous, that I will never understand music at that level - still I think the visceral level still has much to be relished in.
This is Isserlis in 2020 playing in the same cafe/concert I was at this week. Note how close everyone is to the player.
I think to the cars trundling by unaware of the height of human art playing live as they pass.
I think to art in Asia, I think to cello music - these are pieces of humanity worth relishing - there’s no true transitivity here - true without human life or health, we have no music - but if we have no music at all - are we still all that is human ?
I haven’t fully articulated my investment thought for the week, but it centred around what we really learn from modelling.
The aphorism is “The map is not the territory” - and so the model is definitely not the world and the model is always wrong - but that is not the way to think of the use of the model.
One of the under-rated learnings a model gives you - is if you develop it and run it yourself - The modelling process then gives you a strong sense about what the changing inputs and outputs mean. How the value of an asset varies with levels of interest rates as you enter them in and change them. I think it’s this sense of how the world might be impacted by change that can be very powerfully found from models.
I am likely to go to Barcelona for the PRI conference (responsible investment). I am looking to go by train but the expense looks to be prohibitive when pitching this to business. I think this is key unlock for travel and the environment. If London to Spain can not be made equivalent by train, then planes will always win. Let me know if you might be there and want to catch up. And also if you have a view on train vs plane.
I’m also unsure on the carbon impact.
Train, 12 hours, 2 changes. USD350-450. Carbon est: 75 kg CO2 (eco passenger). Smog hydrocarbons at 67g
Plane, 3-4 hours, no changes. Price: USD 150 - 200. Carbon est: 108 kg CO2 (according to eco passenger and google calculator, which has range 80 - 120 kg CO2 so at the low end very close to the train) Smog hydrocarbons at 45g (vs 67 for train)
But ecopassenger has other polluting impacts which are higher for train (smog hydrocarbons - this is an issue for air pollution and ozone). It’s not clear to me from London which is immediately better. It certainly seems true that coming from Paris, the train is better, but from London it’s not as clear cut.
The estimates and inputs also have enough variance to me that suggests a +/- 25% on the carbon dioxide element can vary a lot by load and other factors. Hm. I’m also a little bit worried about the strength of the methodology for instance much depends on the mix of the train, is it electric or diesel? Also the RFI factors, or the indirect non-carbon impacts eg water vapour in the air, are vary hard to model - and currently so inaccurate as to be missing in most models.
The Google model is close but, eg these 3 flights are in the 82 to 94kg CO2 range which is close enough to the train estimate (depending on how you get to the airport and train). If you book this far in advance, the price saving is substantial. One can make the argument that using this saving, or even only half the saving, and placing that in a good impact investment or charity wouldbe more impactful.
Another clear item is that cars running on diesel are poor choices. But that electric battery cars are actually better than trains with a national mix. This shows the importance of the electrification of cars. Below is the journey in a 2 person electric car, Paris to Barcelona. Of course, there are other impacts to think about but on these electric cars seem winners.
The stressing of the simple model (and using more than one model), running it by more inputs and the assumptions it shows gives me a broader understanding of the challenges here (cf above on models!).
Links:
This climate report via a longtermism (100000s of years) is intriguing. It concludes climate is a problem, but not a neglected, x-risk problem like man-made pandemics or nuclear war. It also highlights observations I’ve made on how we’ve had some climate success in heading for a likely 2.7c world rather than a >4c world.
Corporate culture was weird. Still is weird?
Bike infrastructure design.
On importance of agency and natalism thoughts
COVID in England. What we are living with.
The world is slowly getting bank accounts
Clean energy stats
Tiny animals
Improving memory via electrical stimulation