Acknowledgments
If a book can be said to begin in a place, this collection surely has its point of origin in the office of Professor Jane Wolff, then the Director of the University of Toronto’s graduate programme in Landscape Architecture, who asked me, rather provocatively, why I had not yet considered the trajectory of my recent doctoral research in relation to the Anthropocene thesis. Prompted by her insistence that I more carefully investigate this relationship, I can say without any doubt that most of my philosophical, design-based, and activist work has, since that crystalizing conversation, been an attempt to more fully comprehend the implications of our planetary geological reformation. In early 2011, with the financial support of both the Walter B. Sanders Fellowship at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and a grant from the Institute for the Humanities, I curated a symposium at the University of Michigan titled The Geologic Turn: Architecture’s New Alliance. While the title was at first intended to be more suggestive than scientific, the lecture presentations and panel conversations left little doubt that if the geological and stratigraphic sciences were themselves becoming more speculative by way of their consideration of the Anthropocene thesis, then design could also benefit from a similar turn toward a much broader but no less urgent paradigm for contemporary practice. During this symposium, the support of my students in the Master of Science in Design Research programme—a post-professional degree programme the College sadly and unilaterally decided to eliminate, despite its tremendous success—helped execute the event without a hitch through their concerted, convivial participation. I owe a debt of gratitude to all the students and faculty who supported and attended this event, as well as everyone who participated, especially those whose work appears in this book, as well as Edward Eigen, D. Graham Burnett, Jamie Kruse and Elizabeth Ellsworth of smudge Studio, and Peter Galison, all of whom enlivened our discussion and imparted insights that have carried over into this collection. A thanks also to my colleagues from the College who facilitated the panel discussions, including Rania Ghosn, Meredith Miller, and Rosalyne Shieh, all of whom shared their expertise while opening the discussion toward new directions and concerns. During my two years at the University of Michigan, while this collection was beginning to take shape, I was incredibly fortunate to both teach and learn alongside a group of generous, challenging, and thoughtful colleagues, including Robert Adams, McLain Clutter, Robert Fishman, Andrew Herscher, Perry Kulper, Kathy Velikov, Jason Young, and Claire Zimmerman. As I was moving from Michigan to Jakarta, I also incurred a significant debt of gratitude to my colleagues at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, both for their organization of the Synapse: International Curators’ Network workshop, and for their ongoing support and interest in my research. This workshop was incredibly transformative, and every presentation challenged and encouraged me in unique ways. I would like to thank curators Xiaoyu Weng, Vincent Normand, Nabil Ahmed, and Anna-Sophie Springer for their continued friendship, conversation, and advice as this book project came to fruition. To our Synapse special guest, Richard Pell, I would also like to extend my gratitude for sharing insights, strategies, and support. To Scott Sørli, who has both curated my artistic work on the Anthropocene and taught together with me as a co-instructor for our graduate seminar on landscapes of extraction—a critical test for much of this project—I am especially grateful for mentorship and provocation. Farid Rakun, my fixer who quickly became a dear friend, and without whom I would have not made it a single day in Jakarta, is owed a special thanks for his ongoing patience and direction. I would also like to thank my new mentors at the University of Wollongong, especially Dr. Pascal Perez, Research Director of the SMART Infrastructure Facility, and Dr. Ian Buchanan, Director of the Institute for Social Transformation Research, both of whom have encouraged my scholarship and pushed me to develop my work on the Anthropocene through new practices and protocols of research. At SMART, I am also grateful to all my colleagues, especially Research Fellows Tom Holderness and Rohan Wickramasuriya, who, as part of our Urban Resilience Research Group, have inspired me to develop new tools and techniques adequate for addressing the urban condition of the Anthropocene. This book would not exist if not for the advice of John Paul Ricco, my advisor, mentor, and friend, who suggested that the Critical Climate Change series was the proper vehicle for disseminating this collection of research on the Anthropocene. I am also deeply indebted to my friend and colleague Heather Davis, who was essential in both conceptualizing and conducting many of the conversations in this book, and with whom I have already begun co-editing a second volume, Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Epistemologies and Environments, which we hope will further extend and intensify the concepts and concerns of the present collection. To each and every contributor whose work inspired this collection, I owe you all more than any edited volume could ever deliver for what you have shared with and inspired in me. To my copy editors, Lucas A. J. Freeman and Jeffrey Malecki, I owe a debt for their precision, patience, and superhuman attention. As series editors, Claire Colebrook and Tom Cohen have been fundamental in seeing this project though with their generous advice and encouragement; Sigi Jottkandt and David Ottina of Open Humanities Press have likewise been thoughtful and tireless advocates. Because this book departs significantly from previous OHP projects in terms of its demanding graphic design, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Sara Dean, whose prolific skill as a graphic designer allowed this project to be realized, and whose patience and support have been unflinching from start to finish. This collection would not have been possible without the stalwart support of my friends and family who, as generous as always, tolerated my often frustrating commitment to solitary research while encouraging me with care, love, and important reminders to sleep. Finally, as a gesture of deep, enduring gratitude, I would like to dedicate this book to my mentor, Jane Wolff, who taught me—and no doubt many others—to see the landscape as made, not given.