The geological evidence for the technosphere is already provided by technofossils, unrecycled artefacts (as yet not mineralized) deposited on the surface of the planet, in the atmosphere (including greenhouse gases), and in the seas. (as well as in space and on other planets). Like other geological layers, the deposits from the technosphere are physically identifiable and can serve as markers in geological time – in this case very precise ones. The cultural dimensions of the technosphere are the province of archaeologists, but its physical elements and operation have been proposed as a new element in earth systems, and as a feature of the Anthropocene. Unlike the biosphere, whose circular processes recycle most of its material, making its fossils relatively rare, the technosphere to date has reabsorbed only a small portion of its physical debris, making technofossils globally widespread. In fact, technofossil diversity already exceeds known estimates of biological diversity and far exceeds recognized fossil diversity. (Jan Zalasiewicz et al. “Scale and diversity of the physical technosphere: A geological perspective”} The technnosphere’s inefficient recycling is a considerable threat to its own further development and to the parent biosphere.
Beijing Sports Park model 2014 chrome copper Thom Mayne / Morphosis Model Monograph (forthcoming)
from notes on M3: Mayne Models Monogaph
Part of the conceptual intent of the Anthropocene is to join the history of the Earth with the history of human activity into a single geohistory. This approach requires thinking on very different timescales: to consider both everyday activity and its consequences in geological time – to understand for instance that driving a car has consequences measured in hundreds of thousands of years, and to keep both of these timescales in mind.
The concept of the Technosphere as a new geological layer in the Anthropocene includes all the structures that humans have constructed to keep them alive on the planet – from houses, factories and farms to computer systems, smartphones and CDs, as well as the waste buried in landfills and scattered as debris. The lasting physical traces of this new layer are described as technofossils, analogous to dinosaur footprints found in sedimentary rocks. Like the fossilized footprints, technofossils are trace fossils. Trace fossils usually show tracks that animals made while moving across soft sediment. Common examples of trace fossils include burrows, nests, footprints, dung and tooth marks. These are the most common type of fossil, and can sometimes offer more information on how the organism lived (e.g. how it hunted and how it rested) than fossilized body parts can.
I have often wondered which time the work of Thom Mayne and Morphosis belongs to, and more particularly, what time is invoked in the models reproduced in this book. The mood of the work seems to occupy some middle ground between the dystopian and the utopian. Much of it seems equally futuristic as retrospective, but it lacks the nostalgic dimension of stylistic retrofuturism. A forthcoming publication devoted entirely to models of both built and unbuilt work seems to evoke future recollection in the future perfect tense (what in French is called the futur antérieure) – thinking ahead about looking back. Considering those models this way gives them the poignancy of technofossils and transforms this book into a kind of geohistorical atlas. Many of these models have been built out of machined metal parts, so they could potentially endure in geological time.
Yet compared to large human infrastructure, the time of these models, like the space they represent, must be considered at a reduced scale. Like other architectural models (see ruins of representation) these models still have a representational dimension, underscored by some of their materiality — especially through distressed materials, acceleratedly aged. While one of the machined metal objects could potentially remain undamaged for thousands of years, the timescale of these models is represented, more than physically embodied.