Up in the Sky – Floating Beijing

There’s a black, heavy cloud: it’s floating above the heads of the people, oppressing them. They call it Smog. What about the sky? It doesn’t exist anymore. In its stead there’s a grey consuming surface. What about the sun, the sparkling stars, the moon? Huge LCD screens replace all of them. And the air? A compact dust substitutes it, covering by a blanket all the people and all the things. What about the Humans? They are caging into metal box, zipping through asphalt line in the middle of the grey cloud. No one is talking; no one is listening; no one is acting: they just flow like a urban sea, breaking themselves against the columns of the city. Addiction. Resignation. Alienation. And if we take a step back? Could we return to a state of nature, when everything was more simple and basic? “We should start again from the Earth” though the Man. They started to plant small trees, as a prelude of a future growth, a new progress. Green brushes everywhere: roots hold firmly the soil and leafy branches break the grayness of the sky, purifying it. Not only the vegetation spreads across the territory: also the humans increase their number. They’re a lot. Too much. The situation is out of control. The cloud is getting much more heavier. There’s no enough oxygen. There’s no way to go. Get away: yes, but where? Following which direction? “We must come back to the soil” thought the Man. That’s how the descent began. People started building an underground city; the old houses were replaced by futuristic cells, where recreate essential living conditions: oxygen products in vitro; human DNA stores in database. An artificial life in the darkness of the underworld. But that is not life. “We must go away from here” told the Man. The exploration of new planets began to discover new life forms. And finally, at the end of the time and space, the Man realized. His living was linked with the freedom: only the communication with his peers could save that City from the collapse and develop a New Humanity. “We must come back and get back the Earth” thought the Man. But the Nature, the one who’s really free, prevails over everything. The roots, like enormous limbs, occupy the territory; forest trees, as natural columns, grow in profusion; the fronds and the climbers twirl and smash the ancient monuments built up by the humans. There’s just a possibility: the coexistence between the Man and the Nature. A new City is being defined. The City is rising up: on the top of the old ruins, of the vegetation, closer to the sky. Small communicating modular elements exchange informations, opportunities and human capital. That’s the New City. That’s the new freedom. “… and then we emerged to gaze upon the stars again” whispered the Man.