Where is the Planetary?

The Anthropocene is a story about how human activities and the belief systems they stem from have recomposed the planet.  Seen from this vantage point, the trenchant colonial violence, the rapid shifts in climate patterns, and volatile geopolitics of the Anthropocene could be understood through the relationships that link local conditions to global systems, converging local problems into an increasingly tense planetary condition. At the same time, many of the same human activities have also produced collaborative practices that could mitigate the worst of the Anthropocene’s effects. Because of this, a rekindling of human collaborative activities around deliberate and careful mitigation of planetary concerns is poised to be at the forefront of any hopeful future, steering accidental planetary development toward deliberate attempts at collaborative and care-oriented co-existence on a planetary scale.

This course tries to think through these problems both in the classroom and through an excursion to HKW in Berlin for the event Where is the Planetary?

Where is the Planetary? is an event that will engage in a series of activities conceptualized and led by artist Koki Tanaka. These activities are meant to act as informal experiments in collaborating and making oneself understood to others, ultimately opening up conversations among participants from different knowledge fields such as geosciences, anthropology, history of science, philosophy, art and activism and challenging them to approach these very complex planetary problems requiring high-level of human collaboration from a more transdisciplinary perspective

The program of Where is the Planetary? and the various research and activities that are part of the seminar, are an attempt to think through interdependent planetary ways of life that work with social values and ecological constraints. The seminar will reflect on the event and also ask students to work through some of these multidimensional challenges through mapping, artistic research, and an engagement with the earth sciences.

Regular attendance and contribution

Literature:

Jennifer Gabrys. “Becoming Planetary.” eflux, 2018

https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/accumulation/217051/becoming-planetary/

Hu Fang. “Towards a Non-Intentional Space.” eflux, 2015.

https://www.e-flux.com/journal/66/60770/towards-a-non-intentional-space/

Michel Serres. Thumbelina. The Culture and Technology of Millennials. Trans. Daniel W. Smith. Rowman Littlefied, 2015. (excerpt p​​54-68)

Olufemi O. Taiwo in conversation with Lily Hu. “Philosophy and Reparations.” Phenomenal Worlds April 2, 2022.https://www.phenomenalworld.org/interviews/olufemi-taiwo/