Research Topics and Speculation about Art and Public Space by Scottish artist Matt Baker

Monday 23 July 2012

Making the Geologic Now


I'm delighted to be one of the contributors to Smudge Studio's  collection of essays, Making the Geologic NowResponses to Material Conditions of Contemporary Life will be released by Punctum Books later this fall. The book is designed in the tradition of a broadside or pamphlet—a timely “calling out” of a shift in cultural sensibility and practice.  Its publication by Punctum Books as downloadable file, bound book, and interactive website will make it readily and widely accessible, portable, and easily shared and exchanged. 

Making the Geologic Now offers early sightings of an increasingly widespread turn toward the geologic as source of explanation, motivation, and inspiration for creative responses to conditions of the present moment. As a signal from edges of feasibility, this edited collection circulates images and short essays from over 40 artists, designers, architects, scholars, and journalists who are actively exploring and creatively responding to the geologic depth of “now.”
Contributors’ ideas and works are drawn from architecture, design, contemporary philosophy and art.  They are offered as test sites for what might become thinkable or possible if humans were to collectively take up the geologic as our instructive co-designer—as a partner in designing thoughts, objects, systems, and experiences.

Contributors include:  Matt Baker, Jarrod Beck, Stephen Becker, Brooke Belisle, Jane Bennett, David Benque, Canary Project (Susannah Sayler, Edward Morris), Center for Land Use Interpretation, Brian Davis, Seth Denizen, Anthony Easton, Elizabeth Ellsworth, Valeria Federighi, William L. Fox, David Gersten, Bill Gilbert, Oliver Goodhall, John Gordon, Ilana Halperin, Lisa Hirmer, Rob Holmes, Katie Holten, Jane Hutton, Julia Kagen, Wade Kavanaugh, Oliver Kellhammer, Elizabeth Kolbert, Janike Kampevold Larsen, Jamie Kruse, William Lamson, Tim Maly, Geoff Manaugh, Don McKay, Rachel McRae, Brett Milligan, Christian MilNeil, Laura Moriarity, Stephen Nguyen, Erika Osborne, Trevor Paglen, Anne Reeve, Victoria Sambunaris, Paul Lloyd Sargent, Antonio Stoppani, Rachel Sussman, Shimpei Takeda, Chris Taylor, Ryan Thompson, Etienne Turpin, Nicola Twilley, Bryan M. Wilson.

Shinglehook by Matt Baker - a place to wait for the completion of a geomorphological process that will take 10,000 years to complete