Giulia Bruno and Armin Linke: Earth Indices: Processing the Anthropocene

The Earth Indices exhibition by artists Giulia Bruno and Armin Linke explores the scientific and social conditions producing the new geological epoch, the Anthropocene.

How do we make sense of the transformations in the Earth system? Who is writing the chronicle of the planet? What are the tools and practices that allow us to read Earth’s changes? Over the past two years, Giulia Bruno and Armin Linke have closely followed the research of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) on the geological evidence for the new Earth epoch. Since 2019, the AWG has coordinated a global search for stratigraphic evidence of the Anthropocene. International research teams took geological samples and cores in Antarctica, the Baltic Sea, the Great Barrier Reef and northeastern China, among other places, to reveal the onset of the human-made epoch. From microplastics to carbonaceous particles produced by burning fossil fuels to radionuclides from atmospheric nuclear weapons testings, teams of researchers are examining the various cores for a wide variety of markers to uncover clear evidence of the Anthropocene in Earth’s environmental archives. Earth Indices portrays both the natural landscapes from which anthropogenic sediments are laboriously extracted as well as the complexities of laboratory processes and the inscription devices they employ to transform the sediment into data that can be interpreted. The exhibition focuses on the spaces of social interaction in which this scientific research takes place, shedding light on the specific procedures and tasks involved in the production of geological evidence. In this way, a multilayered archive is created that relates the anthropogenic traces in the Earth system to the emerging body of knowledge of a new geological epoch.

In 2022, Haus der Kulturen der Welt is accompanying the research by the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) on the scientific formalization of the new geological epoch with a wide range of events, online publications and installations. Beginning on May 18, the scientific presentations Anthropocene Working Group. A Scientific Forum, the theme days Unearthing the Present and the exhibition Earth Indices by Giulia Bruno and Armin Linke will take place at HKW. During the second half of the year, these will be followed by the discourse events Where is the Planetary? and Anthropocene Curriculum Season 2022. At a final press conference in December 2022, the AWG will announce which of the various cores will provide evidence for the new geologic epoch and be submitted as an official proposal to the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS).

Earth Indices. Processing the Anthropocene is an exhibition project by Giulia Bruno, Armin Linke and Haus der Kulturen der Welt in collaboration with the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG). It is part of Evidence & Experiment (2019–2022), supported by the Federal Foreign Office in the framework of The Anthropocene and Its Implications for Archives and Museums and by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media based on a ruling of the German Bundestag.

Press contact: Jan Trautmann, Head of Press and PR

Register for the press tour at presse [​at​] hkw.de.