🧽✨The Nexialist #0173

sponge cities | underground cathedral | how the dutch beat the ocean | eurovision in crisis | digital guillotine aka digitine | hind’s hall

May 16, 2024

welcome to another slice of what i’ve seen this week, the nexialist

hey, you! i hope this message finds you at least ok. this week my astral hell starts, and this year i’m choosing to believe it doesn’t exist (i’m not sure why i’m sharing this then… will i manifest it then? is this how it works?).

recently, i’ve been noticing these urges to fall into rabbit holes, and i’m still understanding how to express this in the nexialist format. this week you’ll see again two central topics, risk-reduction for floods and eurovision. i know, i was trying to ignore and boycott the latter, but i think you’ll appreciate the mess i’m bringing. i hope you make good use of it (and share it with your friends). 🫀✨

—Rodrigo Turra

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🧽sponge cities

due to the tragic floods in the south of brazil (tn#172), my feed has been filled with content about the flood. on one side, people sharing their experience, people trying to help, share relevant information and raise funds for the people who need. on the other, rampant misinformation and opportunism. it’s like getting punched in the stomach.

Michell Zappa

shared a video with me from terranegrabrasil about recovery/urbanism strategies from other parts of the world and i decided to bring some of them here.

sponge cities strategies have been implemented in several places, but in china there was a structured approach and incentive to implement it. i love this video because it shows how nature is a crucial part of this strategy (wow… who would have guessed?), and the inspiration in ancient practices. it also makes clear how it’s not a silver bullet and has to work in conjunction with other measures.

Architects did this by supplementing the existing grey infrastructure that relied on concrete pipes and dams with natural solutions like gardens that are designed to capture rain and native trees that suck up excess water through their roots. In China, these ideas were taken from ancient drainage systems. That's because for centuries Chinese cities actually handled water pretty well in part because they were built with nature in mind.

brainsparks: ask nature (tn#86), natural intelligence (tn#168), rurbanization (tn#114), solarpunk and the end of capitalism (tn#40)

⛪️underground cathedral

tokyo is one of the wettest places in the world, and has been dealing with high volumes of water for centuries. they’ve been working and improving a set of tunnels and discharge channels and it’s quite impressive. also it’s important to notice that there has always been investment in risk-management, even when they were recovering from war. also, just calling it a cathedral gives this sacred aspect to risk-management, right?

The $2 billion Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel (MAOUDC) and its ‘floodwater cathedral’ is one of the capital’s most impressive engineering feats. Completed in 2006 after 13 years of works, it is the world’s largest diversion floodwater facility and the result of Tokyo’s continuous improvement efforts.

brainsparks: social infrastructure (tn#15), vernacular architecture (tn#125)

🇳🇱how the dutch beat the ocean

there is a saying i hear in the netherlands: god made the world, the dutch made holland. and i would say this is pretty close to being my roman empire. it’s impressive to think that amsterdam is below sea level, and all the technologies they used in the last centuries to make sure the country does not suffer from floods again (not only that, but also . the dams, the delta works, the windmills. it’s water bending in the real world.

Look at this map of Holland in 1300, compare this to a map of Holland today. The country has gained land. Yes, thousands and thousands of square kilometers of land has been won back from the ocean. The story of this battle between the ocean and the Dutch explains why Holland is good at cheese, why Amsterdam has canals, why Dutch people ride bikes.

of course, i cannot not think how these expensive structures were funded, which of course included the fortune made with the trade of enslaved people, when the dutch lived their golden age—a term being contested and abandoned— and how centuries later this puts the netherlands at a lower risk against climate change.

brainsparks: amsterdam’s green standards (tn#131), amsterdam alps? (tn#7), how europe stole africa (tn#102),

📺eurovision in crisis

Eurovision this year was a mess and I need to talk about it. I did what I could to boycott the show, but it’s inevitable for a gay person in Europe, especially in the Netherlands this year, to avoid it. As a Brazilian person, i was puzzled when i first saw this contest, it’s full of tackiness and ridiculous numbers. And that’s exactly the reason why it’s fun. It does feel like ultraprocessed music most of the times, but I enjoy some fast-food sometimes. I also appreciate the diversity of the cultures, gender, age and expressions of the contestants.

