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Architecture in the Anthropocene the in Architecture Architecture in the Anthropocene Encounters Among Design, Deep Time, Science and Philosophy Architecture in the Anthropocene Architecture in the Anthropocene Encounters Among Design, Deep Time, Science and Philosophy Edited by Etienne Turpin Turpin Architecture in the Anthropocene Critical Climate Change Series Editors: Tom Cohen and Claire Colebrook The era of climate change involves the mutation of systems beyond 20th century anthropomorphic models and has stood, until recently, outside representation or address. Understood in a broad and critical sense, climate change concerns material agencies that impact on biomass and energy, erased borders and microbial invention, geological and nanographic time, and extinction events. The possibility of extinction has always been a latent - tion, decay, mutation and exhaustion calls for new modes of address, new figure in the textual production and archives; but the current sense of deple styles of publishing and authoring, and new formats and speeds of distri- bution. As the pressures and re-alignments of this re-arrangement occur, so must the critical languages and conceptual templates, political premises and - definitions of ‘life.’ There is a particular need to publish in timely fashion ex perimental monographs that redefine the boundaries of disciplinary fields, and geomorphic and geopolitical interventions. Critical Climate Change is rhetorical invasions, the interface of conceptual and scientific languages, oriented, in this general manner, toward the epistemo-political mutations that correspond to the temporalities of terrestrial mutation. Architecture in the Anthropocene Encounters Among Design, Deep Time, Science and Philosophy Edited by Etienne Turpin OPEN HUMANITIES PRESS An imprint of Michigan Publishing University of Michigan Library, Ann Arbor 2013 First edition published by Open Humanities Press 2013 Freely available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/ohp.12527215.0001.001 Copyright © 2013 Etienne Turpin, chapters by respective Authors. This is an open access book, licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivatives license. Under this license, authors allow anyone authors and source are cited, the work is not altered or transformed, and the purposeto download, is non-commercial. display, print, distribute, No permission and/or is requiredcopy their from work the so authors long as; or the the publisher in these cases. Statutory fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Read more about the license at: creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-nd/3.0/ different copyright restrictions. Please see the Permissions section at the back of thisCover book Art, for figures, more and information. other media included with this book may be under ISBN-978-1-60785-307-7 Open Humanities Press is an international, scholar-led open access publishing collective whose mission is to make leading works of contemporary critical throught freely available worldwide. Books published under the Open Humanities Press imprint at Michigan Publishing are produced through a unique partnership between OHP Michigan Library, which provides a library-based managing and production support infrastructure to facilitate scholars’s editorial to publish board andleading the Universityreearch in bookof form. Cover Image Details: Bourke-White, Margaret (1904-1971) © VAGA, NY. Wind Tunnel Construction, Fort Peck Dam, Montana. 1936. Gelatin silver print, 13 x 10” (33.0 x 25.4 cm). Gift of the photographer. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, U.S.A. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY OPEN HUMANITIES PRESS www.publishing.umich.edu www.openhumanitiespress.org Contents 1 Acknowledgments 3 Who Does the Earth Think It Is, Now? introduction by Etienne Turpin 11 AnthroPark design project by Michael C.C. Lin 15 Matters of Observation: On Architecture in the Anthropocene John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog in Conversation with Etienne Turpin 25 Radical Meteorology design project by Nabil Ahmed 29 Three Holes: In the Geological Present essay by Seth Denizen 47 Episodes from a History of Scalelessness: William Jerome Harrison and Geological Photography essay by Adam Bobbette 59 Inquiries and Interpretations Concerning the Observations and Findings from Atmosphere-Investigating, Landscape- Exploring, Universe-Tracking Instruments, Their Experiments, Studies, Etc. design project by Emily Cheng 63 Matters of Calculation: The Evidence of the Anthropocene Eyal Weizman in Conversation with Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin 83 Landscapes of San Francisco Bay: Plates from Bay Lexicon design project by Jane Wolff 87 Architecture’s Lapidarium: On the Lives of Geological Specimens essay by Amy Catania Kulper 111 Erratic Imaginaries: Thinking Landscape