Monumental Wastelands: Speculative Climate Immersions and Post-Anthropo(s)cenic Assemblages
Research Cluster 1 explores anthropocentric scenarios through the lens of the ubiquitous production of data, extraction of raw material, and reliance upon logistical processes, considering the impacts that these practices have on contemporary conditions. Using Climate-Fiction (Cli-Fi) as a vehicle, imminent realities are researched, experimented with, and projected. This year’s focus has been the Arctic territories currently experiencing permafrost thaw as a result of warming temperatures.
Working through a form of techno-bashing, various technologies have been hacked and synthesized in order to decode and recode the Arctic. A combination of machine learning, sensors, actuators, and hybrid materials has resulted in a new series of processes and sentient machines for scanning, sorting, organizing, conditioning, and producing in context. The small-scale prototypes have been appropriated and subsumed into larger speculative architectural assemblages, putting forward new potential forms situated between performance, sentience, and intelligence.
The four teams – ‘Earth’, ‘Human’, ‘Non-Human’, and ‘Logistics’ – have each researched their respective topics, integrating questions of biological and material life, climate, politics, and technology. This work has resulted in a series of propositions that can be seen as an application of preservation through adaptation. Distinct immersive narratives have been developed as short films, each telling stories of what and how life in these increasingly dynamic territories may continue in the future.