[published] Figurations of timely Extraction

 (by The Underground Division: Helen Pritchard, Jara Rocha, Femke Snelting)

 

Abstract:

During recent years, geocomputation has become increasingly entangled with so-called 4D visualization. The contemporary infrastructure of fossil fuel extraction depends on these software tools for geological data handling, interpretation and modelling of subterranea. This paper makes use of the contaminated and contaminating practice of figuration to plot stories that highlight some of the milestones of deadly collaboration, of optimised acceleration, and of sedimented damage. It engages with three figurations of timely extraction (Consortium, Borehole and Amalgam), to tell stories that provide a way to make present the time-space complexities that emerge from the connections between extractivism, computation and semiotic-material values. The Underground Division studies those rocky figurations to expose some of their interdependent articulations such as transnational alliances, gold mining and geocomputation and how they shape life/non-life temporalities. We argue that the dynamic crossings of time and matter that Consortium, Borehole and Amalgam are embedded in establish a dynamics of repeated damage, via latent regimes which maintain extractive forces, practices and modes. We amalgamate the clock time of turbo-computing with the megaannums at the timeline of digitally mediated rocks to present agential combinations of exclusion and occlusion that each create unique modes of discrimination and privilege.

Full paper: 

http://journalcontent.mediatheoryjournal.org/index.php/mt/article/view/123

Media Theory Journal Vol 4 No 2 (2020): Mediating Presents (edited by Rebecca Coleman & Susann Paasonen): 

http://journalcontent.mediatheoryjournal.org/index.php/mt/issue/view/7