as Evidence essay by Jane Hutton 125 Swimming in It design project by Chester Rennie 129 Time Matters: On Temporality in the Anthropocene Elizabeth Grosz in Conversation with Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin 139 Fortune Head Geologies photo essay by Lisa Hirmer 143 Utopia on Ice: The Climate as Commodity Form essay by Mark Dorrian 153 The Mineralogy of Being essay by Eleanor Kaufman 167 Amplitude Modulation design project by Meghan Archer 171 Matters of Cosmopolitics: On the Provocations of Gaïa Isabelle Stengers in Conversation with Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin 183 In the Furnace of Disorientation: Tragic Drama and the Liturgical Force of Metal essay by Guy Zimmerman 193 Tar Creek Supergrid design project by Amy Norris and Clinton Langevin 197 Matters of Fabulation: On the Construction of Realities in the Anthropocene François Roche in Conversation with Etienne Turpin 209 The Geological Imperative: On the Political Ecology of the Amazonia’s Deep History essay by Paulo Tavares 241 Contributors 248 Permissions Acknowledgments If a book can be said to begin in a place, this collection surely has its point of origin graduate programme in Landscape Architecture, who asked me, rather provoca- tively,in the officewhy I ofhad Professor not yet Janeconsidered Wolff, then the trajectorythe Director of ofmy the recent University doctoral of Toronto’s research in relation to the Anthropocene thesis. Prompted by her insistence that I more carefully investigate this relationship, I can say without any doubt that most of my philosophical, design-based, and activist work has, since that crystalizing conversa- tion, been an attempt to more fully comprehend the implications of our planetary B. Sanders Fellowship at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, andgeological a grant reformation. from the Institute In early for2011, the with Humanities, the financial I curated support a symposiumof both the Walter at the University of Michigan titled The Geologic Turn: Architecture’s New Alliance. If the - tations and panel conversations during the symposium left little doubt that if the geologicaltitle was at and first stratigraphic intended to besciences more suggestivewere themselves than scientific, becoming the more lecture speculative presen by way of their consideration of the Anthropocene thesis, then design could also for contemporary practice. During this symposium, the support of my students in thebenefit Master from of aScience similar in turn Design toward Research a much programme—a broader but nopost-professional less urgent paradigm degree programme which the College sadly decided to eliminate despite its tremendous success—helped execute the event without a hitch through their concerted, con- vivial participation. I owe a debt of graduate to all the students and faculty who supported and attended this event, as well as everyone who participated, espe- cially those whose works appear in this book, as well as Edward Eigen, D. Graham all of whom enlivened our discussion and imparted insights which have carried overBurnett, into Jamie this collection. Kruse and A Elizabeth thanks also Ellsworth to my colleagues of smudge from Studio, the andCollege Peter who Galison, facil- itated the panel discussions, including Rania Ghosn, Meredith Miller, and Rosalyne Shieh, all of whom shared their expertise while opening the discussion toward new directions and concerns. During my two years at the University of Michigan, during which this collection began to take shape, I was incredibly fortunate to both teach and learn alongside a group generous, challenging and thoughtful colleagues including Robert Adams, McLain Clutter, Robert Fishman, Andrew Herscher, Perry Kulper, Kathy Velikov, Jason Young, and Claire Zimmerman. As I was moving from Synapse:Michigan International to Jakarta, I also Curators’ incurred Network a significant workshop, debt and of gratitude for their toongoing my colleagues support andat the interest Haus derin my Kulturen research. der This Welt workshop in Berlin, was both incredibly for their transformative,organization of andthe every presentation challenged and encouraged me in unique ways. I would like to thank curators Xiaoyu Weng, Vincent Normand, Nabil Ahmed, and Anna-Sophie Springer for their continued friendship, conversation, and advice as this book project came to fruition. To our Synapse special guest, Richard Pell, I would also like to extend my gratitude for sharing insights, strategies, and support. To Scott Sørli, who has both curated my artistic work on the Anthropocene, and taught together with me as a co-instructor for our graduate seminar on landscapes of extraction, a critical test for much of this project, I am especially grateful for mentorship and hisprovocation. ongoing patience Farid Rakun, and direction.my fixer who I would quickly also
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