SCOTLAND

22MIRRORS

(16. The Bunker)

Come here. Come inside me. I will protect you. The droughts, the floods, the fires, the hurricanes, the storms! What will you do? A helicopter can only take you so far. You cannot hide for too long on a yacht. Can't you see the fumes all over the place? Can't you see the angry, drunken, insane mob razing everything on its path? The pitchforks being sharpened and ready to kill, the collapse of civilisation everywhere around? As humans are turned into senseless beasts, as formerly respectable citizens bite into each other's necks like rabid dogs, you need a golden sanctuary from which to keep aloof, and direct affairs from afar. Let others make their hands dirty for you, you all above all that. You know you deserve everything you have and more, but I do not need to tell you that.

Wherever you turn your gaze to, there will be destruction. There will be no rest, no respite, no truce. The beast has grown too aggressive to be tamed, the monster has finally began to eat the heads of its own sons and daughters. The clock of history ticks and ticks without ever taking a breath. There is no way back. When the dust settles, it is the select few who are left alive that will be masters of the planet and everything on it. Come here, enter me, I promise you protection. I am committed to preserve your life intact among the ruins of the dead cities.

I can protect you from everything except from your own hubris. But you do not need protection from that, right? Hubris is the word the mediocre use for confidence, a firm sense of knowing one's own worth. After all, it is only simpletons, the undeserving many, whose wings melt when they fly too close to the sun. You are much more than them. You don't need them! You deserve to survive, let the others burn or rot. Every man for himself, survival of the fittest! Come here. Make my sturdy, nuclear-proof walls your temporary abode. Make of me your palace, your refuge until all is over and the world is ready to be humbled by your greatness again. I will protect you from everything and I will anoint you as one of the Chosen. Rest assured that when all this is over once again you will rule the Earth.
Partners: Javier Bertossi, Andrés Tapia, Climate-KIC

Description: Can holistic divinatory methods help us solve the climate crisis? This is the question we addressed through an artistic-research exercise that explored the topic of the climate emergency using methodologies of both witchcraft and coding. 22 arcana were created in order to identify key forces that play a role in the current climate crisis, and this process was informed by fieldwork and interviews conducted in the city of Glasgow during the COP26 summit. On 2022, a full oracular set will be launched by The Digital Witchcraft Institute in collaboration with Climate-KIC, the EU’s main climate innovation initiative.

Design brief:
  • To represent the systemic nature of the climate emergency
  • Borrowing from several divinatory traditions as well as from psychoanalysis, arcana or archetypes, produce figures that
    reflect on unconscious intensities at the individual and the collective level
  • Create a product that can be presented in a live event of ritual-like characteristics such as a group seance

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