Undergraduate Thesis Paper exploring a new “cartography” of the biogeochemical processes happening on Earth, including how entanglements of soil, water, air, human, and non-human organisms influence its systems.
Above: A detail of the illustration The Soil Map, Terra Forma, manuel de cartographies potentielles. This illustration was retrieved from the website of the ZKM -Center for Art and Media, which hosted the exhibition Critical Zones: Observatories for Earthly Politics. The exhibition started in May 2020 and ran until February 2021 (E-flux, 2020).
The term critical zone is adopted from geosciences and defines the biochemical, fragile layer of the Earth in which life takes place. By following the practices of researchers and especially soil scientists, Bruno Latour (2014, 2017) expanded this term by referring to a critical and participatory relationship of the human living world. This notion of the critical zone invites humans to think of a new scenography (or map) to represent Earth and how humans relate to it. Our environmental crisis is not only one of science and simulation but also of communication and visualization. This research explored these relationships by investigating the potential of one specific, alternative cartography of the Earth invented by Alexandra Arénes and deployed during her performance lecture "Inside".
Read excerpt here
Above: An excerpt of the performance lecture 'Inside' illustrating a composition of many different, moving entities which make up the 'critical zone'. This animation is retrieved from the website of Bruno Latour. The performance lecture was staged by Frédérique Ait-Touati on ideas and drawings by Alexandra Arènes, Sonial Lévy, and Axelle Grégoire. This version was shot in Berlin at the HAU theatre the 20th of September 2017.
The question the research aimed to answer through a visual analysis of Inside’s imagery is: "What potential does the performance lecture Inside offer for helping to understand the transdisciplinary nature of the critical zone?" As noted, critical zone perspectives are transdisciplinary, because critical zone science aims to understand how the entanglements of soil, water, air, human, and non-human organisms influence Earth’s systems. Thus, this framework emphasized the need for integrative thinking and the use of multiple scientific disciplines when studying issues related to the Earth and environmental sustainability.
If you are interested in the full paper, send me a message!
Maastricht University I Spring 2021 I Supervisor: Dr. Christoph Rausch