A very small performance based upon the BIG task of predicting the future and climate change

Make a specific prediction for yourself for one month’s time.  It should be on something important within your daily lived experience, and preferably something contingent upon outside influences, but not necessarily. Actually, it could equally be about your making of a cup of tea at a certain date or time. In fact, that would be quite nice.

Write this prediction into http://www.futureme.org and choose the date when you want to receive it. It will be emailed to your inbox at your chosen date and time in the future. Try to do a prognosis as a daily exercise of sorts, or at least at regular intervals. See how each prognosis affects you or the way you do things, or not.   Keep a record of how you felt and what you were doing when the prediction came through.

Make a note to compare the two sets of texts, before and after, whilst considering change.

Each day Question Time hold a summit somewhere in Copenhagen- in cafes, street corners, domestic apartments, and train stations – after which a new statement of intent is produced towards an alternative declaration of the way forward on climate change.

Summit 20 December (Post COP15)
Attending: Rachel Lois Clapham and lots of other random passers-by
Location: Copenhagen Airport
minute taker Rachel Lois Clapham

On the 6^th December, on my way into Copenhagen, I passed a poster. On it, an aged, grey haired President Sarkozy was pictured, looking apologetic, saying :

‘I’m sorry. We could have stopped catastrophic climate change dot dot dot  we didn’t’

A latent apology from a world leader and COP15 delegate predicting the failure of the conference and envisioning the attendant global catastrophe.

Back then, I read the doom-laden poster as a bold statement of hope, as the setting up of the horizon line for ‘Hopenhagen’, for COP15; the conference would dispel the sure and forthcoming global disaster. Success was imminent since the conference could not fail. Too much was at stake within our own lifetimes.

I’m on my way to the airport today, C0P15 having ended with no definable agreement other than to carry on trying to agree, and I just passed the same poster.

There is a lot to be considered between my initial reading of the poster and this one.

On the 11^th December, a man stood at the front of the Meshwork hall at Klima Forum, the people’s summit as part of COP15, and talked about talking climate change.  I was excited to find this being discussed and joined the back of the assembled audience. In keeping with the Meshworks inclusive, open space methodology, the man was talking about the hierarchies of coming to, or talking about, Climate Change. In particular, he was advocating a participatory- ergo democratic and ethical – space for the public’s collective and individual utterances on climate change in proximity to the official UN negotiations at the Bella Centre. This particular space did not involve ‘experts’ at the front of a (passive) audience, telling them what to think. The man said all this to us whilst gesturing at a complex network diagram with an infra-red pointer. He sometimes had his back to us.

And I silently took notes.

The phrase ‘THE CHALLENGE IS NOT ‘X’ THE CHALLENGE IS ‘X’!’ came up a lot:

I have since carried the refrain around with me, adopting it to situations I encounter during my time in Copenhagen.

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT EXPERTS
THE CHALENGE IS FRONTALITY

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT WOMEN
THE CHALLENGE IS MEN

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT FOOD
THE CHALLENGE IS WASTE

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT RECYCLING
THE CHALLENGE IS THE MESS AND THE SMELL, AND THE FACT THAT THE RECYCLING BIN IS BEHIND THE SOFA

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT BLAH BLAH BLAH
THE CHALLENGE IS BLAH BLAH BLAH

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT THE CHALLENGE
THE CHALLENGE IS [                                  ]

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT CLIMATE
THE CHALLENGE IS SYSTEM

THE CAHLLENGE IS NOT BIG
THE CHALLENGE IS SMALL

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT TECHNOLOGY
THE CHALLENGE IS COLLABORATION

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT TALK
THE CHALLENGE IS SILENCE

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT HESITATION
THE CHALLENGE IS CONFIDENCE

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT ACTION
THE CHALLENGE IS ACTIVISTS

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT DEBATE
THE CHALLENGE IS DEBATABLE

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT WRITING
THE CHALLENGE IS NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT MAKING YOUR NAME AS BIG AS EVERYBODY ELSE’S ON THE WORD CLOUD AT THE SIDE OF THIS POST
THE CHALLENGE IS QUALITY

