Environmental WALL.E?

After watching Pixar's animated WALL.E for the second time recently, I started thinking about the messages within the film, as opposed to just enjoying light-hearted story of a garbage-cleaning robot.

The film tells the story of a not so unrealistic future, where mankind has abandoned Earth due to it becoming overrun with rubbish, leaving WALL.E to clean up the mess. It seems on watching the film, that the main message is about what might happen in the future, with all of mankind becoming lazy and obese. However, after reading an interview with Andrew Stanton, the animator, it seems that this might not have been his intention.

He was interested in showing the most human thing in the world as a machine; as WALL.E is more interested in finding out the point of living than an actual person is. According to Stanton, the entire film is based around relationships, and the fact that humans are not engaging in them, when two robots are.

It's not a bad thing that kids might only get enjoyment and a glimpse of an environmental message out of this film; however, a deeper meaning of the film is that humans live to be cared for rather than to care. In contrast, a robotic trash collector comes to love the creatures that inhabit the Earth.

I'd say that's something to watch out for...

Da' Sh'no Masterpiece

Elusive street-artist Dash Snow's work has in the past created some controversy due to it depicting scenes of a candid and illicit nature. In 2007, the New York Magazine published an article entitled 'Dashing Dash Snow'. It describes Snow's then-most recent piece of art 'Nest', whereby:

"To make a Hamster’s Nest, Snow and [Dan] Colen shred up 30 to 50 phone books, yank around all the blankets and drapes, turn on the taps, take off their clothes, and do drugs—mushrooms, coke, ecstasy—until they feel like hamsters."

The end result is displayed in the picture above. Since first hearing about this, I have now discovered that these 'Nest' creations are quite a regular occurrence, and frequently take place in hotel rooms, before the artists make a quick escape, leaving the mess they've spent so long creating. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't exactly call this art. I'm also pretty sure there's not a lot of talent involved. Lock anyone in a room with 50 phonebooks and a bunch of drugs; it wouldn't surprise me if a similar scene was created...