I would like to create a video exemplifying individual-initiated socioenvironmental change. Guerilla Seedfare follows a group of young adults who travel from an unidentified wooded area to diversify New York’s ecosystem. They collect seeds after waking up on the forest floor at an unidentifiable time of day and acquire more on their way into the densest blocks of Manhattan. These flora harbingers are energized by their plans – an ideological and emotional electricity viscerally building in the air between them. They may converse along the way, communicate nonverbally, or observe their changing surroundings – but any of this is only a fraction of the camera’s focus in this traveling scene. These PolycultureWarriors appreciate their shared values, flow in their coexistence, and know that they will support each other. This scene consists largely of shots of the physical surroundings, as well as the people in public transit and on the streets, transitioning to a greyer, more nutrient-deficient, logistically confin-ing/-ed, rectilinear, sensorily deprived, noise-polluted, air-polluted, commercially thought-polluted mode. The cameraperson is as much a part of the Guerilla Seedgroup as the non-camerapeople, participating fully in its social development, disengaging only to the minimum extent necessary to capture other subjects. The audio is mostly musical at this point, contemporary, further communicating and developing the mood of the plantvocates while also emotionally acknowledging the tone of their surroundings at times. Snippets of conversation, babble, and urban noise fade into the music intermittently, forming a cohesive auditory fabric.
~ 2 minutes
It is important that the individuals enact the most ecologically and societally mindful forms of relation in their behavior throughout the video. So this will be taken into account in choosing participants and setting the atmosphere of the creative process.
In Manhattan, the band takes on an air of secrecy and mystery. The camera work parallels that of graffiti films, handheld, giving some low angles, moving sporadically by foot. The camera will ideally be stabilized though, by a mechanism such as a steadycam, so as to ensure the footage is not shaky or jolted. The social mood and the music intensify, the PolycultureWarriors moving more rapidly now, and the BPM rises to match. Either through the music’s lyrical content, live conversational excerpts, or post-recorded commentary the rationale to the Seedgroup’s actions begins to be explained – obscurely at first, simply introducing overarching concepts, so as not to reveal their plans.
~1.5 minutes
The guerillas are now running, their body language and physical interrelations all future-oriented in terms of gender-, race-, and any other relevant dynamics. Women, POCs, queer individuals, etc. are leading the group, setting the tone, and the entire group flows with these dynamics. The whole group is oriented towards deeply cooperative, intersupporting, other-valuing existence. They know that, just like forestal ecosystems, they must prioritize their support of others as highly as their self-care, if not higher, in order to persist. They must all communicate the virtues of all their peers, rather than ever asserting or parading themselves and their ego.
Running by intuitive decisions between blocks, the guerillas have arrived at a relatively empty street and begin their mischief. Identifying areas of the pavement and non-carrying walls which hold significant cracks, the Symbiosens throw seeds into them, then water and organically fertilize them too. The chosen species store air pollutants, have strong and expansive root networks, attract pollinators, and are beneficial to each other. In vision, they will expand the existing cracks in the concrete and multiply across the block. The plantvocates’ rationale continues to be shared and explained, with each guerilla giving a personal perspective on scientific and philosophical background and reasoning to their actions.
~4 minutes