{"id":591,"date":"2022-08-22T23:10:19","date_gmt":"2022-08-22T15:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourtheme.cn\/?p=591"},"modified":"2022-08-23T01:24:46","modified_gmt":"2022-08-22T17:24:46","slug":"planet-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtheme.cn\/index.php\/2022\/08\/22\/planet-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Planet City"},"content":{"rendered":"

Planet City:\u00a0<\/b>A thought experiment aims to tackle climate change by housing 10 billion people in a single metropolis<\/b><\/h3>\n

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Introduction<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cPlanet city\u201d is a speculative film: a fictional city, an exploration of a hyper-dense metropolis, and<\/div>\n
speculation based on statistical analysis. According to the film’s vision, the entire population of the<\/div>\n
planet would live in a huge sustainable city, occupying only a small part of the earth’s surface,<\/div>\n
liberating the land that has been “stolen” by humans and allowing nature to return to its original<\/div>\n
state. This city would be reorganized on the scale of the densest city, with 10 billion people living in<\/div>\n
it, and could be built on 0.02% of the Earth’s surface according to the principles of circular<\/div>\n
economy, covering an area the size of a single U.S. state. The author Liam Young developed his<\/div>\n
talent as an architect, product designer, and director at the intersection of design, fantasy, and the<\/div>\n
future. Young presents a solution to the global issue of climate change through the film. Through<\/div>\n
this imaginary city, we can tell people that global warming is happening and we need to pay<\/div>\n
attention to it. Young\u2019s idea came from the biologist E.O. Wilson’s concept of \u201cHalf the earth\u201d, who<\/div>\n
believed that species extinction could be avoided by dedicating half of the earth to nature. The<\/div>\n
paper will first summarize the scenarios in the film, and the interpretation from the author Liam<\/div>\n
Young. Secondly, the essay will analyze the limitation of the film. Finally, the article will conclude<\/div>\n
on the impact of the film based on previous analysis and an interview.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Planet City<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n

