Some Recovered Taxonomic Fragments
AC-CS #45028
A twenty-second century taxonomy was recently retrieved from a drive in a sealed server room in a flooded area of London. Although the file was largely corrupted after centuries of data degradation, specialists recovered some intact fragments allowing a glimpse into some aspects of the final stage of late modernity. In this taxonomy we can glimpse a rational framework in the process of transformation—in the face of impending climate collapse and in the wake of historical reflexivity—as it begins to incorporate interpenetrations and interdependencies.
Read MoreATMOSPHANAE: The Atmospheric Agents
Self-Suffocating Agents
AUTOSUFFOCOACEAE
CAPITALOSPERMAE: The Accumulating Agents
COLONARIALES: The Colonizing Agents
The Biotopic Reordering Agents
COLOMBIANAE/PRAEDORACEAE
OBSUCUREAE: The Systemizing Agents
The Terraforming Agents
TERRAFORMIDAEA
The Sailing Agents
CIRCUMVEHORACEAE
The Revolutionary Agents
REVOLUTIONACEAE
Conversation: Salome Rodeck and Matthew C. Wilson
Matthew C. Wilson is an American artist, filmmaker, and researcher based in the Netherlands. In his films, sculptures, and installations viewers encounter a range of agents—mercurial materials, non-humans, intersubjective entities—entangled in natural processes and shape-shifting historical forces. Wilson is currently a tutor at the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam.
Please cite as: Wilson, M C and S Rodeck (2022) Some Recovered Taxonomic Fragments. In: Rosol C and Rispoli G (eds) Anthropogenic Markers: Stratigraphy and Context, Anthropocene Curriculum. Berlin: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. DOI: 10.58049/0za1-fj73
Between 2013-2022 the Anthropocene Curriculum was developed by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW, Berlin) and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG, Berlin), in collaboration with many partners worldwide. The website archive is now maintained by the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology.