A hundred comments extracted from a discussion on the Netbehaviour.org list about the We Wont Fly For Art project.

1) This is too challenging. Artists will always choose their careers over the planet's safety.

2) I signed but its not easy. Train services are expensive and inflexible. I have complained to the companies and copied in my MP.

3) I love to travel by train relaxing, thinking, reading and seeing (thought flying is also a treat for the eyes)

4) I weigh-up the carbon-balance; taking the other positive social and cultural impacts of my presence into consideration.

5) As an academic I asked the college director to engage in a Carbon scheme for institutional travel - they had other priorities. I gave a rude and true response.

6) I asked a producer of a climate change movie where they were flying actors and techies around the world for the shoot.

7) Taking a more energetic approach to local travelling is crucial: running, walking, cycling.

8) Public institutions (The Arts Council and other organisations) could introduce fresh initiatives to engage infrastructurally with climate change.

9) While personal action has a role to play in motivating collective change, your emphasis on the carbon footprint of individuals is problematic.

10) Anthropogenic climate change is primarily caused by the production, energy and transportation systems imposed by a heirarchical economic system designed to generate private profit for capitalists & governments who also control decision making processes.

11) The idea of personal carbon footprint is retrogressive; it lets those in power off the hook and makes people feel guilty.

12) Guilt is not motivating

13) Those responsible for building an economy of overproduction need to be held to account. I did not design the public transportation system, nor did you.

14) I can't sign this as pretty much my every breath is dedicated to trying to blag an art related trip outside Europe, I promise never to drive for my art

15) I wont sail for art, though being stuck on an island thousands of miles from the nearest continental landmass makes pledging not to fly a tough one.

16) I pledge to never Paint in my pursuit....." Paint is oil based, as is our economy....

17) I like sailing and it is reasonably green. It is a lot more fun than flying.

18) I am a sinner

19) ...questioning how we move on from here.

20) I have cut down on my flying for the sake of my own rather than the planet's health

21) I fly about once a month with two or three long-hauls a year.

22) What can I do? Stop showing art? Stop making physical installations, move my work online, quit those responsibilties that require me to be physically present somewhere else?

23) What is the carbon footprint of using Skype?

24) Massive server-farms probably have footprints similar to airports. Has anyone done a comparative analysis on this?

25) Every case needs to be considered on its merits rather than an absolute blanket rule.

26) Challenging the systematic behaviour of the art world.

27) After decades of procrastination emergency measures are now necessary to prevent a climate disaster.

28) Every artist's practice has a different context. How varied everyone's perspectives and concerns really are, around this complicated issue.

29) This discourse can teach us all how different infrastructures work for different people, their social relationships, locally, personally and internationally.

30) One of the main problems is that flight (to conferences, exhibitions etc) equates to success; perhaps this will change in the future.

31)Some thrive by travelling the world to conferences and having exhibitions everywhere, whilst there are those who rarely travel. Perhaps, some re-evalution process will allow the smaller groups or individuals to be seen as equal in the future, if things change, doubt it though ; (

32) How will you police the pledge- what happens if people break it?

33) Where does flying for art begin and end? - i.e. if I go on holiday to Australia must I close my eyes if I think I'm about to see some art?

34) I remember suggesting that 'international' art careers should not mean getting on a plane to my colleagues about 5 years ago when it was met with v uneasy silence.

35) Meeting people in the flesh is very important and can change how we relate to each other.

36) Aeroplane travel is necessary to the lives of artists living in places like New Zealand and Iceland- both for importing cultural diversity and in order to earn a living and get feedback and critique for their work

37) It's easier for those in highly populated areas to imagine doing without long-haul flights

38) local communities and networks are important

39) "Upstage" developed their own online platform for cyberformance (live online performance) they can rehearse and perform online even with a distributed group of collaborators (who have never actually met)

40) In addition to Skype, Upstage adds humour, visuals etc to a presentation.

41) Skype is irratic. It often has excellent sound quality but when it doesn't it can really throw the presenter, making makes improvisation and sponteneity more problematic.

42) We run Upstage tutorials on line and that is fine.

43) I've been testing out various methods for doing artists talks online but usually the other end is too scared, or has technical troubles

44) My last was via gchat - it worked well for about 30 minutes then crapped out

45) I did a keynote as a video uploaded

46) I don't fly because I can't afford to, but it's very painful to have to pass on opportunities to actually meet those bundles of text out there and to have a warm human interpersonal experience and see what others are up to.

47) I have used chat with some success others with text and video, that came and went and froze sometimes.

48) There is research on the environmental impact of Second Life - avatars consuming the same amount of energy as an actual person living in brazil http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/12/avatars_consume.php

49) Then there is the environmental impact of the energy used by the computer as well as the energy & resources used to create computers designed to become obsolete in a couple of years.

50) I compensate for my sins by keeping old computers to maintain backward compatability for my art or give them to others "more needy".

51) We are reformulating our institutional strategy to place ethical matters (especially sustainability, recycling and energy efficiency) at its heart.

52) Turning off lights and appliances at the wall and not overheating buildings is as important as reducing flights and driving.

53) I assume long haul flights are less harmful than short flights. But how does travel by bus really compare to flying if you factor in the number of passengers and all of the fuel used to maintain the roads.

54) It's not either appliances off or reduce travel. We need to be doing all of the above, urgently. Offsetting doesn't work.

55) Does anyone have carbon footprint comparison of server-farms and airports?

