SAVE THE DATE: MAKING THE GEOLOGIC NOW

SAVE THE DATE: MAKING THE GEOLOGIC NOW

11.13.2012, 4:17 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

cover image, Making the Geologic Now: Responses to Material Conditions of Contemporary Life (punctum books 2012,), from the Feasibility Project (Rachel, NV), smudge studio 2009

Save the date! We’re launching Making the Geologic Now: Responses to Material Conditions of Contemporary Life (punctum books, 2012) three weeks from today. On December 4th, from 7-9 p.m at Studio-X NYC we will be celebrating the project and the work of our fantastic contributors. We hope you can join us! Studio-X NYC, a project of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, is located at 180 Varick Street, Suite 1610.

Making the Geologic Now announces shifts in cultural sensibilities and practices.  It offers early sightings of an increasingly widespread turn toward the geologic as source of explanation, motivation, and inspiration for creative responses to material conditions of the present moment.  In the spirit of a broadside, this edited collection circulates images and short essays from over 40 artists, designers, architects, scholars, and journalists who are extending our active awareness of inhabitation out to the cosmos and down to the Earth’s iron core. Their works are offered as test sites for what might become thinkable and possible if humans were to take up the geologic as our instructive co-designer—as a partner in designing thoughts, things, systems, and experiences. As a reading and viewing event, Making the Geologic Now is designed to move with its audiences while delivering signals from unfolding edges of the “geologic now.” 

Making the Geologic Now will manifest across multiple formats. On December 4th, we will launch both the ebook (an open-source, free download from punctum) and the interactive, website version of the book.  The beautifully designed, printed book will be available at the launch for pre-order directly from the Making the Geologic Now page on punctumbooks.com, shipping in mid-December.

We’ll launch the party with a brief introduction to the project. Then, we’ll invite contributors to comment on what they brought to the book, as we screen videos and display selected images from the project.  Eileen Joy, director of punctum, will join us via Skype from Australia to share a bit about the spirit behind punctum books.

Drinks and snacks will fuel a downloading and social networking party as book contributors and supporters kick off the project’s viral future.

Given the current state of the Northeast region post-Sandy, we have a renewed sense of urgency about broadly distributing the book. We hope you will join us at the party, or online, and help us move this project through the world.

Additional details to follow, but for now, save the date!

 

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