A Radical Compromise

Minerals have brought us many benefits. Coal, gas, oil and minerals made the industrial revolution possible, freed a large proportion of humanity from grinding poverty and brought about an unprecedented boom in the world economy. The dark side of this success story is the exhaustion of our planet’s resources, something we have only become aware of relatively recently.

The Czech collective that presents the Radical Compromise dome projection aims to impress upon the viewer the need to act quickly by immersing us in the reality of brown coal surface mining. Drone shots, ghostly photograms, scans from an electron microscope and 3D photo manipulations reveal the traces that human activity leaves on the skin of our planet.

Switching between cell level, close-ups and a zoomed-out view of a dead landscape of craters with dirty brown pools of mud, this 360-degree film shows the seriousness and scale of the destruction. The layered soundtrack, incorporating recordings from the mine, creates an ominous undertone.