56) Skype uses a peer to peer protocol so doesn't require huge server farms though network infrastructure for your communications would be a factor.

57) If you need to fly you need to fly, but to suggest that it might be a greener option than to use network communications would be simply disingenuous.

58) It's easy for me to take the pledge as i haven't got the money or the time to fly for art.

59) If your local scene is a bit flat perhaps you should put energy into revitalising the local scene rather than surfing for cheap flights to new york.

60) Flying to look at art would be luxury

61) I fly to put art in front of audiences or to set up new connections between institutions or individuals to help them acheive their aims.

62) Only so much can be done via the internet and, as has been pointed out, that is possibly a false economy anyway (bandwidth has a carbon footprint too).

63) The creative arts are international and should be, people everywhere should be able to place their work before global audeinces and those audiences able to access art from anywhere.

64) Won't this mean a return to a time when we were all provincial and could only see as far as our own local interest, as far as our own nose?

65) It is all about discourse and the exchange of artefacts, information and other resources. This is how people and society get smarter, Global discourse is a wonderful thing, we need to ensure it is sustainable and this means not pulling our horns in and staying at home.

66) The international art scene adds legitimacy to 'local' artists' claims of relevancy to their work. This is especially important where a remote national culture lacks confidence.

67) I didn't sign the pledge because I rarely fly so I don't think it will make much difference.

68) You have to be physically in front of art to have the experience of it. I can't send a painting by email.

69) If we focus on our local art scenes, with museums showing mainly regional fare will art become increasingly provincial? Would a sustainable model arise for running a stimulating museum on mainly regional fare?

70) Perhaps the artworks will loose importance and the exchange of ideas will be come the main point.

71) Is there any way of rethinking our artworld in order to make travel unnecessary while maintaining high quality standards for production and exhibition?

72) what about net art? cyberformance? networked performance? broadcast music? webcasting? art on telly? there is a wealth of art that can be experienced without leaving the comfort of your own home.

73) funding models impact the format of art experiences and models of audience participation. Festivals are preferred to netart (look there are people!!!)

74) everyone else is finally going net....newspapers, stores, banks etc.....so why is it the art world is backing off.....?

75) I would love to meet others....in person...Why haven't we all developed easier ways to meet up send files, do chats, play here from where we are...I would be overjoyed to not travel.....to have more venues and exhibitions (funded ones) that allow us to simply send files, do chats, and play here...where we type.mouse

76) You can use this to calculate the carbon footprint of flying http://www.terrapass.com/carbon-footprint-calculator/#air eg to fly from Brisbane to LAX it costs the env 4,184 lbs CO2 per person

77) Wissner-Gross told TechNewsWorld on average it takes about 20 milligrams of CO2 per second to visit a Web site
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Harvard-Prof-Sets-Record-Straight-on-Internet-Carbon-Study-65794.html

78) OK, so what is the carbon footprint of flying in Second Life?

79) This project is negatively motivated, minimalist through purification, not simplicity: stop, avoid, "less "careering."

80) not everyone is suited to fighting the good fight against fundamentalism and anti-intellectualism in small towns by day and making wild and free art alone in a barn / basement server room of one's own by night.

81) And I heard that doing one google search was equivalent to boiling a full kettle of water.

82) after Yann Arthus-Bertrand (FR) has produced his TV show he plants as many trees as needed to balance all the CO² he generated with helicopters and planes.

83) Guilty as charged, I flew to Transmediale to write for furtherfield about an ecologically themed media arts festival

84) In the context of environmental crisis what does it do to the meaning of my art if I fly?

85) The global carbon habit was seeded in the UK through the techniques and processes of industrialisation. We need to understand the consequences of for the future or our actions today.

86) We need to broaden the frame of action and influence, to stay alert to the complex interrelations of all manner of things and processes across time and space.

87) The question is how to claim agency

88) It's not about blame or guilt we are all in this together, there are external situations and consequences that cannot be dealt with by any one individual

89) Governments have failed to take on the scientific realities of climate change and act in a coherent fashion giving in to oppositional agendas.

90) Are we in the art world willing to let things be the same and not evaluate other possibilities?

91) Not flying for art challenges default behaviours within existing infrastructures.

92) Thinking about absolutes- climate change is a pretty serious problem that effects everyone on the planet in a fundamental way. This is an undeniable reality. We are involved in discussing or thinking about a subject that both feels and IS elemental, profound and overwhelming.

93) A sense of guilt arises from a feeling of powerlessness in the face of the global capitalist juggernaut that continues to feed itself on the planet's non-renewable resources.

94) I have little doubt that the planet will survive us, what I am less sure of is what will be done in our names when the lights start to go out.

95) The only thing is that you need to get more people involved and there is little empathy involved in events based on "network" connections. It usually turn out like shit, as there is little feeling involved.

96) We want to take existing networking activities and and and experiment with the social, sensual and interpersonal experience. There are a load of artworks to take inspiration from: A Hole in Space by Galloway and Rabinovitz, 'Telematic Dreaming' by Paul Sermon, Station Rose's 'Opera Calling'

97) Naim June Paik predicted that video would not replace film but aeroplanes.

98) in theatre or computing events connecting remote participants via internet, or connecting & interacting with simultaneous similar events have only been partially successful because people inevitably get caught up in the proximal reality & lose the motivation to maintain a split focus.

99) people who are less used to it can get frustrated &/or bored because they feel neglected.

100) every time we get a little bit better at it ...

Responses made to Netbehaviour email list or by emails to Ruth and Marc