Thousands of autonomous cleaning blades squeak along the solar fields, and waves of mirrors will\u00a0ripple to rotate to chase the changing light. The river was full of pink algae, and the sky was full of blue-pink flakes. More than 10 billion people, over 7000 languages spoken, 90 million songs,\u00a042billion fruit trees, 900 bee hives, 6 million dentists, 142 million squares of protected park, and\u00a0one single city. This is Liam Young\u2019s experiment thought. Along the pink canals of planet city, if we\u00a0listen, we can hear the hum and flickering blue and red lights as they illuminate the lower reaches of\u00a0the city\u2019s farm fields. It smells of soil and hard drives and sweet fruit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The biologist E.O. Wilson proposed the idea \u201cHalf the earth\u201d that by allocating half of the planet to\u00a0nature, species extinction could be prevented. E.O. Wilson\u2019s theory is where the speculation of\u00a0planet city began.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The costumes in the film are quite different from the normal clothes that we wear today. People\u00a0wear wired clothes and keep dancing. The constantly dancing people imply that the Planet City\u00a0running through planet city would be a continuous festival procession dancing across a 365-day\u00a0loop. Each day it intersects with a different celebration and culture. The rhythm change with the\u00a0dance, endlessly cycling through new colors, costumes, and cacophonies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The film involves many incredible infrastructures such as solar fields, agriculture fields, and algae\u00a0canals. Through traveling, Young and his colleague get inspiration from the system of Planet City.\u00a0They visit all of the mega-scaled renewable energy and agriculture sites that currently exist around\u00a0the world today. The most productive wind energy network, for example, is in Gansu China, and the\u00a0world\u2019s largest algae farm in western Australia. These technologies provide evidence that people\u00a0already have the requirements to support a Planet City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Young designs environments for the film and television industry, and he believes that by creating\u00a0imaginary worlds we can connect emotionally to the ideas and challenges of our future. As Young\u00a0said \u201cTo build Plant City we could remind our old cities rather than virgin ground. No new\u00a0resources would need to be consumed or extracted to build this city.\u201d In the speculative city, we can\u00a0immerse ourselves in the various consequences of the decision we face today. They can be both\u00a0cautionary tales or road maps to an aspirational future.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
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The limitations of \u201c Planet City\u201d<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
The goal of the film is to respond to climate change. However, there are constraints to showing<\/div>\n
people in the form of movies and VR. Firstly, there are shortcomings in interaction. When people<\/div>\n
watch VR movies, they can only look at them from a few fixed angles. The viewer’s view of\u00a0appreciation is determined by the filmmaker. Therefore, the audience viewing is restricted, not free\u00a0to switch according to demand, and even in the case of not seeing the side they want to see.VR is\u00a0very dangerous, because people wearing glasses are completely immersed in the situation, and will\u00a0ignore the outside world, so it is easy to have an accident. Furthermore, movies or VR movies are\u00a0not available for everyone to watch. For the wealthy, there is not much problem watching a movie,\u00a0even buying a VR device is not a burden. Nonetheless, for some poor families, watching VR movies\u00a0is a luxurious thing. They have problems with food and clothing, not to mention buying some\u00a0expensive electronic products. Therefore, VR-film presentation is an ingenious way to present\u00a0artists\u2019 ideas but has limitations.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
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The audience response<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Since there are some limitations to VR movies, there\u2019s not much information about the impact of<\/div>\n
the film. However, there are some interviews of people\u2019s reactions to \u201c Planet City\u201d, and this may<\/div>\n
help to speculate the impact of this experiment thought.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
First of all, from the visual aspect, people think that its whole style of painting is very beautiful, and<\/div>\n
then there is a little bit of future realism combined with the feeling of a bit of chaotic beauty. For<\/div>\n
example, it has a lot of residential buildings, which always reminds people of the very narrow\u00a0buildings in Hong Kong. Then it has some very science fiction elements, such as a large row of\u00a0solar panels, then some very bright neon lights, and a somewhat fine farm.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Secondly, some believe that the author intends to outline the biggest problem that people may\u00a0encounter in the future is global warming. In this short film, the sea level on the ground is already\u00a0very high, and the roads are already flooded, so people can only move to the mountainous areas,\u00a0and the buildings are very narrow, and there are no roads to pass, so they can only travel by boat.\u00a0The author probably wanted to raise people’s awareness and respect for environmental issues\u00a0through this imaginary city that might happen in the future. Similar to many artistic creations,\u00a0cartoonists or animation writers, like to use some short films to ironically or imply some\u00a0phenomenon in society. There are some videos that the authors want to create to satirize capitalism\u00a0or to raise awareness about big issues such as human rights and equality.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Thirdly, the audience assumes that people need to spend more attention on environmental issues,<\/div>\n
especially global warming. As a teenager said in his interview: Many people will feel that they may<\/div>\n
not think about my current generation, but our children and grandchildren may be in increasing\u00a0danger. I’ve thought about a similar scenario before. I think at this point when people are crowded\u00a0into such a cramped environment, I think it’s a great pity for the children and grandchildren that\u00a0they are born in their little rooms, they don’t have playgrounds or parks. There may be classrooms,\u00a0but everything may have to do with the network. They don’t have a physical location to play, like\u00a0when I was a kid I could go to the playground, because there’s no room to build these.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Finally, the most appealing thing to the spectator is the way the author manages to present all these\u00a0scenes through a video. It’s very short, but it’s fascinating because it has a sense of immersion. A girl\u00a0claims that ” Imagine when I live in the Planet City one day, I feel confined in here. I would be lost\u00a0a lot of things, not only I might have to think about food, drink, and housing, I might obtain\u00a0psychological problems as well.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\n
Conclusion<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Planet City is a speculative fiction grounded in statistical analysis, research, and traditional\u00a0knowledge. The scenes are also very touching and impressive. There’s not much information about\u00a0the impact of the film, but some preliminary inferences can be made based on some interviews.\u00a0Overall, the film is a successful artwork, people perfectly receive the idea that the artist Young is\u00a0trying to call on people to pay attention to the global issue: climate change.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
References<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
[1]Young, L. (2021). Planet City. AIS-Architecture Image Studies, 2(1), 30-43.<\/div>\n
[2]Wilson, E. O. (2016). Half-earth: our planet’s fight for life. WW Norton & Company<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
https:\/\/planetcity.world\/Main<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Planet City:\u00a0A thought experiment aims to tackle climate change by housing 10 billion people in a single metropolis Introduction \u00a0 \u201cPlanet city\u201d is a speculative film: a fictional city, an exploration of a hyper-dense metropolis, and speculation based on statistical analysis. According to the film’s vision, the entire population of the planet would live in a huge sustainable city, occupying only a small part of the earth’s surface, liberating the land that has been “stolen” by humans and allowing nature to return to its original state. This city would be reorganized on the scale of the densest city, with 10 billion people living in it, and could be built on 0.02% of the Earth’s surface according to the principles of circular economy, covering an area the size of a single U.S. state. The author Liam Young developed his talent as an architect, product designer, and director at the intersection of design, fantasy, and the future. Young presents a solution to the global issue of climate change through the film. Through this imaginary city, we can tell people that global warming is happening and we need to pay attention to it. Young\u2019s idea came from the biologist E.O. Wilson’s concept of \u201cHalf the earth\u201d, who believed that species extinction could be avoided by dedicating half of the earth to nature. The paper will first summarize the scenarios in the film, and the interpretation from the author Liam Young. Secondly, the essay will analyze the limitation of the film. Finally, the article will conclude on the impact of the film based on previous analysis and an interview. \u00a0 \u00a0 Planet City \u00a0 Thousands of autonomous cleaning blades squeak along the solar fields, and waves of mirrors will\u00a0ripple to rotate to chase the changing light. The river was full of pink algae, and the sky was full of blue-pink flakes. More than 10 billion people, over 7000 languages spoken, 90 million songs,\u00a042billion fruit trees, 900 bee hives, 6 million dentists, 1…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digital-media-arts"],"views":59,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourtheme.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourtheme.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourtheme.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourtheme.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourtheme.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/ourtheme.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":610,"href":"https:\/\/ourtheme.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions\/610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourtheme.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourtheme.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourtheme.cn\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}