If you are into that kind of thing and in England next week, Thom Yorke wants you to build a human King Cnut visible from space as part of Earth 350, a project supporting awareness of climate change. This was posted on ateaseweb.com, Radiohead webpage:
‘Thom:
The Eraser King Cnut in Brighton for Earth350
Nov 27th @ 11am..
(that’s a Saturday morning at a civilised hour errr right..????)
Location Brighton.
WANTED 2000 people who want to be part of human King Cnut type image facing the sea that is visible from space as part of the Earth350
People who want to be part of it need to register here: http://earth.350.org/locations/england/
:)’
You just have to show up wearing black around Brighton (the exact location will be announced soon) at 11 am and be able to stay until 1 pm on November 27th, no matter what happens with the weather: they will provide a black poncho!
Earth.350.org says they are working with Yorke to make the links clear between the musical arts and the visual arts and that ‘the plan is to make images visible from the skies to remind those in Cancun that we are running out of time. We can’t keep putting this off’.
By the way, in case you would wonder, Cnut the Great was a Viking king of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Swede around the 1000’s, and a drawing of the king trying but failing to command the ocean by Stanley Donwood was on the cover of Thom Yorke’s album The Eraser.
There are two versions of the legend one says that the king was a foolish man who thought he could stop the waves, and didn’t, the other one says his courtiers were foolish as they regarded him to be so great ‘he could command the tides of the sea to go back’. But Cnut knew his limitations so he sat on his throne close to the seashore, commanding the waves to stop advancing, and since he could not stop them he proved his point.
Whatever the version, Yorke explained in 2006 that governments‘ attitude toward global warming are like Cnut trying to stop the tide and failing. This is what he declared to the 350.org team:
‘Our Leaders and much of the lobby groups for oil and energy companies are arriving in Cancun at the end of the month, still under the illusion that we can carry on burning energy to feed a global financial model that now no longer represents the needs of the rest of us and the dire situation we face.
They are still labouring under the assumption that they can turn the tide of mother nature.
The future of the planet and all living creatures is secondary to their own system of belief.
They hide behind meaningless procedure.
False science and smear campaigns are paid for and quoted to undermine the overwhelming evidence of global warming.
Enough of this shit. There is no more time.’
It’s a nice project, a great cause obviously, and if you want to spend 2 hours in the rain just to catch a glimpse of Thom, go for it.
I just wonder about the impact of such a project, minuscule if any, does Thom Yorke really believe art can save the earth?