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Prehistoric relics and contemporary technologies unearth a world where human concepts of time are dissolved. The exhibition space is divided into two zones: the first one houses an active seismograph, the results of its measurements, and three dioramas from the series Atmosphere ≠ Totality; the second contains a mystical, capsule-like object guarded by two trilobite fossils. The metal construction of the seismograph holds a scroll of carbon black paper, on which the vibrations measured in the space are etched. While the fossils are witnesses of a time long past, the real-time measurements of the seismograph render the current dynamics visible. Trilobites were arthropods with exoskeletons that disappeared from the ocean floor during the great Permian-Triassic mass extinction 252 million years ago. Their enigmatic anatomy, which has often served as inspiration for extraterrestrial life in pop culture, makes their past existence seem just as alien as the distant future. In his philosophy of speculative materialism, Quentin Meillassoux coined the term arche- fossil for this phenomenon: The mere existence of fossilized creatures points to a time when there were no humans who could have perceived and thereby shaped the world. Such an ancestral reality implies the existence of a pre-human world that generates meaning independently of anthropocentric observations, outside the realm of human perception. Similarly, the seismograph also perceives its environment in a way that is strange to us, connecting us to forces that resonate far beyond our perceptions by continuously recording the oscillations emitted by the vibration tools installed in the space. The highly sensitive machine thus detects movements that are imperceptible to other creatures. Through an intaglio printing process, the measurements erode the layer of soot from the paper and burrow into its microscopic environment. The abrasive technique of sandblasting was used to erode the metal surfaces of the seismograph and the dioramas attached to the walls. The removal of material mirrors geological methods, in which digging into the layers of the earth is equivalent to going back in time. The entropic material captured in the dioramas behaves in a similar way: While the volcanic rock has surfaced from the Earth's interior, the extraterrestrial meteorite has traveled on a trajectory from space into the Earth's atmosphere; their vectors now converge in the exhibition space. Again and again, vibrations emanate from the core of the object in the adjacent space, where one of the vibration tools is buried. The capsule emits unexpected pulses, suggesting the constant striving of life—even long after the death of an individual which decays and is reassembled. Mamoru Oshii’s Angel’s Egg depicts a journey through a dystopian world in which the ruins of a city and the remains of prehistoric creatures merge together. The fossilized landscape serves as an almost forgotten memory of an earlier age, making the present seem like a mausoleum of the past. In the same way, Trilobit transforms the exhibition space into an inhuman burial chamber for an unknown future. Yet the fossilization and steeling of living beings does not necessarily signify stagnation: Through the multiple perceptions of seismographic processes, the infinite movement of the Earth as a rhythm of life comes into focus, revealing a direct connection between prehistoric life, us, and our future.
