WHAT TO DO NEXT :Peter Fend

If you can't make it tomorrow night, Peter will be using the space as a laboratory to create responses to climate change, fracking alternatives, and specifically to respond to recent events for the run of the show.

An updated press release is attached, with Peter's response to the storm and how this project has evolved in light of the recent events.

Hope you have a moment to take a look and stop by. 

 

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See press release below

••UPDATE:OPENING RECEPTION DELAYED BY SANDY••
TO OPEN 24 HOURS AFTER POWER IS RESTORED

In 2012, Governor Cuomo said, on the question of hydrofracking to produce methane gas, “Let the science dictate the conclusion, and that’s just what we propose to do.” Science already dictated… thirty years ago.

In 1982, scientists from throughout the U.S. and China, now the world’s two largest economies, gathered in a conference organized by NY State’s Sea Grant Institute to report on harvesting of sea-plants to yield methane gas. The scientists recommended that $10 billion be invested to develop a seaweed industry. This never happened. 

In oil industry terms, $10 billion is a reasonable amount. But Big Oil would not invest in a water-plant scenario, even though it’s published by government scientists. Why? Because rigs and rafts in open waters, offshore or inland, cannot be owned like drilling rigs and oilfields. In addition, since it involves local ecosystems, the knowledge required must be local, not techno-global. Thus, giant companies like Halliburton are not attracted. They need something very proprietary, like fracking and deep sea drilling. 

Now, in 2012, France, Bulgaria, Romania and South Africa all ban fracking. And they all own the water-plant resources, especially at sea, needed to build a solar-indirect methane-gas industry. South Africa’s decision is particularly significant, because only months ago there was much talk about that country having huge potential for fracking. Clearly, people in the government and power structure there are thinking long-term.

New York State can team up with those countries, as well as Vermont, the first U.S. state to ban fracking, and New Jersey, which has banned fracked water, to build a think-local, work-local renewable-resource economy.

Why begin in New York? Offshore, New York has excellent conditions for the fast-growth macroalgae that can be fermented to produce methane: a constant flow of nutrient-rich seawater from Labrador and Greenland. And inland, NY has many nutrient-rich lakes and reservoirs.
This is a real prospect. But it won’t happen if we leave the investment choice to oil companies. It will happen with bay-by-bay, basin-by-basin organization. We show this.
The bottom line is, we have lived through Peak Oil. 

Alternatives must be found. Why not work together with our ecosystems, rather than—through bizarre drilling schemes—against them?

Where this can happen, with what tools, and what investments, appears at the gallery named after man’s best friend and exercising Art’s function in Society, of emergence.

PETER FEND: WHAT TO DO NEXT
PEANUT UNDERGROUND ART PROJECTS
215 East Fifth Street, off Cooper Square
917 723 2524 / nyc@peanutunderground.com

Opening November 3rd, 6-8pm through November 18, because Governor Cuomo has listened to the 140-strong Artists Against Fracking and is NOW opening up to new options. We bring to the discourse decades of art-based and science-liaised work with holdfast rigs, harvesting boats, hauling nets and fermentation sequences, all tested in the UK, France, Germany, Holland and New Zealand. Fend works through the artist/architect firm Ocean Earth Development Corporation.

PEANUT'S BACK.
And we hope everyone is safe and warm as power is being restored through the aftermath of the storm. We are reminded how much we love our city as we see people who who show such concern for their fellow neighbors during this difficult time, handing out food and water, providing free charges from their generators, proving yet again what a strong community we have here. For those of you who have art at Peanut, we want you to know that we were able to check on the space every day, and Lee constructed a platform over the back door to deflect the rain into the back yard. We suffered no losses. Everything is safe and sound.

With that being said, we are also happy to say, WE ARE BACK as of 5:30 tonight. On behalf of Peanut and Peter Fend, we would like to extend an invitation to come by the project space tomorrow evening from 6-8pm to share a glass of wine and talk about climate change, or just to share what's on your mind and talk about what happened. ALL ARE WELCOME!