What do Climate Changes and Youth have in common? Both are often stereotyped or ignored as "just the way they are".
Both the earth and kids need to be taken seriously, for what they have to give. Energy. Life.
Both are at risk.
There are human forces that damage the planet. The same forces that distract youth from any sense of focus, purpose, committment, community. A young person with a camera and internet access has power. The power of a point of view you cannot even imagine, because it is not media. It is unmediated.
See the film "From the Camp" by Ahmed Mashharawi, shot in Palestine. There is value. In unmediated personal experience, not in targeted media overkill. Kids fear boredom and crave constant stimulation. The planet has sufered enough from massive unrestricted entertainment, which includes years of War on Tv.
Life is not a movie and movies are not real life. But the XXIst century has things in common with movies. Can you see which? for example: both require action, vision, movement, and a narrative purpose.
ACTION! is the word to spark coordinated behavior and motion in a film scene. Without action there is no movement. Without movement, no life. In the "real world" action is a prerequisite for any natural event to happen, and it is the antidote for apathy. Action is based on acting, which comes form the latin "agere": "to do". An actor is a person who does, something. Recent western appetites for passivity may have bread cynicism.
Vision. We can't see very far. That's why some movies are forever, they shed small insight on mankind. A director is said to be responsible for the vision of a movie. Every element in a film is there for a purpose, every color, every object, every action. Movie stories are metaphors of life, and their dynamic ensemble is lead by vision.
Whose vision leads the Earth? This is a question to ask outside the religious and political circles. God is watching the Earth as we watch TV, maybe, waiting to see what happens. Utopians are no longer "in" and numbers count. Data, databases, address lists, myspace information sharing. Bottom lines. Nobody is directing Earth. Nobody's steering while the melting icebergs are still ahead.
Movement. Watching institutions do right or wrong on TV is not the same as participating actively. Isolation and self interest have become as common place as pedophilia, organ smuggling, and TV jewellery auctions. Apathy is the norm that hides the big cliche': governments are lazy, dishonest, uninspired and they spend too much and badly. Of course they are and will be until they are challenged by active, voting, informed people.
Narrative purpose.
So what's the story? Narrativity is the study of story elements in the context of company identity and advertising.
Story is everywhere. On CNN and in the kindergartners daybooks.
Let's make our own story, with emotion and meaning to be discovered by all. Like in the movies.
I know, the idea of a common purpose is Utopia. We no longer see masses in the streets. We prefer virtual commitments to activist web sites who protest by proxy. Networked action means mobility, and mobilization.
NUFFGlobal has been trying to do just that.
Daniel Alegi
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Faceless
Hot Planet, Thirsty Joburg