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT QUESTIONTIME
THE CHALLENGE IS THE QUESTIONS

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT GREEN
THE CHALLENGE IS GREED

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT COST
THE CHALLENGE IS VALUE

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT CHALLENGE
THE CHALLENGE IS EGNELLAHC

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT ME
THE CHALLENGE IS NOT ME

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT BEING CERTAIN HOW THIS IS TALKING CLIMATE CHANGE
THE CHALLENGE IS BEING CERTAIN HOW THIS IS TALKING CLIMATE CHANGE

THE CHALLENGE IS NOT
THE CHALLENGE IS

Each day Question Time hold a summit somewhere in Copenhagen- in cafes, street corners, domestic apartments, and train stations – after which a new statement of intent is produced towards an alternative declaration of the way forward on climate change.

Summit Date: 14 December 2009
Attending: David Berridge, Rachel Lois Clapham, Alex Eisenberg, Neil Bennun, Mary Paterson
Location: Dyrehavn Cafe, Sonder Boulevard
Minute Taker: Rachel Lois Clapham

My last blog post had 16 words in it. It took two hours for me to write. I felt I had to make sure the words had the right sort of room. Enough room to move about in, perhaps freely is the wrong word, but the sort of space- and here I’m imaging a regular room with a roof, four walls and a door – that could be read or function on a variety of levels.

Such a room needs to have no clutter. No tripping over things on the way to the table or the coffee pot. This room is very difficult to write, language being entirely surplus by nature and unsuited to such a purpose. I also think that we – by which I mean writers –  delude ourselves as to the purpose of writing which is perhaps only ever a distraction – albeit a central one- in such a room.  The task in hand is  always the table or the coffee pot.

A statement of intent would have no such clutter. No such personal paraphernalia. It would be big but being inside it would be a tight fit, not much room to maneuver.

Our room here is small, minute even (is it just one room, or a warren of different little corridors, halls, or reception spaces on the same floor?) One thing is for sure, this room is made for more than one person. It is a small space into which big things fit, although sometimes you have to squeeze them through the door a bit.

It’s about Climate Change
It’s about COP15
It’s about Copenhagen
It’s about the home
It’s about a room
It’s about a table
It’s about a coffee pot

Only one person at a time

All furniture is carefully arranged

‘Room’ Video essay from rachellois on Vimeo.

RACHEL LOIS CLAPHAM:

SOME BIG SHORT WORDS FROM THE COP15 MARCH, OFTEN GROUPED IN SETS OF THREE

AND AMIDST ALL THIS BIGNESS, SOME FOUND TEXT FROM THE FLOOR

Each day Question Time hold a summit somewhere in Copenhagen- in cafes, street corners, domestic apartments, and train stations – after which a new statement of intent is produced towards an alternative declaration of the way forward on climate change.

Summit Date: 9 December 2009
Attending: David Berridge, Rachel Lois Clapham, Alex Eisenberg
Location: Kaffe Vinyl
Minute Taker: Rachel Lois Clapham

Wednesday 9^th December 2009

We are different from the other journalists, we will keep it small, pick a card, tomorrow I want to get up, it’s good to get out early, the COP15 questions make me feel ill, I’m an artist and I’m just gonna’ lay out some cards, I am surprised by everyone’s use of rhetoric, cross out Climate Change, replace social sculpture with ‘SOLID’, pick a card, say ‘SOUTH’ instead of COP15, feel the moment of hesitation, I’m really into that, ‘Have you got a spare room?’ is good, saying ‘that’s interesting’ is bad, uhhmmmm is very fertile, let’s keep things about the now, there needs to be more room, I can predict what you will pick next, we really need to be discerning about how and what to use, laying out the cards is good, home is important, these questions are culturally specific, the answers are different, Why do we feel the need to hide some cards?, I am fond of the fronts, we need to hold on to people’s connections with certain words, cross out Copenhagen, ‘How do you feel about the ground?’ really works, take out COP15, we need something non verbal, there is an overload of interview projects here, news-speak is really bad, we are doing what we can, that is where I’m at.