Having said that… I’m glad i did catch up last week, because it is showing some cracks in the EBU (European Broadcasting Union), which “is an alliance of public service media organisations whose countries are within the European Broadcasting Area”. Here are some things that happened with some taughts:

The hypocrisy: EBU did not want to bar Israel from participating in the contest. They say the show should not get political, even though they did ban Russia the year russia was bombing Ukraine. This sparked a wave of protests in Malmö, where the finals took place (Greta was also present, which made some headlines).
Israel had to change their first submitted song: october rain was too much of o reference to the october 7th incidents. They changed the title of the song to hurricane and some parts of the lyrics. Their performer is 20-year old Eden Golan.
EBU forbid the use of flags from countries that are not participating (of course Palestine included), but they also did not like when performers used other symbols of Palestinian culture to show their support. Some artists wore the keffiyeh, or its textures in their nails, or palestinian designers, as a way of showing support.
The Netherlands was disqualified on the day of the final, the first time this happens in 68 years of the contest, despite being among the fan favorites—it’s a catchy europop song, by joost klein sporting absurd shoulderpads and haircut while referencing different european cultures and stereotypes. The reason: EBU says they had to investigate joost klein due to “threatening behaviour directed at a female member of the production crew.” I don’t get why the gender of the crew member is important in the statement, but also it’s quite intriguing that this came the day after he supported a journalist during the press interview, who confronted the fact Israel is competing.
When Israel performed, the live audience was booing, as seen on videos recorded in loco and shared in social media. EBU covers that up during the streaming and edits cheering sounds. We could hear the booing when the voting was going on and Israel got votes.
The public votes also sparked some suspicion. Since last year the whole world can vote. This year, Croatia got the most public votes, with 337 points, followed by, guess who, Israel, with 323 votes. Meanwhile the UK had zero points, which is off: the performer is Olly from Years&Years, so he has a fanbase that would have supported him. Spain’s Nebulossa had people singing along (not sure if it was edited in now), but got only 11 points.
The winner: Eurovision is historically known for its diversity, and this year the winner was Nemo, a non-binary artist representing Switzerland (coincidently where EBU is based). I loved his number, and he has been leaving some messages on He got the most votes from the jury (365) and quite a lot from the public (226). Given the context, this is the textbook definition of pinkwashing.
MoroccanOil: the most visible (and maybe highest-paying) sponsor of the show is MoroccanOil, and that is already full of controversies. The company, however, has no connection with Morocco, and its products are in fact, manufactured in Israel, with the company headquarters in the US. Activists have been calling for boycott for quite some time. Maybe losing such a relevant sponsor could have something to do with this?

brainsparks: eurovision getting political (tn#71), priDEMONth (tn#123)

🍰digital guillotine aka digitine

@ladyfromtheoutside #greenscreen #greenscreenvideo #digitine #digitalguillotine #haleyybaylee

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this year, as students are protesting and occupying universities in pro-palestine movements, elite events like the met gala are being perceived as out of touch. people were even comparing the whole thing to the hunger games, which i have to say is pretty accurate.

when american model hayley kalil posted a video dubbing “let them eat cake,” rae @ladyfromtheoutside called for a digital guillotine (also called the blockout movement):

“It’s time for the people to conduct what I want to call a ‘digital guillotine.’ A ‘digitine,’ if you will. It’s time to block all the celebrities, influencers and wealthy socialites who are not using their resources to help those in dire need. We gave them their platforms. It’s time to take it back, take our views away, our likes, our comments, our money.”

i don’t know if celebrities are losing a lot of followers, but i think it’s great this is happening. some celebrities don’t want to risk it, so they got the message and are making informed posts about the genocide.

brainsparks: the other vibe shift (tn#102), deinfluencers (tn#111), netocracy vs. consumtariat (tn#18), power to the peasants, digital feudalism (tn#136), technofeudalism (tn#143),

🇵🇸hind’s hall

macklemore’s new track gave me chills, because he’s doing it right. using his privilege, his platform, voice and art to protest, to call for cease fire and stand on the right side of history.

brainspark: green colonialism / gaza, explained (tn#145), climate violence (tn#131), sportswashing (tn#96), technowashing (tn#67)

see you next week, sponges 🧽✨

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