ABSTRACT<\/strong>
\nThis essay attempts to make visible the physical reality of the Athabasca oil sands mining developments in Canada, a reality that has been occluded by corporate and governmental disinformation as well as by citizens\u2019 unwillingness to face the consequences of their actions and their inaction.\u00a0 By presenting photographs of oil sands mining operations interspersed with brief ironic narratives, aphorisms and poems, the essay creates a collage of disjunctive responses to the contemporary situation in the Canadian petro-state.\u00a0 Given that this situation is one of national self-deception, denial and fundamentally irrational behavior, the paper sets aside any attempt to make reasoned arguments about conservation or regulation, and instead embraces irrationality as the last possible mode of engagement with a contemporary public that will no longer listen to reason.\u00a0 In tone and structure the essay echoes F. T. Marinetti\u2019s 1909 \u201cFuturist Manifesto,\u201d but it is very different in its intent, mapping a way toward a different kind of future than the technologized and hyper-individualistic one that Marinetti espoused.\u00a0 By moving into the realm of the irrational and engaging with Canadian petroculture as an expression of a kind of national unconscious, the essay attempts to reveal some of the psychological structures that prevent Canadians from seeing the dirt that is on their hands.<\/div><\/p>\n
R\u00c9SUM\u00c9
\n<\/strong>Cet article veut rendre visible la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 physique des complexes miniers des sables bitumineux de l\u2019Athabasca, au Canada. Les d\u00e9sinformations des entreprises et du gouvernement ont occult\u00e9 cette r\u00e9alit\u00e9, mais les citoyens ont aussi contribu\u00e9 \u00e0 cette occultation en \u00e9vitant de faire face soit aux cons\u00e9quences de leurs actions, soit \u00e0 l\u2019absence de celles-ci. Est offert ici un collage des r\u00e9actions vari\u00e9es face \u00e0 la situation contemporaine de l\u2019\u00e9tat p\u00e9trolier canadien \u00e0 travers des photos des travaux d\u2019exploitation mini\u00e8re des sables bitumineux entrecoup\u00e9es de petits segments \u00e9crits, d\u2019aphorismes et de po\u00e8mes. \u00c9tant donn\u00e9 que cette situation est le produit d\u2019un aveuglement et d\u2019une n\u00e9gation \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9chelle nationale qui stimulent un comportement irrationnel, cet article met de c\u00f4t\u00e9 les traditionnels arguments raisonn\u00e9s sur la conservation ou la r\u00e9gulation et adopte le ton irrationnel comme dernier recours afin d\u2019en appeler \u00e0 l\u2019engagement d\u2019un public qui se d\u00e9tourne de la raison. Le ton et la structure font \u00e9cho au \u00ab\u00a0Manifeste du futurisme\u00a0\u00bb publi\u00e9 en 1909 par F. T. Marinetti, mais l\u2019intention est de pointer vers un autre avenir que celui technologique et hyper-individualiste propos\u00e9 par Marinetti. En adoptant l\u2019irrationnel afin d\u2019envisager la culture p\u00e9troli\u00e8re canadienne comme une manifestation de l\u2019inconscient national, cet article tente de d\u00e9voiler quelques structures psychologiques qui emp\u00eachent les Canadiens de voir qu\u2019ils ont les mains sales. <\/div><\/div><\/p>\n
\n
Warren Cariou | University of Manitoba<\/p>\n
Tarhands:
\nA Messy Manifesto<\/h4>\n
\n
Look at us! We are not out of breath, our hearts are not in the least tired. For they are nourished by fire, hatred and speed! (Marinetti)<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Have you noticed anything about your hands? I mean, I didn’t want to say anything at first, but I couldn’t help seeing it, and\u2026 what are friends for, right? If you had guacamole in your teeth, I’d say something. If your fly was down\u2026 not that it is! Nothing like that. But still, I just thought I should ask: have you noticed?<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig 1.<\/p>\n
Tarhands rose up out of the swamp wearing a nation on his back. He was hungry.<\/p>\n
The people fed him whatever they could. They had wakened him, after all, and they knew he was going to go far, so they shoveled all kinds of everything at him: trucks, roads, steam, pipes, trains, muskeg, lives, methamphetamines, rivers, pastahowin,<\/em> laws, futures. He ate as fast as they could shovel, and sometimes he was almost satisfied. But everything he touched turned the opposite of gold. He wanted more than anything to have that gleaming metal for himself, to fold it in his sticky embrace, but every time he tried, the tarnish spread in seconds. It wasn’t fair, he thought. Someone else got all the gold and he couldn’t touch a bit of it.<\/p>\n
Still, he tried to keep himself happy. He wore that colourful nation like a cape, and it waved out behind him almost cheerily, fluttering in the breeze of his motion. But when he wasn’t moving (which was, let’s face it, most of the time) it hung straight down and dragged in the muck. If he wasn’t careful, he stepped on it with his heels. Sometimes it annoyed him, that nation dangling there from his neck, always rustling, getting caught in his hands when he tried to scratch his back. Once in a while he stepped backward on purpose, pinned that nation under his heels, and leaned forward as far as he could. The fabric stretched, but no matter how hard he pulled, it wouldn’t break. Worst of all, it tightened around his neck like a slipknot. Sometimes he leaned there for ages, pressing against his own weight, until he passed out. He always woke up with a mouth full of dirt and a tighter collar.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuess I\u2019m stuck with you for good,\u201d he said finally, rubbing his neck. The nation said nothing, as always.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 2<\/p>\n
