Abstract
Our planet is now a human artifact in many significant ways. In what follows we offer a genealogy of ‘terra-forming’, culminating in a discussion of a proposed installation that will offer a critical and artistic reflection on the Anthropocene moment. ‘Terra-Forming’, the construction of a relief map of the surface of the globe without water, is our attempt to address the aesthetic dimension of geological time-marking, dissolving distinctions between art and science. This is a visceral and poetic proposal, aiming at sublime response in which reactions ‘well up’ to physically and emotionally reshape perceptions of the world. As water slowly covers our alabaster map, in a simulation of the great flood, it will hopefully suggest many applications and provoke a surge of conversations and ideas.
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Editors’ note: The ‘terra-forming’ installation to which the authors allude is the three-dimensional map of the earth’s lithosphere discussed in the Preface by Pasquale Gagliardi; they describe it in greater detail below. The project has not yet been realized, but its possibility informed the entire Dialogue of 2012 as a constant reference point for our discussions. This chapter offers a theoretical and historical rationale for the project, grounding it in a history of attempts to map the globe as a dynamic physical entity.
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Lowe, A., Brotton, J. (2017). Re-visioning the World: Mapping the Lithosphere. In: Schaffer, S., Tresch, J., Gagliardi, P. (eds) Aesthetics of Universal Knowledge. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42595-5_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42595-5_3
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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