VISUAL UTOPIAS

BY JAN KAMENSKY

We say “Sustainable is the new smart,” but what do we actually want to sustain? Our nature? The way we live? Sustain consumption for generations? Do you want to sustain our mobility?

Idon’t want to sustain our streets of today, the way we get around, and I don’t want the view on them to be sustained. How about containing instead of sustaining? What would it be like if we didn’t try to sustain our world but contained it? We could practice seeing ourselves as a part of nature. We can be with the world. Within ourselves, we might contain connectedness. We might contain caring for ourselves and those around us, including animals and plants. We might contain empathy for them. We might contain a sense of responsibility. And we might contain a new way of looking at things. We might contain imagination. What would it be like if we became containers? How does smart containability sound?

I started to be a container 2.5 years ago. I’d like to preface with a quote from Neil Gaiman: “All of us, adults and children, are called to dream. We have an obligation to fantasize. It is easy to say that no change is possible, that we live in a world where society is everything and the individual is nothing, an atom in a wall, a grain of rice in a rice patty. But the truth is we as individuals are always changing our world. We as individuals are building the future, and we do this by imagining that everything could be different.”

As a supplement to the highly specialized expertise presented here, I take the role of the dreamer. I anticipate that my mission is the transformation of mere seeing into recognition. Things are constantly in motion, just like in my animations. Transformation is everywhere. This has a decisive advantage. We are allowed to reinvent ourselves and our world with every breath we take.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I had more time on my hands. I realized I no longer wanted to wait for the increasingly urgent social transformation. I wanted to be the change. I started by looking around and asked where I saw an urgent need for action in my environment. The empty streets make me want to look at a city without cars. What happens to the streets if we rip them of cars? How can the new spaces be designed? What effect will this have?

I started the experiment. The first thing I do is clear the street of cars and signs. In this way, I create a blank sheet of paper, so to speak, and I put paint on it. Since then, I have seen it as my task to design visual communication for change by design, not by disaster.

As I said, transformation is unstoppable. But we can influence whether this happens in a destructive or healing way. I call myself a digital gardener. I plant lots of trees in my animations. You might say that I plant cyber seeds in the viewers’ minds. I’m also a translator. The theoretical knowledge is translated into the language of images. In doing so, the images unfold a special quality that reaches the viewers in a low threshold and catchy way.

The animations are meant to inspire change, not scare it away, with the playful transformation of car-dominated streets into people-friendly places. The only way to change the future is with empathy toward our fellow humans. I’m not hostile to people in cars. They are not my enemies. You don’t see people in the cars. The standing vehicles float away peacefully. I could let them explode in a Hollywood way. I show no cars in my utopias. This is a maximum contrast to our present. After all, cars are everywhere. They dominate our public spaces, and our streets are designed for them. I turn this upside down.

With this, I would like to invite reflection on our reality. The expansion of our consciousness is in the foreground. The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says appropriately: “Once there is seeing, there must be acting. Otherwise, what is the use of seeing?”

But before the implementation, we must practice awareness. The utopian approach has a crucial function. I invite viewers to go on a journey with me. After they get a glimpse of the utopia, they return to reality with a sharpened view, and, at best, they move through the streets with different eyes. Via the high-contrast utopia, the viewing habits are weaned. That has something disruptive about it.

If we were asked to describe a street in a word, what would we say? Probably cars. We are used to seeing them. We assume that this is natural and set in stone, but it was not so long ago that things were different. What would a person 150 years ago say when describing a street? People. They were used to seeing them every day. The space between houses was a living space that satisfied human needs like social interaction, locomotion, business, and well-being. Nowadays, the street stands mostly or even exclusively for mobility and transit. This also includes parking.

When we begin to change our viewing habits, we change our consciousness. We perceive the environment differently. How do we change our viewing habits? After all, we are surrounded by streets full of cars. Wean ourselves off with pictures, with visual utopias. The language of images manages to influence our visual habits and inspire us. When we look at things differently and gain a new perspective, we change our behavior. We are motivated to rethink and, finally, to redesign things. We need a real awakening, a real enlightenment. New laws and policies are not enough. We need to change our way of thinking and seeing. This is possible. We just haven’t tried to do it yet. Each one of us must do it for ourselves. No one can do it for you. If you are an activist or eager to do something, you should begin with yourself and your mind.

Jan Kamensky lives and works in Hamburg, Germany. In 2020, the communication designer and artist started the project of his utopian animations. The deserted streets of Hamburg at the beginning of 2020 inspired him to playfully transform car-dominated streets into people-friendly places that hold a mirror up to society.

See the animations at visualutopias.com and vimeo.com/jankamensky