CROOKE ROAD — the backstory to the algae energy-collecting coat

CROOKE ROAD is a near-future scenario examining how governmentally applied restrictions on citizens’ energy consumption could facilitate a breeding ground for citizen-led underground biotechnology innovation. 

This project has been inspired by the idea of conmen, who often use ‘social mimicry’ (such as etiquette) as tools to mask questionable behaviours, to deflect aggression. The film illustrates a future of energy restrictions and the behavioural consequences of superficially-innovative governing based on idealisations of human behaviour, gamified comparison and maceration of privacy to cater for the supposed common good.

Imagine the moment when humankind realises that we are slowly – but unmistakably – running out of fossil fuels. And alongside this realisation, imagine the languid consciousness that individuals need to change their lives, paired with a realisation of how hard old habits die. To mask the short-sighted solutions to the energy problems inherited by the extravagance of the previous years and generations, the government decided to reduce individual energy consumption to 7kWh per week.

“Crooke Road” is a film that imagines a scenario where individuals on a street must come to terms with this questionable situation and find an agreeable status for their small community. How will this situation affect and change people’s goodwill? What kind of rhetorical weapons are they willing to use? How do group dynamics create a framework to force individual interests and invention-making? And how was the algae-powered energy-collecting coat invented?

Design and direction: Veronica Ranner (2010)
Medium: Short film animated with iMovie and AfterEffects (6:33 min),
Voiceovers: Ilona Gaynor, Elliot P. Montgomery, J.Paul Neeley, Gerrit Kaiser, Alison Thompson, Dearbhaile Healey