Page 1 - First Thoughts  and thesis

First, some introdutory notes:

This was a work in my college, for a project drawing class. And the main objective was 5 final utopian drawings. Many people tried drawing many things. Myself, I tried to "utopianly" drawn the following:

“How will the (capitalist) collapse happen.”

It is utopian, because prediction is not easy, and most of the times, never completely precise. And when it comes something as big as the whole world, it gets difficult. Nevertheless, I tried to fundament my predictions with real life conclusions from various philosophers and economists and newspaper articles, or even people that are not considered either one of them, but do a hell of a good job when evaluating the world.

I developed a series of arguments trying to justify my works, to anyone who wished to analyze my project, or even to myself. Translating them, they conclude something around this:



There is no possible existence of a infinite growth monetary system in a finite planet. -

P.2 - Lists of possibilities, references

Afterwards, I began a close examination fo the world, and although trying to predict the future, could be conceptually dangerous, this was an utopian prediction, therefore, it left me quite enought room to navigate, not to talk the imensity that the world represents.

I began examining my possibilities, I had to project 30 different ones (and 5 final drawings), and amongst them, I had ideas of analyzing Detroit’s Old Town, The Gulf of Mexico, , or the difference between a column of a single thousand bills, a total stack of 1 trillion, etc...











However, It was noticed that my work was too much descriptive at the beginning, and that I was really giving drawing the attention it deserves. Therefore, the rest of my pages are a hell more pictorial than textual.
So I continued, and this time I spent some time on the recent Portuguese protests, “Geração à Rasca”, that translated would be something like: “Screwed up Generation”… I began by drawing something more obvious, and then I tried to explore it.

Page 6 - GAR Protests

Obviously, the clown gave me an idea, and therefore, I explored the irony of the smileys. Many smileys in a apparently sad situation - however, this irony is apparently more true than just a drawing, as the crowds were actually cheering. This idea of the smileys would help me much. more in the drawings more ahead.






Then I add another series of possibilities, where most of them belong to a main possibility, that is, to try making and then replicating thousands of custom designed 1000$€£ bills. And then, deciding what to further do with those bills, I thought of trying to recreate in a small scale, the distance of a 1 trillion stack (that would be 1 billion 1000$€£ bills).

Page 11 - Sketches for a 1000 €£$ Bill

I drawed the bill until the end, because I was curious to see how a possible end result would look like. And then, I developed the idea further more…
Analyzed the space of a small gallery, and designed a project that would fit there. However… This was all very convicting, of me… I was supposed to project 30 possibilities… and there I was, focusing myself on just one, of the many I still had to do.













Therefore, I stopped the last idea, and went for a new one… This time, I played with the idea of repetition, and tried to see on how many things a single object could transform… This Idea of repetition is often associated with the idea of the masses...

Page 15 - Repetition possibilities

Or the Easter Islands… That already featured a collapse of a society. And it was because, tcharammm, finite resources… And so I tried to make this one again an irony, of including a very comic scene in a sadistic context…

Page 16 - Easter Island

Here, the selections for the final decision start to become obvious… The comic way. Some possibilities more, I have the fall of Dubai, one of the most wasteful cities in the world... And the mapping of collapse relationships and debt troughout the world, and in Portugal.


Then, a friend of mine showed me the MEMES… And as it seemed, memes had already a very powerful and concentrated culture. Although there were many memes, I picked only a hand full of them: “Fuu”, “Me Gusta”, “Troll Face”, “Fuck Yea”, “Poker Face”, “Y U No” and “Forever Alone” (Please search in Google for more detailed culture about each smiley). Funny was that I could find a specific society group or stratum for each one of them. Everything ran like a puzzle, there all pieces have specific places.

Page 19 - MEMEs

And so… I tried to develop more MEME possibilities, and managing to relate them to almost real-time newspaper news, placing them in a very recent context. So I had situations like impossibility to increase oil production in Dubai, or the peculiar investment world where investors are already addicted to money, or even a riot scene featuring angry people and riot policemen.

Pages 22 - "FUUU" riot

That been done, I had to select 1 of all the possibilities, and develop it further. I selected the MEMEs, as they were far more fun (I didn’t select the 1 Billion bills stack because it was too much developed already)!




And so, I had to explore it with more detail. Assuming an illustrative style, like comics, I now wanted to explore the different ways you can express a comic. Either by a sequence of scenes taking the advantage to use vertical or panoramic scenes, or a single, but very complex scene.
I chose to draw the single, but complex scenes. Although they were complex, and harder to organize and drawing them, they were far better in critic criteria, where I also wanted the drawing to require a watchful eye to observe it fully, as much as they also make them more complex and pleasurable to see for aesthetic reasons.

Page 25 - First final comics ideas

And so I started to project some small drawings, in preferentially complicated compositions.
I had all these ideas, and started drawing the final 5 illustrations. However, my objective has changed, and it was no longer trying to predict how the collapse will happen… In these illustrations, they rather criticize the current state of things, however, since this is all perceived, and can’t really do much more than that (I’m a human being), then I guess I have to accept it as utopian.

The first one… Fukushima.

"Fukushima"

This illustration came up from the sketch idea above, and it came to my mind right after I read a news where a UK scientist basically says that Nuclear Energy is safest energy of all…
And so, facing that statement, I draw a small city, probably near Fukushima, where a Poker Face, caught up surprised by the earthquake is lying at the ground, (where shortly after, 4 reactors accidents would happen), dressed in a samurai suit, is dead. And, at same time, a “Troll Face”, personifying the UK scientist, says that ”Nuclear is the safest for of energy” (remember that Troll Face is also know for it’s automobile solutions).

The second picture, Overheat

"Overheat"

...also originally from a sketch, features a chinese Y U NO, shouting to an unknown Troll Face, because, right after Japan’s accident, the availability of electronic components decreased, as Japan represented 40% of all the world’s electric components, and now it can’t keep that production. And one of the firsts, but also the that suffered the most was the automobile industry, where the lack of electronics forced factories to close across the world. Add this to the huge pressure of the wester countries on the world’s rare earths, that almost only exists in China now, plus loads of social pressure from jobless riots, and there you go… A chinese that wished to be alone…


The third illustration, Life is a Business

"Life is a Business"

...has references from “Inside Job”… A recent documentary that was released this year. I mean, I already knew that the investment world was all about bets, but Inside Job completely convinced me to another level. Basically, one of the things that get to be explained in the documentary was that earning money activates the same brain areas as sniffing heroin…
Besides the obvious choices, including “Me Gusta” as a protagonist in this scene, there is a trivia where a “Poker Face” is playing as well. And no, he does not have anything to do with what I said just before, he is just there to play poker with his face. And he is winning!
So basically, this is a casino pleasure in one investment industry office.


The Fourth, World United Lost Generation

"Word United Lost Generation"

...for a really short while, I remembered about all the protests and riots that are sparking all around the globe. I decided to make an illustration featuring all those riots and featuring “FUUU” on them. “FUUU” was perfect for the job. It’s the most famous character, and the one that features more face variations, making it perfect for the masses.
In this drawing are 2 trivias: A forever Alone in Antarctica, and a Kanguru in Australia!

The last picture is metaphor. It represents Self-Assured-Annihilation

"Self-Assured-Annihilation

It represents all the wars, all the conflicts, all the social strata, social status, monetary wars, etc…
We all go around on killing ourselves. Kind of too much dramatic I guess.
And that is it. That is the basic of my works. I’ll post more about it soon, as much as the last 5 Illustrations fully drawed ready for presentation.

Just pick Barhain - It is strictly destroying it's people, fearing to loose power, and so basically destroying itself. As long as that pressure maintains, the productive tissue of the country will degrade. In a small statement spoken by Michael Ruppert: "Collapse must happen fast in order to leave infrastructures standing"...

So the longer the clashes, the worse.