Blue Men on a Blue Planet (Among Yellow Flowers), Blog, New Digital Art and Photography

over 1 year ago

Blue Men on a Blue Planet

Among Yellow Flowers

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If you are a Canadian or a Kids in the Hall fan, you'll remember Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. I began with a shout out because certainly my title today was a play on their name and also because our planet is blue and beautiful but also spends more time in shadows than fully lit.

Maybe like our minds and it creative output. We create astutely but sometimes in ways that veiled to even the artist.

(Unsupported https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/66CcjKuKlmzOJq0ldt3Ia4?utm_source=generator)

Minime and I took a look at a Blue Man group performance to begin our Science chapter on Climate Change. It is helpful and enjoyable to meld the arts with the academic, makes the exploration of the physical world and Social Studies more intimate in the mind. If you ask me. The art I admire the most is often rooted in the academic. If one truly wishes to stay current, she should enlighten herself with both.

The Blue Man group has been around for years. You would be forgiven in thinking that it was always the same 3 Blue Men doing their thing. But no. Blue Man is a kind of theatre, like Vaudeville or Burlesque where any musically and movement talented individual willing to paint their noggin indigo can join the action. I think perhaps a Y chromosome might be a dictate. But maybe not these days.

Summary of Earth to Humanity

The Blue Man Group performs Earth to Humanity. At the start of the performance, we see each Blue Man go inside a screen to the sounds of 2001, Space Odyssey. However the last Blue Man when he takes his place behind the screen appears as a clown, and then a dog, and then finally as himself. Then with a click of a remote control, they all become clowns.

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The sound track changes to rock, and it is announced as Rock Concert #22. We are directed to “ raise awareness of a worthy cause”.

They rattle their heads, brains, to the beat of the up tempo and the laughter of the audience. The voice-over thanks us for choosing Earth as our “planetary vehicle”. The voice tells us not to worry because in the event of continued inaction, in the face of global warming, our seat cushions can be used as a flotation device. The voice who is revealed as acerbic-witted flight attendant directs us to locate our emergency exits. The catch: there aren’t any. We are then treated to images of pollution and climate disaster.

Minime's conclusion on what the Blue Man groups is trying to tell us:

The Blue Man group is trying to tell us that pollution is harmful, and we need to stop it because there aren’t any other planets for us to live on.

And that is where we left it with minime: a simple warning that we must do better for our environment and a clarification of terms and the situation as it has evolved. When I was first introduced to climate change theory, as an impressionable twelve years of age, it was called global warming.

We were told that if we did not do something, and immediately, 'by now' we would morphing into the hell fires of Venus. The glaciers and ice caps should have long since melted and California long since sunk beneath the salty depths.

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When reality did not meat prediction, the terms were morphed; definitions jigged, and we began instead to worry on climate change. Now, I am not here denying the importance of taking care of our environment. I have ALWAYS made personal choices to lessen the stress that I might have on our planet. I recycled and carried reusable bags long before it was en vogue. I don't drive and fly rarely. I have no intention of changing my green ways and fully support the development of reusable energy.

I have also come to the conclusion that although we do indeed affect our climate on this planet, we are not alone. There are other forces at work. Always. We could go carbon zero, but we would not STOP climate change, only moderate it. Climate change always happens and there is no way knowing for sure how much of that is causes by human activities. Pollution and top soil degradation. That's all us.

I have also realized through the fiasco that was the last three years that science is very very fallible in a system driven by profit and prejudice. In short, the climate science has been directed to support more alarmist outcomes. Yes, we affect climate but we do NOT have an accurate understanding to what degree. Like with most things, we may think a little more of ourselves than we do the natural processes of the Earth and the Cosmos.

Looking at the Blue Man performance through those eyes, it is the opening sequence of the screens that is most striking to me. Those screens have led us to have a hyperbolic sense of things. We have grown into a sort of misanthropic negative narcissists. The Blue Men warned perhaps inadvertently to be suspicious of what you see on those screens.

Live in harmony with the planet, but question those screens; question how you wish to be seen on those screens. Question the science, learn to question it effectively, and question policy. Question why a high-school drop out of sixteen out was chosen by the media to be the face of climate change and given the outrageous level of exposure she was given.

Understand that many of the policies that are being proposed to battle climate change will result in more wealth transfer, starvation, and the erosion of human rights. Meanwhile, those pushing policy continue to jet about the Blue Planet like it is indeed their personal "planetary vehicle'. Where much of the problem would be solved by having them fly commercial and even better replacing planes with high speed underground trains and better public transportation.