Stir Q&A: Pedal power and planetary penance at Boca del Lupo's new Net Zero installation
We get the full story behind the new spin bikes that battery power the troupe’s Granville Island space, and help you work off your “climate guilt”
Photo by Jay Dodge
FROM JULY 8 to August 28, theatre innovators Boca del Lupo are inviting you to work off your guilt over our pending environmental disaster, and help them charge up their Granville Island storefront at the same time.
Head on down to the Fishbowl space to check out this summer’s Net Zero installation, the tongue-in-cheek Climate Change Penance Project, where the troupe has retrofitted two spin bikes that charge a battery that runs the technical gear in its space. The sensors hook up to a piece of software on an iPad that Boca has developed to help you assess and then work off your “climate guilt”,
One of the company’s Climate Guilt Coaches is on hand to help you translate your shame into quantifiable Climate Guilt Units that you can get rid of by pedalling your heart out. There’s even a Martyrdom Knob to crank up the difficulty level.
We asked artistic producer Jay Dodge about the project and the theatre company’s commitment to going green.
What kind of things might make my Climate Guilt Units add up?
“In many ways this is a personal question. For one person it might be taking too long in a hot shower while for someone else it might be around air travel or bitcoin mining. Our installation is about starting that conversation and working with our team of Net Zero Research Associates on Granville Island to determine that. It’s really about investigating those feelings of guilt that often come with climate change and finding ways to transform that feeling into tangible action.”
Does the Martyrdom Knob really do anything?
“We’ve retrofitted a spin bike to the purpose of this installation and so yes, the Martyrdom Knob does actually make it harder to pedal the bike, but the irony of it is that even though it makes the pedalling harder it doesn’t produce any more actual power to charge the battery. I think of this as a metaphor for the relationship between guilt and climate change; it can feel like you are doing more because it feels harder but perhaps it would be more productive to consider how we can do things differently. I think this project is really about getting in the habit of asking ourselves how we can do things differently and out of the habit of doing things the same old way but increasingly feeling more guilty about it.”
What kind of technical gear inside Boca Del Lupo might I be powering up when I pedal away my climate guilt?
”Boca del Lupo doesn’t have a theatre per se, we have our little store front space on Granville Island. So, while we dream of a larger theatre one day scaling up this idea to run all their lights and sound, et cetera, for now this is a proof-of-concept research project and a big part of this installation this summer will be to see how much equipment we can realistically run using human power to fill our batteries.”
What other areas is the company considering as part of the larger Net Zero project?
“While the spin bike installation is the centrepiece, this summer is about asking ourselves, in a really rigorous way, what we can do as an organization on all levels to do our part in reducing the human contribution to climate change. We are talking to bee keepers about the urban bee population, we are considering how we transport ourselves and our equipment around the city, we are looking at how we tour work… It’s all on the table really.”
Photo by Jay Dodge
Can the Climate Change Penance Project bikes work as a kind of performance or theatre?
"I mean, we are a theatre company at heart and so it’s hard to not to imagine that there could be a performative element and we certainly see the installation as it stands as a kind of practical art project. This question makes me think of something that I’ve heard [artistic director] Sherry [J. Yoon] say a number of times; the scientists will provide us with the data, the politicians with the policy but it is the artists that will speak to the hearts of people and be the true catalyst for transformation when it comes to tackling climate change."
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