Domus IN 201903

ways we care for, design and tell the story of
the Earth with (rather than without) landfills,
mine pits, oil rigs. What would happen if
politics revolved around making visible
geographic externalities and the disputed
things, atmospheres, natures? To design the
Earth with externalities brings into
representation – into aesthetics and politics –
those things, spaces and scales that are
erased from the geographic imagination.
The plotlines develop uncomfortable yet
oddly constructive relationships with mined
ocean floor, space debris in orbit, dry watersheds,
particulate matter in the atmosphere, melting
icebergs and depleted oil reservoirs, and a wide
range of other unloved geographies.
How do we draw externalities as a matter of
concern? Design Earth proposes forms of
knowledge that synthesise scientific
epistemologies and sensible experience by
drawing on geographic representation,
speculative fiction and architectural drawings
to render worlds simultaneously comprehensible
and fantastic. To truly understand the
shape of the Earth, Geostories charts a range of
industrial landform typologies. The visual
geography draws together matters of the
environment into representations that
synthesise scientific knowledge across scales
and disciplines. Beyond documentary
descriptions, Geostories deploys speculative
fiction to engage technological questions in
relation to the planet, including those
created by broadening risk scenarios. In the face
of gloomy ecological predictions for the
Earth, speculative fiction might help us
comprehend such new worldly conditions and
reflect on reality without realism, without
optimisation, without determinism, and
without fear of the cosmic scale.