A Thermodynamic Imaginary · STUDIO TOMÁS SARACENO

ON AIR

Hybrid Webs

A Thermodynamic Imaginary

Gravitational Waves

[1]

Our Interplanetary Bodies

Aerosolar Journeys

Stillness in Motion — Cloud Cities

163,000 Light Years

Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Sessions

On Space Time Foam

How to Entangle the Universe in a Spider Web

Ring Bell — Solar Orchestra and the Wind Structures

Solar Bell

14 Billions (Working Title)

In Orbit

Poetic Cosmos of the Breath

Galaxies Forming along Filaments, like Droplets along the Strands of a Spider’s Web

Flying Garden/Air-Port-City

Our Interplanetary Bodies

Aerosolar Journeys

Aerocene

Flying Plaza Work Journal 2012 – 2016

Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Sessions

163,000 Light Years

Becoming Aerosolar

[2]

Cloud Specific

Cosmic Jive: The Spider Sessions

14 Billions (Working Title)

Cloud Cities

...

Galaxies Forming along Filaments, like Droplets along the Strands of a Spider’s Web

2009, 53rd Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy · Curated by Daniel Birnbaum

Flying Garden/Air-Port-City

2005, Villa Manin Center for Contemporary Art, Codroipo, Italy

“The positioning of the Earth in the cosmic whole determines the conditions under which the living organisms can survive on its surface…”

Boris Groys. On the Political Influence of the Sun, 2015, Aerocene Newspaper

Research

“…this would take a thermodynamic leap of imagination, a more-than-human alliance, a commitment to a fourth metabolic regime. We could call this Aerocene.”

Thinking through Aerocene. A Thermodynamic Imaginary, 2018, MAAT Newspaper

Abstract

A Thermodynamic Imaginary at MAAT

2018, Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), Lisbon, Portugal · Curated by Pedro Gadanho and Rita Marques

What could be the fourth metabolic regime for the population and who is taking part in the Anthropocene? What would be the new set of values necessary to overcome the extracting economy of the fossil fuel regime? How could breathing feel in a post fossil fuel economy?

Responding to the consequences of the Anthropocene, A Thermodynamic Imaginary at MAAT calls for a renewed relation with elemental energies. Air is life-giving and belongs to all; departing from colonization in servitude to financial flows and exploitative processes, aerosolarity, as embodied in the ensemble of sculptures, seeks a reimagination of energetic and material interrelationships. The installation embodies a new interplanetary ecology of practice which could reconnect with elemental sources of energy and strata coming from the sun and other planets, breaking the boundaries of the sublunary. How can we think to move together towards an aerosolar ethos, embodying an ever more entangled relationship with the atmosphere, the air and the cosmos?

A Thermodynamic Imaginary attempts to perceive the possibility of an “aerocene” urbanism, as well as a futuristic view of new attunements between humans, more-than-human beings and the Earth system, reaching an ethical commitment with the sun, the atmosphere, and the planet.

COLLABORATORS

Aerocene Foundation

ARTICLES

A Thermodynamic Imaginary

Tomás Saraceno, Pedro Gadahno, Rita Marques, Aerocene Foundation. MAAT Newspaper, 2018.

Thermodynamic Imaginaries

Thinking through Aerocene. 2018, MAAT Newspaper

Researchers in industrial and social ecology refer to ‘socio-metabolic regimes’ to define the epochal shifts in energetic relationships between humans and their environment, establishing a strict correlation between it a and specific sets of social values (1).

They also argued that two of the main kind of metabolic regimes have been solar based, the ones of hunter-gatherer societies and agrarian societies (2). Despite the existence of societies that still rely on such relationships with the sun— together with all the other species that populate the earth- these are threatened by the domination of the current metabolic regime, the one based on fossil fuels and which marks the anthropocene. However, this is coming to an end because of the disappearance of the very same energy supplies and environmental costs connected to the use of fossil fuels, making it urgent to rethink how we can coexist with the planet and its resources. What could be the fourth metabolic regime for the population and who is taking part in the anthropocene? What would be the new set of values necessary to overcome the extracting economy of fossil fuel regime? What would the stratigraphy of futures look like?

It might it be through a rearticulation of our relationship with the sun and the cosmos, opening up the boundaries of the earth to enter an interplanetary-cene. Living beings inhabit at the threshold of the cosmic scale of energy, breathing interplanetary dust intermixed with black carbon, revealing the liminality of this interface. While enterprises to colonize other planets are put in place, this very same interface between us and the sun, the atmosphere, continues to be compromised: carbon emissions fill the air, invisible radio waves develop in a hegemonic algorithm of dominance, particulate matter floats inside our lungs. How could breathing feel in a post fossil fuel economy? What is the air that the planet needs in order to thrive?

The “Passarola”, an airship developed in Portugal by priest Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão in 1709, to rise and move in the air.

Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France and Wikipedia Commons.

Air has been colonized by drones, satellites and military devices and strictly regulated by national policies and laws. Financial flows transit without any difficulty, air is used as a medium that allows the computational media sphere to operate and instill market logics and desires. Governance has extended to the air, in the same way as on the ground, without considering the freeing possibilities of the atmosphere. But, life-giving elements belong to everyone and not only to humans. We can imagine a new infrastructure, which challenges and redefines an international right to mobility, reversing the extractive approach humans have developed toward the planet and re-examining freedom of movement between countries. A new interplanetary ecology of practice which could reconnect with elemental sources of energy and strata coming from the sun and other planets, breaking the boundaries of the sublunary. We can now think to move together towards an aerosolar ethos, embodying an ever more entangled relationship with the atmosphere, the air and the cosmos.

This would take a thermodynamic leap of imagination, a more-than-human alliance, a commitment to a fourth metabolic regime. We could call this Aerocene.

Aerocene asks how to de-colonize the earth and beyond, and connect to a world that needs a change of atmospheres, weaving a renewed relation with the Sun’s cosmos_

References

(1) Morris, Ian, 2015. Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve. Princeton University Press.

(2) Szerszynski, Bronislaw, 2015. UP, Aerocene Newspaper.

Excerpt from Um Imaginário Termodinâmico / A Thermodynanamic Imaginary, published with Tomás Saraceno’s exhibition at MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Oval Gallery, 20 March – 27 August 2018. Texts by Pedro Gadanho, Boris Groys, Rita Marques, Studio Tomás Saraceno/Aerocene Foundation. Design by Nonverbal Club. Published by EDP Foundation, Lisbon, 2018.