Recent searches
Search options
Is having solar panels #solarpunk on its own?
Is a community element a requirement? Does there have to be anticapitalist elements? Non exploitation/extractive?
The visual vibe is pretty strong and defined, there's colour, light, plants and life merged in with diverse communities, centered around common spaces.
I (personally) haven't seen as much work on defining the core ethos. (links to reading for me to do to correct that greatly appreciated)
@rycuda - I wrote up a primer on solarpunk and discuss a lot of your questions including core ethos, etc. Along with my writeup, I added several links to branch out from there. Let me know if this is in line with your discussion prompt!
@tinker definitely! It's a great grounding to build on for the conversation!
I think it leans towards the response I've seen from others, which is 'no, not on its own'.
It definitely talks to the core ethos and the links out elsewhere really help solidify that.
@rycuda - Yeah indeed. SP at its heart is about hope, thinking about a better future and working towards that better future.
That's it. Simple.
Extrapolated out, you get to "use technology towards a specific goal and within sustainable and ethical constraints to address the needs of humanity" and "social justice for all".
Attempting to address both of those and how is where we're at right now.
So many have looked towards already established means, methods, and systems to see what we can use as is or slightly tweaked and many look towards new systems (or upgrated and updated systems).
One thing that I love, is it specifically DOES NOT attempt to create a "one size fits all" sort of monoculture. In fact, the opposite - decentralized and tailored to different populations, cultures, and environments is really important and core.
Heck even in farming monoculture is decried whereas guerilla gardening, decentralized home gardening, and food forests / permaculture reign as the desired methodology instead of massive corporate single crops, etc.
A wide diversity in approach and practice is the way.
So with that you'll have many different, sometimes competing, approaches and it still fits under the umbrella of #solarpunk.
@tinker @rycuda That's a very solid writeup (I so envy your character limit, ha.) I kind of want to add (clarify?) that solarpunk has multiple roles in fiction - it can depict a pragmatic utopia in action, as a desirable goal, but could also depict the immediate present day: people working toward transition to pragmatic utopia (e.g. fiction about solarpunks) before it has been accomplished. The former has strong intuitive appeal; I think the latter tends to be easily overlooked.
@cwicseolfor @rycuda - Fully agree and concur.
@tinker @rycuda Very nice writeup, thanks!
There is one particular sociocultural expression that I think is missing to elevate a solarpunk ethos and aestehtic into the crystallization core of an epoch: architecture.
Solar panels alone don't make a design pattern (or language) distinct enough to constitute an architectural movement. But quite regularly it has been the recognition of such architectural movements in public space, where an ethos is given form to public consciousness.
@jakob @rycuda - I agree. Folks are certainly discussing it!
Here are some discussions around solarpunk and architecture:
https://www.reddit.com/r/solarpunk/comments/1bczisf/solarpunk_in_architecture/
https://architizer.com/blog/inspiration/stories/solarpunk-architecture-and-the-built-future/
https://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/gallery/2020/09/16/solarpunks-utopian-architectures.html
https://roomofinspo.com/solarpunk-architecture/
and many others!
@rycuda There is the Solarpunk Manifesto which is translated to quit a lot of languages: https://iandennismiller.github.io/solarpunk/manifesto/english.html
Strong interpretation, I wouldn't say it's inherently Solarpunk because core of it is envision a future. Guess it would need more context?
On the other hand, I think the Manifesto needs to be updated as it still describes a specific aesthetic for something beeing Solarpunk and this doesn't fit my idea of an inclusive & creative movement
@Bartimaeus I think that that you're right and that context is key. Having solar panels isn't inherently solarpunk, it depends on what you're doing with them, and to an extent how you got them maybe?
@rycuda Yes, and does the energy profit the entire community and not only one individual person, for example.
But that's my interpretation, I don't claim to be right here :=)
@rycuda I keep coming back to this because there's something I can't quite put words to - English is allergic to this mode of thinking. Countercultures are patterns, directional currents; the more subversive, the less hegemonic framework serves to capture them.
We are trained to attribute labels to discrete actions or possessions almost like we're part of a marketing team - which is part of why material culture is always spotlit. But cultures/ movements are a system of dynamic relations.
@rycuda Solarpunk when not truncated to a commodifiable visual aesthetic is about attributed impact & meaning (solar, ecologically-sustainable; punk, countercultural [to a context of an ecologically-unsustainable status quo].)
Within its set of values, any binary question immediately invokes a cascade of dependencies; a yes or no is contextual, because there's an attempt to appreciate natural complexity rather than hammer it into a simplified model for human ease (which risks GIGO.)
@rycuda So asking the question is itself sort of teasing at the massive divergence from mainstream cultural models - the "yes" to that question automatically demands an "if," and the "no" demands a "but." Where, when, how, why, for and by whom - not just "whether." And that makes it a pretty clever leaping-off point.
@cwicseolfor I'll make no claims to deserving 'cleverness'
It's a question I've had rattling around my head for a while and put it out into the world in hopes that others would have thoughts I could learn from. Which has paid off in spades.
I guess in that measure the question itself does lean in to the concept. There's many approaches, so many answers. There's many people with value to add, and value beyond that that can be born from the interactions and discussions between folks.
Thank you for your responses, especially for questioning the question. Stopping and thinking a while, in a new direction and with new insight was what I'd hoped for <3