We Spoke to the Medieval Astronomers Who Made David Leyonhjelm Swear

On the whole, a swearing politician isn't a big deal, but it's dynamite to an activist who wants to push buttons.

This is what happened to ClimActs, where activists from its political theatre troupe, the Flat Earth Institute, were told to "fuck off" from Senator David Leyonhjelm outside a senate inquiry hearing this week.

Leyonhjelm was in Melbourne as part of another senate inquiry into the medical and psychological effects of wind turbines. The group launched this creative activism to tell others of the inquiry's negligible worth, given that the health impacts of turbines have largely been discredited—despite our Prime Minister recently speaking to the contrary.

When you're a politician, there's always someone determined to make one slip-up the very definition of who you are.

Creating these reactions is an art that ClimActs have fine-tuned over the past two years. Their goal is to draw attention to climate change using satire, and their activists have had considerable run-ins with the likes of John Howard, the G20 and Lord Monckton.

We spoke to Liz Conor, co-convenor of ClimActs—and part-time medieval astronomer—to ask whether they can affect any actual change.

VICE: Hi Liz, why did the Flat Earth Institute come to see Senator Leyonhjelm?
Liz Conor: Senator Leyonhjelm, along with Senator Madigan, have required yet another government inquiry into wind technology to scaremonger people into thinking wind turbines cause non-specific ailments. It's been discredited, and the organisations pushing it—the Wabura Foundation and the Landscape Guardians—have been discredited. We thought it would be useful to diffuse this thinking, so the Flat Earth Institute is highlighting that the inquiry is just archaic and pseudo-scientific and it's self-interest that's driving this particular inquiry.

--------------------------------------

Interested in climate change? Then watch our documentary on the worst drought in 500 years beneath

--------------------------------------

Like that? Then watch Polar Bear Man.

So why didn't you guys just say that to the press outside of the inquiry?
Because it wouldn't fit into most broadcasts—it's boring. That's what parody, satire, and spectacle are good at. It ties into what people are already thinking, and we just twist it to apply it to a new situation to resonate across mainstream media

Have there been other situations where this has worked?
For every 20 times we do something, we arguably break through only once. It's pretty hard work and unrelenting, but one of our breakthroughs recently was at the G20 in Brisbane with our Climate Guardians—which is a troupe of seven angels—who staged a sit-in at the delegates' entrance at the G20. Bill Shorten came over to speak to us.

And this is part of the accident, because you give the media what they want. They want spectacle and they want theatre. You give them that, and then they'll make their own angle out of it when something accidental happens—like Leyonhjelm swearing at us. With the G20 angels, it was that our police liaison convinced the cops to drive us to the pub afterwards.

In that instance, all of the 'stars' aligned so that it was a topical story and it had clear visual meanings: angels are messengers, and they protect the young, and then we've staged a sit-in so there's conflict and drama. We directly tied into what Obama was lecturing Australia on—because our action against climate change is negligible.

But what about people who say this is a superficial form of activism?
People might think that dressing up as medieval astronomers is a fairly extreme and bizarre thing to do, but when you consider how urgent our situation is, it's actually pretty moderate in terms of what we do.

Anybody who's told us to "get a real job" has to read a series of some pretty hefty CVs. We've written our body-weight in submissions, we've organised public meetings and public rallies and so convening ClimActs doesn't mean we don't do a whole bunch of other stuff. I write a column in New Matilda, we go to rallies in our cities. So you know, it's not that we're just doing one thing at the exclusion of all else.

Finally, as a member of the Flat Earth Institute, you lecture at the Universitarse of Climatastrophas, Uranus . What's it like living over there?
We come from the year 1033, which was a medieval warming period. From this time there was another syndrome to do with rotating objects, which was the Catherine Wheel syndrome. We tie satanic, sodomising heathens to these wheels and roll them off the end of the earth where they would then spin out into the firmament. So we can give testimony to the wind inquiry from the medieval period, because there is a historical precedent for the turbine wind syndrome, which is the Catherine Wheel syndrome.

Follow Alan on Twitter: @alnwdn

Like this article? Then like VICE on Facebook.