Okay, I’ve lost it.<\/p>\n
I was going to write my manifesto and be done with it, nail my 95 theses to the parliament door and all that, stand back and listen to the silence, all reasonable like. But then my nation embarrassed me (again) by reneging on an international climate treaty, and as I cringed, I recognized the problem with my plan: nobody listens to reason anymore. In the court of national opinion, reason is treason. That\u2019s the only explanation for Canada’s current climate change and energy policy. And even when people do recognize the rational validity of something as unpleasant and intractable as climate change, they simply don’t want to accept it. They find ways to think about something else. Anything else.<\/p>\n
A manifesto needs to make things manifest: to open eyes, unclog ears. And if reason doesn\u2019t work anymore, then I\u2019ll have to try something else. Anything else.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 3<\/p>\n
What I remember most about the tar sands is the stink. We stood there with our cameras, trying to capture a record of that obliterated landscape, but I could hardly even see. The fumes were like hammers: sulfur and benzene and diesel and something else\u2014a dead smell, a charnel residue on the back of my tongue. I had a migraine in half a dozen breaths. I breathed into my shirtsleeve, trying not to retch. How could people work in this, day after day? How could the Cree, Metis and Dene people of Fort Mackay live in it?<\/p>\n
\u201cOh I used to smell it, too\u201d one security guard laughed, after warning us to stay off Company property. \u201cBut after a week or two you don\u2019t notice a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 4<\/p>\n
The Tarhands Institute is a stink-tank based in beautiful downtown Waterways, Alberta, but we have chapters, sties and tarpits all across this great nation. We reside online at tarhands.org, just next door to the national unconscious, and some day soon we’ll move in next to you.<\/p>\n
What do we do? We make a stink. We disturb the proverbial shit. Because something is already rotten in the petro-state, and NOBODY SEEMS TO NOTICE.<\/p>\n
How do you point out that the air smells, when everyone’s already used to it? By making more stink.<\/p>\n
How do you point out that everyone’s hands are dirty? By making more mess.<\/p>\n
That is our credo. Mess as manifest. Stinking as thinking.<\/p>\n
And this is our membership drive.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 5<\/p>\n
My country pulled out of Kyoto, and now I want to pull out of my country. Make a mess on the sheets, on the ground, wherever. Why not? Everyone else does.<\/p>\n
Pull out! It’s the Canadian way. We’re always pulling something out, of the ground that is. Pulling and pulling.<\/p>\n
Everyone else does. <\/em>That\u2019s the problem, isn\u2019t it? Everyone else.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 6<\/p>\n
Generations ago, the Cree and Dene used the tar on the banks of the Athabasca River to seal their canoes. Today, it\u2019s used to plug the holes in a sinking ship called modernity.<\/p>\n
How long will it keep us afloat? How much will we burn in the effort?<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 7<\/p>\n
The futurists on speed.<\/p>\n
They got off on it: hard, fast, gleaming, efficient. The iron and the motorcoach, the rocket and the train.<\/p>\n
They were hateful, like velocity.<\/p>\n
But they never forgot the muck, the grime, the smoke. They knew where their god came from, and where it would go back. And they were damn sure they\u2019d all be dead by then. No need to care about that future.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 8<\/p>\n
Have you ever gone to shake someone\u2019s hand and noticed, too late, that yours was dirty? At the last moment you saw that patch of grime on your palm, that sticky residue on your fingers, but you couldn\u2019t abort the handshake because\u2014well, because a handshake is never stopped once initiated. That would be rude. Unthinkable, really. So you went through with it, shook that hand as briefly as you could, maybe trying to cup your palm a little bit, gazing straight into the face of your new acquaintance without even flinching. Hoping it would be over soon.<\/p>\n
But even worse, before it was over, you realized that the other person had noticed the dirt too. You could tell by the look in their face, that squeamish little half-smile, and by the way they held their right hand away from themselves afterward, waiting to wipe it on their pants as soon as you\u2019d turned your back. Which you did\u2014turn your back\u2014as soon as you possibly could. And you walked away quickly, without looking back to see what that poor unfortunate was doing.<\/p>\n
And the strangest thing was that neither of you ever said anything to anyone about what had passed between you. Both of you pretended it was never there.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 9<\/p>\n
If you look at something for too long, it becomes invisible. Your eyes need a little shake, saccade,<\/em> to wake them up, so you can see what\u2019s right in front of you. A bit of blur, some judder, to make it all come into focus.<\/p>\n
