The Designed Planet

This one-day interdisciplinary event is intended to encourage an open-ended discussion on the planet as an object of conscious control.

We imagine geoengineering, terraforming, the Anthropocene concept, deep history, earth system science, rewilding, the humanisation of nature, speculative fiction, and integrated assessment models might potentially provide toeholds to ascend this difficult, towering topic. An intellectual collage that spans the ‘designed planet’ might include Buckminster Fuller's 'spaceship earth' and 'world game', David Keith's essay 'the Earth is not yet an artifact', Peder Anker's From Bauhaus to Ecohouse, Gökçe Günel's Spaceship in the Desert, Edward Burtynsky's photography, Simon Denny's Extractor art-game, EO Wilson's Half-Earth, and Holly Jean Buck's After Geoengineering. Each speaker will give a short paper (c. 30 minutes) followed by discussion.

Participants: Dehlia Hannah, Oxana Timofeeva, Nina Holm Vohnsen, Hito Steyerl, Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, Cameron Hu, Troy Vettese, Niklas Olsen.

The workshop is facilitated by Troy Vettese and Niklas Olsen. Please write to Troy Vettese and Niklas Olsen if you have further questions or would like to participate.

Programme

10:00 Coffee, croissants, and introduction 
10:30 - 12:00

First panel

  • Oxana Timofeeva (Humboldt University), ‘Victory over the sun: from the Black Square to the Dyson Sphere’.

  • Nina Holm Vohnsen (Aarhus University), ‘Utopia in Outer Space’ 
12:00 - 13:00 Lunch
13:00 - 14:30

Second panel

  • Troy Vettese (EUI), ‘Every Cook Can Plan: Governing the Global Polis’.

  • Dehlia Hannah (University of Copenhagen), ‘BLACKOUT’.
14:30 - 15:00 Coffee
15:00 - 16:30

Third Panel

  • Eglė Rindzevičiūtė (Kingston University), ‘The Soviet Designs of Cold War Planetarity’.

  • Cameron Hu (RIFS, Potsdam), ‘Doing Anything, or What the Earth System Entails’.
19:00 Dinner at V’Italian