Silvia Noronha | The future of stones

TITLE: The Future of Stones – speculation on contaminated matter

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WORK: “We are being exposed to a catastrophe of meaning, let us remain exposed, and let us think about what is happening to us.” Jean-Luc Nancy, After Fukushima the Equivalence of Catastrophes In the city of Bento Rodrigues, Brazil, on November 5th 2015, a dam retaining a concentrated broth of toxic mining waste broke, causing the world‘s second worst environmental catastrophe of its kind. The event has affected the region and beyond in unpredictable and irreversible ways, leading to dramatic changes. This project engages in a speculative geology around the material outcomes of these happenings. Samples of the contaminated earth were collected from different, affected locations. They represent a type of material alien to nature, but merging with and becoming part of it. Yet they are fundamentally different to “natural” materials as being based on human creation and having the potential of unforeseen impact on the ecological system. The samples have been empirically experimented with, artificially shrinking geological time by applying high pressure and temperature, with the aim of developing a stone of the future – an aggregation of present earthly matters elapsed into a prognosis. Stones here are understood as media, which concentrate multidimensional information, specially about time. The project seeks for an approach to the reception of this information, beyond the categories of human linear communication. Concurrently, the collapse in Bento Rodrigues represents a tendency that draws our times together, the increasingly precarious interference of a given natural ecology and a human made “next nature”. The project thus can be understood as a forensic examination of these goings-on, from the perspective of a fictional future. In this pseudo-alchemist speculative design, a post-human geology is illustrated, gathering worldly experience and projecting how Earth may unfold from here and now. The future of stones will be marked by human activities with significant global impact on Earth‘s geology and ecosystems.

text: Monai de Paula Antunes

 

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IMAGES – Stones (legend)

_001 Future of Stones Volcanic Stone, ca. 100.000 yeas from now – Post-Anthropocene, 2016, serie The Future of Stones, remainings collected after the mining catastrophe in Bento Rodrigues, 10 x 4 x 4,5 cm

_002 Future of Stones Sedimentary Stone, ca. 100.000 yeas from now – Post-Anthropocene, 2016, serie The Future of Stones, remainings collected after the mining catastrophe in Bento Rodrigues, 3,0 x 3,5 x 5,0 cm

_003 Future of Stones Sedimentary Stone, ca. 100.000 yeas from now – Post-Anthropocene, 2016, serie The Future of Stones, remainings collected after the mining catastrophe in Bento Rodrigues, 8,0 x 13,0 x 14,0 cm

_004 Future of Stones Sedimentary Stone, ca. 100.000 yeas from now – Post-Anthropocene, 2016 serie The Future of Stones, remainings collected after the mining catastrophe in Bento Rodrigues, 3x 7,5 x 4 cm

_005 Future of Stones Sedimentary Stone, ca. 100.000 yeas from now – Post-Anthropocene, 2016, serie The Future of Stones, remainings collected after the mining catastrophe in Bento Rodrigues, 3x 7,5 x 4 cm

_006 Future of Stones Sedimentary Stone, ca. 100.000 yeas from now – Post-Anthropocene, 2016, serie The Future of Stones, remainings collected after the mining catastrophe in Bento Rodrigues, 5,0 x 9,0 x 6,0 cm

_ 007, 008, 009 and 010 Exhibition “The Future of Stones”

*photos @silvia noronha

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AUTOR:

Silvia Noronha

contactsilvianoronha@hmail.com

00 49 176 57829110

www.silvianoronha.com