The Earth is a non-human archive. Traces of synergetic design processes are inscribed into its surface. Its autopoietic images are made visible through climate change and extreme weather phenomena.
As it seems the Earth can no longer be thought without mankind since many changes are already irreversible. What if thinking mankind without the Earth doesn't make sense either? The planet Earth isn't just a passive playground for humans to act upon, but rather it's the main actor in a comprehensive and dynamic ecosystem. Therefore, environmental disasters, extreme weather and in general climate change phenomena become perceptible indicators for profound system changes and witnesses of preceding processes at the same time.
We propose a notion of the Earth as a living and ever-changing archive. Accelerated by human influence, effects of climate change reveal human design activities on larger scale that were inscribed and are not visible anymore.
Altogether, we are interested in the man-made climate change as a medium of indication. As a process of materialisation it visualises societal interventions on and against the Earth and its inhabitants through nature itself. The man-accelerated ecological processes, thus, become a method of post-human design. Without explicit human intention, effects of climate change reveal the evenly unintentional archival processes of human cultural activities of the Earth. A geo-epistemic serendipity which implies non-human distinction processes that are too sensitive for a human understanding of the world.
The audio essay Listen Back captures the idea of „the Earth as a living and ever-changing archive“.
The tape includes four compositions:
1. Forest Fire, 2. Hurricane, 3. Glacier, 4. Heatwave. The free interpretations of the physical processes of defracting, rearranging, melting, and heating are based on self-recorded field recordings and found footage material.
With the decision to realise the project in the form of a tape, we would like to consciously withdraw the project from digital culture, its fast pace of life and unlimited media consumption. The artistic artefact, which as a single object is part of a limited edition, should be consciously perceived and receives an additional value through the materiality of the tape. It is the small inaccuracies in the magnetic tape, scratches and disturbances that make each tape unique.
On the other hand, the continuous magnetic tape makes it possible to create a linear narrative. Neither can you jump back and forth between the tracks on a tape, nor can you skip certain sections. The listener is thus exposed to the idleness of the composition.