When I say give your head a shake, that\u2019s what I mean.<\/p>\n
There. See it now?<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 10<\/p>\n
That apple you’re eating. The milk you drank at lunch. Every little thing you touch, even just to lift it into your mouth. It’s there. It rubs off. Think about that.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 11<\/p>\n
Denken ist Danken<\/em>, Heidegger was fond of saying: thinking is thanking. But I think he was misquoted. What I believe he really said was Denken ist Stinken<\/em>.<\/p>\n
Who can deny that some forms of thought create a noxious atmosphere, a stink, sometimes subtle and other times overwhelming? We all believe this about the people we disagree with, the ideologies we hate. But maybe it\u2019s even true that most thinking creates a kind of exhaust, a residue that lingers in our air. And maybe the other kinds of stink that humanity creates\u2014the hydrocarbon pollution, the sewer gas, the industrial waste\u2014can be seen as a kind of thinking. Thought bubbles. Olfactory philosophy. Smell is irrational, of course. That\u2019s what makes it so appropriate to the modern human condition.<\/p>\n
But I believe we need to learn a new kind of stinking. We need to think outside the nox. It will be like inventing a new language, a new medium of being.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s go. Follow your nose to somewhere, someone, you\u2019ve never been.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 12<\/p>\n
Satan Rouses his Legions on the Shores of Syncrude Tailings Pond #4<\/p>\n
Inhale, my friends: breathe deep
\nthe bitumen air. I give you
\na waveless lake,<\/p>\n
stacks blowing brimstone,
\nthe slick earth itself
\nturned out, spilled like troubled guts<\/p>\n
into the pipeline of need.
\nThe stink that lingers on the back
\nof your tongues<\/p>\n
is the scent of our conjuration.
\nWe are wanted here.
\nThe heavy-haulers drone our names,<\/p>\n
the pit-sumps wail to us, desperate
\nas sirens, and mile-long flags
\ndrape from the mouths of smokestacks<\/p>\n
waving us in. I for one will enter
\nand plant my ensign here.
\nWhich among you hordes will follow?<\/p>\n
Come then, hurry!\u2014
\nwings unfurled, torches on high,
\npast evaporators and bright<\/p>\n
ziggurats of sulfur, past even
\nthe unstanchable pits themselves
\nto the waiting world.<\/p>\n
This time, the ground is laid for us
\nwide open. Sniff and you know:
\nall of it was made to burn.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 13<\/p>\n
Could there be a different futurist movement, one that actually cares about the future, not as a technological apotheosis of the now but as the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren, the generations of creatures, the species, the biomes? The future as life, as what will live on after we’re all gone, back to muck and tar, to the mess we were made from.<\/p>\n
The future we are making, whether we admit it or not.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 14<\/p>\n
Letter for a time capsule to be opened in 2112<\/p>\n
This is just to say
\nwe’ve burned up all the oil
\nand poisoned the air
\nyou were probably hoping to breathe.
\nForgive us.
\nIt was delicious
\nthe way it burned
\nso bright and
\nso fast.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 15<\/p>\n
Join us. Together we can make visions that shudder a billion eyes, make a stink to awaken the nostrils of the world! There is still some time, maybe enough, but we need numbers, we need creativity, we need community. We can refuse to be everyone else. We can look around ourselves and see what\u2019s happening, we can say to the future that we saw, and we acted. We did whatever had to be done.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Fig. 16<\/p>\n
Tarhands.\u2122 How clean are yours?<\/p>\n
\u00a0Image Notes<\/h4>\n
All images by Warren Cariou.<\/p>\n
\n
Copyright Warren Cariou. This article is licensed under a <\/span>Creative Commons 3.0 License<\/a> although certain works referenced herein may be separately licensed, or the author has exercised their right to fair dealing\u00a0under the\u00a0Canadian <\/span>Copyright Act<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
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3-2 |Table of Contents\u00a0|\u00a0http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.17742\/IMAGE.sightoil.3-2.3 |\u00a0Cariou PDF Warren Cariou | University of Manitoba Tarhands: A Messy Manifesto Look at us! We are not out of breath, our hearts are not in the least tired. For they are nourished by fire, hatred and speed! (Marinetti) Have you noticed anything about your hands? I mean, I didn’t want […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4062,"featured_media":3709,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[99,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sighting-oil-3-2","category-article","wpautop"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/image025.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p707hj-WO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4062"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3646"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8692,"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3646\/revisions\/8692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imaginations.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

Tarhands:\nA Messy Manifesto<\/h4>\n