MICROTOPIAS

Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival 2012 Theme

March 25-April 1, 2012

Micro means small; utopia identifies imagined, cooperative systems of harmony. The burned over district. The Oneida colony. The Chautauqua movement. 

Microtopias ask us to imagine the world otherwise, without constraints and limitations, to improve the immediate environment.  Peak experiences. Delusions. Microbrews. 

Unlike the more abstract utopia, a micrcotopia marks a concrete space and gesture. The Shakers. Egypt. Tunisia.

Rather than a grand narrative and a large scale, microtopias propose temporary, dynamic, shared worlds, a field of forces shaped on a sustainable scale. Microcities. Micromoments. Micromemes.  

Microtopias congregate people, ideas, and practices on a local, sustainable, decentralized scale. Subcultures. Ant colonies. Anti-colonialism.

Microtopias catalyzes social interaction, collective participation, and changes in the landscape.  Microfinance. Micrco credit. Microcosmos. 

Microtopias create interstices that escape domination and capitalism.

Microtopias transform the world by making policed boundaries more permeable. Mircroprocesses. Micropolitics. Microsystems.

Microtopias stage relations between people and nature.  Twitter feeds. Outliers. Pockets of resistance. 

If utopia resides nowhere, microtopias emerge everywhere.  

If utopia suggests perfection, microtopia defines adaptation. Chaos theory.  Street life.  Ecovillages.   

If utopia is remote, microtopia mesmerizes.   Rock bands. Jazz ensembles.  String quartets.

Utopias never change, microtopias never stay the same.  Art collectives.  Staycations. Coffee breaks.

Tactical, temporary, disruptive, distilled, microtopias show us how to inhabit the world in a better way.  Music scenes.  Software apps.  New England town meetings.

Ephemeral and transitory openings, microtopias map the realm of the possible, an invitation to live in a shared world.

--Thomas Shevory and Patricia Zimmermann, codirectors, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival