Petrified Media - What traces of our current civilization will remain in the geological layers of the planet? What will become of the technological devices that dominate our lives today in the millennia to come? How will these objects be transformed during their journey through time?
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\nInspired by the Anthropocene, media artist Stephen Cornford speculates on the deep future of electronic waste as it sediments into the Earth’s stratigraphic record. Applying geological techniques to a hypothetical “technofossil,” he seeks to materialize an inevitable scenario in which discarded technologies become part of the planet’s geology. Colorful images taken under a microscope are combined with analyses of the elemental composition and details of the origins of the metals essential to the production of today’s technological devices. Essays by Siobhan Angus, Jan Zalasiewicz, and Cornford himself approach the subject from their respective theoretical experiments.
