What about the deep time of Earth history? What does it hold, in terms of revolutions similar to the one we are facing now? What maps, diagrams, imagery did the deep past produce and how does it resurface in the Anthropocene? Can we imagine that the Anthropocene will cease? What is this exit like? Has anybody imag(in)ed what the return to a non-Anthropocene state would be?

The temporal designation of the Anthropocene sits solidly on a perpetually expanding threshold subject to disciplinary, cultural, and personal persuasions. As the shape of time itself (points, lines, spirals, circles, waves, spheres) can be considered a cultural construct, we assumed time’s conceptual flexibility as a basic element of our investigation. In order to then take some measure of time and visually proclaim “This not that is the Anthropocene!” we worked not only to conceive of ways to distinguish certain bits of time from others, but to communicate across spatiotemporal frameworks. Thus, the particular media of delivery became every bit as important as the content of the message. From this new frame of reference, the question became: From goo as amorphous as time, through media as diverse as human experience, is there a way of actively constructing images that could reflexively communicate through deep expanses of time?

The seminar investigation, although it touched on many more subjects, focused primarily on three potential products: fossils, hands, and holograms.

Fossils

Holograms

A hologram is a dynamic system made static. The hologram simultaneously employs multiple points of view to activate a single entity—be it an object, an image, or an idea. In order to engage explicitly multiplicity as inherent to the human condition, the idea of a holographic reality was central to our investigations. Collective cosmologies, fictions, stories, and imaginaries have validity, not only within the culture that creates them, but also in how one’s perspectives relate to those of others. From this assumption, we attempted to engage “Imaging the Anthropocene” by assembling conflicting projections of our universe into a single, holographic map. By overlaying distinct ideas of reality in one space—imagine braiding strands of scientific theories, holy books, and spiritual rites together—points of view converge to form a unified image of a collective humanity. The hypothetical “image” is compelling as a goal, considering the complementary roles of spiritualities, technological evolution, and storytelling in our relationship[s] to the world around us. Since human experience is constantly evolving, new “layers” are being generated constantly and thus the map will never be complete. But in the end, a holographic map of the universe may be a more beautiful image if left in the mind. After all, as we are in the midst of acknowledging our role in the transformation of the Earth, the designation of the Anthropocene either is super-optimistic, supposing that we last long enough to define an epoch, or heartbreakingly negative.

“WHEN ARE WE?” t-shirt

As we moved deeper and deeper into the fraught territories of universal humanity, we decided to ask a question because an answer seemed impossible. “When are we?” is a provocation. The question evokes an atmosphere of temporal confusion, as if being introduced to the Anthropocene is akin to crash-landing in a foreign time. It is a slogan conceived as a tool to allow atomized conversations to supersede our small group and engage multiple publics. By making it wearable, we make the wearer a docent and allow each individual who reads it to engage, subsequently reflecting and developing a unique position. If we are declaring a new period in Earth’s history, we must ask the essential question: “When are we?”