Where is the Planetary?

The first evening sets up the search for a model of sustainable collaboration under planetary conditions: What diverse worldviews underlie the way we deal with the planet’s crises? How can a common political and social agency emerge from this? In an experimental setting designed by artist Koki Tanaka, scientists, scholars and artists share various perspectives on planetary practice: from zooming out to the cosmic, grounding back to our geological Earth and personal biographies, to exploring the ethics of repair and care and the vision of a second primordial soup for planetary survival.

7 pm
Planetary Habitability Part 1
Presentations
With Koki Tanaka, Lisa Baraitser, L. Sasha Gora, Jan Zalasiewicz (remote)

We become aware of the planetary at the moment certain modes of life bring the life-support systems of Earth to their limits. But how these thresholds are breached, measured, or felt varies greatly depending on the ideologies and worldviews that underlie them or the material limitations they effect.

The evening begins with a search for the location of the planetary, informed by diverse practices like care and geological research. Over the course of the evening, Koki Tanaka will introduce his practice alongside models for developing planetary collaboration which will take place the following day.

8 pm
Planetary Habitability Part 2
Presentations
With L. Sasha Gora, Jahnavi Phalkey, Patricia Reed, Fernando Silva e Silva, Nikiwe Solomon, Jenna Sutela, Simon Turner, Mi You, Mark Williams, Gary Zhexi Zhang

How do different social and political assumptions behind any understanding of planetary boundaries affect the possibilities for understanding each other, the measurability of the planet at multiple scales, and the possibility of agreeing on and implementing effective countermeasures?

A group discussion between participants reimagines collaboration from the chaotic processes of a primordial soup. The session then concludes with a collaborative game for finding common understanding about different concepts through free association and playing with the differences produced as a form of measurement of assumptions and epistemologies.

9 pm
Planetary Habitability Part 3
Presentations
With Ravi Agarwal, Maria Chehonadskih, Myung-Ae Choi, Kai van Eikels, continent. (Jamie Allen, Paul Boshears, Nina Jäger, Lital Khaikin, Anna-Luisa Lorenz), John Kim, Francine McCarthy, Claire Pentecost, Adania Shibli, Rebecca Snedeker

How can our thinking about problems of governance and the politics of planetary concerns benefit from a tentative shift toward alternative behavioral patterns? Testing, as humans, acting as a swarm; attempting to operate as a group but leaving central coordination behind … What happens, then, when we meet another entity or constellation of people, acting under their own, different, individually paced parameters? How can we tell stories about these moments of collision between concepts of worlds, and worlds of concepts? Can we find new entry points to write alternative – or even better, planetary – stories that account for this plurality?