Day 1 (Tuesday) 28 Sept. 19:30
"Climate Symphony": Twelve Thousand Years In Fragments
(40 minutes plus 20 minutes discussion)
‘Climate Symphony’ is a live music and visual performance that creates an emotional journey through the most beautiful tragedy of human existence. This is the sound of a dying planet and our transient position in it.
What do the pieces we leave behind say about us?
Throughout the anthropocene, humankind has collected, measured and recorded aspects of our lives and our planet - much of this information now floats freely online in archives and repositories, and on our computers and phones.
Twelve Thousand Years In Fragments is a film and sound experiment - a filmmaker and a composer delving in real time into these vast swathes of “lost” recordings in an attempt to make sense of them all. Over 40 minutes, numerical data is transformed into sound, revealing the melody of our planet’s evolution to the present day. The images are presented as they are found: a collage of detritus, both important and ephemeral, that reveals what has been kept and valued as a subversive, surreal, kaleidoscopic fever dream.
As we stumble through life we don't know what's meaningful at the time, but what does this fragmented, incomplete picture reveal? Is this humanity’s memory, dream or nightmare?
This 40-minute live performance will be followed by a 20-minute discussion with the artists.
The participants at ECTMIH-2021 will be able to contribute by mailing a photo to the artists before the event starts, for inclusion in the live version.
Day 2 (Wednesday) 29 Sept. 19:30
"2040" (90 minutes plus 40 minutes discussion)
Drawing on the best minds from around the world to focus on climate, economics, technology, civil society, agriculture and sustainability, 2040 maps out a pathway for change that can lead us to a more ecologically sustainable and equitable future.
Motivated by his 4-year-old daughter and concern for the planet she will inherit, Damon Gameau embarks on a global journey to meet the innovators and change makers pioneering the best solutions already available to us today to improve the health of our planet and societies. Inspired by these discoveries and guided by the many children he consults with along the way, Damon interweaves dramatic sequences and high-end visual effects to conjure a positive portrait of what ‘could be’ instead of the current dystopian future we are so often presented.
Aimed at a broad audience that includes children and their parents, serious information is delivered with irreverence and humour. Experts are shrunk into scenes to emphasise a point, animation makes the invisible visible and visual effects show how scaling these solutions by 2040 will positively impact our lives and our planet. This rich visual approach combined with the structure of an intimate letter to a daughter from her father allows for lightness and cheekiness, ensuring the film is both entertaining and educational, with the end goal being to inspire action and change.
Many academics believe that people become inactive or paralysed on this topic because it all just feels too overwhelming and alarming. 2040 is an aspirational film full of hope about the possibility to make changes that will shift the course for humanity and the planet.
This is the narrative the next generation needs to see, to aspire to, and to believe is possible.
ECTMIH2021 has collaborated with Global Health Film.
ECTMIH 2021 is organised by the University of Bergen on behalf of the Federation of European Societies for Tropical Medicine and International Health with enabling partners (Centre for International Health and Pandemic Centre, UiB; Haukeland University Hospital; Global Health Norway, the Norwegian Research School of Global Health; and the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene) and sponsors (Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute; the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership; and Merck) and supported by the Research Council of Norway.
The abstracts will be presented in a special issue of the Journal of Tropical Medicine & International Health.