World Building

Masks, as mentioned in the interview

Interview, and the interview transcript:

Sir Thenjamin Bevenin, a child of British royalty who made his name by virtue of his revolutionary discoveries regarding string theory, and improving our mathematical understanding of gravity. Since then, Sir Bevenin's fate has taken an unexpected turn. After a lengthy disappearance from his station at Cambridge University, Sir Bevenin reappeared with scientific reports that first threatened to discredit his scientific renown. Sir Thenjamin Bevenin claimed no less than to have broken dimensional barriers and entered a parallel universe. His claims were rebuked by the scientific community with the same unilateral strength disavowing creationism, climate change denial, and the danger of GMO's. Still, Thevenin fiercely defended his claims. What came next was, perhaps, the most shocking development. Thevenin began to politicize his scientific claims, dangling his ability to reach parallel dimensions as a promise to the desperate. He established an organization, The Beveninists, and offered those who ascended its rank the promise of his radical exodus. To bemusement and shock, the world has watched for three years, as his organization has grown in size, power, and violence.

Newsman: Sir Thenjamin Bevenin, thank you for joining me.

Bevenin: Thanks for having me.

Newsman: How do you respond to the overwhelming dismissal of your findings by the scientific community?

Bevenin: Well (snorts cocaine), people have incredible capacity to rationalize information. Consult any psychologist, and they will tell you that. My findings are the most important in human history. This also makes them an existential threat to many. Others see the salvation in what I am saying. The fact remains, you will find no scientist who can account for the nature of my findings.

Newsman: Could you attempt to explain the nature of your findings? Why are they definitive?

Bevenin: The physical properties I identified simply cannot exist on earth. I measured them using instruments from Cambridge that are designed to be averse to tampering. I have no idea how to tamper them, because they are designed by engineers of the highest degree, and I have no expertise in that field.

Newsman: What physical properties specifically?

Bevenin: Higher rates of gravity, strange chemical compositions, as yet undiscovered chemicals, and time anomalies that I am still examining.

Newsman: So there are aspects of this other dimension you do not understand?

Bevenin: Well of course. It is literally a new world, and one with new physical properties, and I am only one scientist. It does not make my data less compelling. I am making new and pertinent discoveries daily. For example, having studied my samples, I believe that the new ecosystem may impair facial nerve functions in some, approximately 27% if I am correct, so my organization is now constructing masks that will allow rudimentary expression and communication.

Newsman: Let us ignore the question of your data for a moment. Do you think that the conditions of today’s world - environmental desolation, looming famine, and the renewed promise of nuclear conflict - make people more susceptible to joining extreme cults and religions?

Bevenin: Yes of course those things affect people, and of course religion is an answer. There is desperation, and religion can be a valid way to satiate that.

Newsman: Does the mass desperation undermine your credibility?

Bevenin: Certainly not. If my findings are valid, then the people have found a good home for their desperation. And my findings are incontrovertible.

Newsman: Sir, could you describe to me what this place looks like.

Interview cuts off here.

Artist's Statement:

I think Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men is an amazing movie for several reasons. As it pertains to this assignment, I want to discuss its environment. There is so much obvious care in the establishment of that world. I love the way Cuaron uses his camera to explore the foreground and the background of his shots. I think it was also quite prescient to establish reactionary religious cults, in the wake of destructive infertility. I considered possibilities for reactionary sects in the face of an increasingly bleak world.

This idea stuck with me. I think there is a pretty clear connection to current politics. People turn to Donald Trump and to Bernie Sanders out of desperation (though I do not mean to liken them more than is fair). This idea did not begin with any political thought, I just found it could be an interesting narrative. But I think that connection makes sense.

So for me, this weirdness was about the idea of increasing desperation. I am not totally pessimistic about the world’s prospects. I think most of our problems are solvable, but that does not mean we will make a political choice to solve them. If we do not solve the most serious ones, increased desperation will be a given and absurdities, like Donald Trump as president, will become realistic.

Science fiction has always been a medium that creatively explores and elevates realistic content. Cuaron’s film applies neatly to that. Children of Men is haunting because it makes current the sort of crisis many feel is looming. Specifically that environmental abuse will manifest in horrifying and confounding ways, and that the western neoconservative world order may collapse leaving the unknown in its place. Increasingly this project became, for me at least, an attempt to express thoughts about my world and future. 

Julian Bleecker says in his article, Design Fiction, “ [Design fiction] objects are totems through which a larger story can be told, imagined or expressed…” this was important in creating the artifacts that represented our world because we focused on what aspects of this world were the most important and then created our artifacts in such a way that they could allude to the rest of the story. We also did not go into great detail or explain much of what the cult leader’s intentions were because we decided to implicitly explore them by only showing the audience bits of what he believes in and what he is actually attempting. This was important to us because we wanted the character to not seem too crazy explicitly but actually have pretty messed up intentions. This is also a political issue that is relevant in our own world, especially now during the presidential race.