Art, Energy and Technology: the Solarpunk Movement

Abstract

The purpose of this text is to reflect on the ways that science fiction allows criticism on the modern technology path. Imagination has allowed us to think of some ends of the world, but it has been a privileged space. Creating other possible futures for our relationship with energy is essential. Corporate renewable energy projects are emerging in corners of the planet where green capitalism has not yet reached. In this way, the creation of alternatives to centralized and corporate models of energy generation, distribution and consumption must go through new potentialities of inhabiting new possible futures. Science fiction is a literature genre that has inspired generations of people assembling art and techno-science as well as dystopia. Solarpunk has been consolidated as a space of counter-cultural hope to allow us to go beyond social-ecological injustices and growing epistemic and ontological violence. This genre is derived from other currents such as Cyberpunk, Steampunk and Dieselpunk, elucidating another relationship between technology, society and nature, nourished in turn by climate sci-fi, Indigenous and Afro-futurist science fiction. In this sense, a concept revision is made in three spheres: i) historical, based on its digital origins; ii) literary, based on the edited anthologies and iii) academic, of the reflections that it has raised. Finally, the Solarpunk Manifesto, revealed at the beginning of 2020, is shared in order to continue its co-creation.

Topics & Concepts