This paper is about initiating a process of augmentation. The subject of this augmentation is the compound, technical term “greenhouse superstructure”. The process is initiated here by deposing the matter of colonial memory that is entrenched within this term. The deposition takes form as a brief genealogy, an account of related artworks, and a hypothesis about the destabilisation of this technological apparatus. Its passages and components outline the subtle and insidious dialectics of accelerated climate change that are converged and suppressed as an impasse within the very envelop of the term - physically, conceptually, metaphorically. In doing so, I discuss how the discourse, my artworks, and other interventions may reveal, emancipate, and display these entrenched conditions beyond the visual and technological privileges of the “greenhouse”. I thereon argue that these destabilising formats of sculptural display may be referred to as Anarchives, Site-Specific Greenhouse Superstructures, and, ultimately, as Social (Hyperobjective) Pedestals.

Breathtaking Greenhouse Parastructures is a doctoral work that supplements the unfinished modern opus The Arcades Project [in German Das Passagen-Werk (Mit Bindestrich und Werk mit Capital W) ]. The supplement takes the form of a sculptural, historical, and technological deposition of ‘greenhouse’ that presently oscillates between a past-background and future-foreground to Walter Benjamin's ‘theatrical’ handling of the Parisian arcades. From my Caribbean perspective, that oscillating treatment of ‘greenhouse’ affords me a prop from which to activate the following question: is colonial memory the drive of Global Warming?  That core question has led me to retrospectively hypothesise that the technology of ‘greenhouse’ is—beyond metaphor—the illusory (dis)embodiment of the toxic binaries of interior & exterior that are still shaping various influential frameworks such as the modern & Marxian ideas of superstructure, as well as the past & future of Western natural sciences (and their histories). Because of that illusory, spectral, if paranormal power, ‘greenhouse’ becomes at once the Western colonial enframing to both the messianic promise for conserving biological history, as well as the messianic remedy to suppress the traumæ that are destining Global Warming. Also, because of that potent (dis)embodied character, the robust analysis of the manifold instrumentalisation of ‘greenhouse’ is set to play a primary role in deposing the geological timeline of the Anthropocene. Now, while the book-supplement is itself the dissertation (as an unpacking of the aforementioned hypothetical findings), the PhD also relies on two other research devices that are worth mentioning: an installation (titled Anarquivo Negantrópico), and an online journal (titled Intransitive Journal). Altogether, the dissertation offers a field from which to asses my broader experimentation with infrastructures, epistemic things, and social pedestals. Moreover, the dissertation revises the so-called forgotten list of ‘Epistemologica’ (the categorical of Western display preparations and phenomenotechnologies) so to format my study and practice into an adaptable, careful, and differentiated kind of epistemológica…a careful study and practice that we may share as object-relations that proportionately (dis)play more-than-human perspectives for (re)mediating the forms and forces of the climate crises.

Breathtaking Greenhouse Parastructures är en doktorsavhandling som supplementerar Walter Benjamins oavslutade Passage-arbete. Supplementet har formen av en skulptural, historisk och teknisk deposition av ’växthus’ som oscillerar mellan en förfluten bakgrund och en framtida förgrund till Benjamins teatrala behandling av Parisarkaderna. Från mitt karibiska perspektiv erbjuder denna oscillerande behandling av ’växthus’ ett stöd för att aktivera följande fråga: Är kolonialt minne drivkraften hos global uppvärmning? Denna fråga har lett mig till att hypotesen att ’växthus’-tekniken är – bortom metaforen – det illusoriska (av)förkroppsligandet av den giftiga binära uppdelningen av interiör & exteriör som formar olika inflytelserika ramverk såsom den moderna & marxistiska idén om överbyggnad, liksom det förflutna & framtida hos de västerländska naturvetenskaperna (och deras historier). På grund av denna illusoriska, spektrala och paranormala kraft, blir ’växthus’ på en gång det västerländska koloniala ställandet av det messianska löftet för att bevara biologiska historia och den/det messianska lösningen/botemedlet för att undertrycka de trauman som styr global uppvärmning. Dessutom, på grund av denna kraftfulla (av)förkroppsligade karaktär, är den robusta analysen av den mångfaldiga instrumentaliseringen av ’växthus’ satt att spela en primär roll i deponering av den geologiska tidslinjen i antropocen. Medan bok-supplementet är själva avhandlingen (som en uppackning av nämnda hypotetiska upptäckter) så bygger avhandlingsarbetet också på två andra forskningsdelar: en installation, Anarquivo Negantrópico, och en online journal, Intransitive Journal. Avhandling erbjuder som helhet ett fält från vilket kan bedömas mitt vidare experimenterande med infrastrukturer, epistemiska saker och sociala piedestaler. Avhandlingen reviderar dessutom den så kallade glömda listan ‘Epistemologica’ (det kategoriska västerländska utställandet och fenomenotekniker) för att forma min studie och praktik till en anpassningsbar, försiktig och differentierad sorts epistemológica, en försiktig studie och praktik som vi kan dela som objekt-relationer som proportionella (upp)visningar mer-än-mänskliga perspektiv för att mediera och hela formerna och krafterna hos klimatkrisen.

Impresionantes paraestructuras ambientales es un trabajo doctoral que complementa la obra moderna inconclusa titulada Libro de los Pasajes de Walter Benjamin [en alemán Das Passagen-Werk (Mit Bindestrich und Werk mit Capital W)]. El suplemento toma la forma de una deposición escultórica, histórica y tecnológica del 'invernadero'. Dicha deposición se realiza mayormente a través de la 'indirección' como método que Benjamin presenta; uno que oscila, actualmente, entre un pasado en trasfondo y un posible futuro de primer plano, como experimentación 'teatral' de sus experiencias con las arcadas parisinas. Desde mi perspectiva caribeña, este tratamiento oscilante del 'invernadero' me proporciona un apoyo desde donde puedo activar la siguiente pregunta: ¿será la memoria colonial lo que propulsa el calentamiento global? Esa pregunta, como núcleo de gravedad, me lleva retrospectivamente a plantear una serie de hipótesis donde la tecnología del 'invernadero' es – más allá de lo metafórico – la fuerza ilusoria (des)encarnada del binario tóxico del interior | exterior que aun determina múltiples regímenes: e.g., la modernidad europea, los modelos marxistas de base y superestructura, así delineando el pasado y el futuro hegemónico de las ciencias naturales occidentales (y sus historias). A través de ese poder ilusorio, espectral, y paranormal del 'invernadero', podemos atestiguar un enfrentamiento colonial-occidental donde la promesa mesiánica de conservar la historia biológica se confunde con la promesa de ser remedio mesiánico para suprimir los traumas que destinan el cataclismo del calentamiento global. Además, debido a ese carácter potente (des)encarnado, un análisis robusto de la múltiple instrumentalización del 'invernadero' se presta para desempeñar un papel principal en la deposición de la cronología geológica del Antropoceno. Si bien, mi suplemento-como-libro es en sí mismo la disertación, como un esbozo desplegado de los hallazgos hipotéticos anteriormente mencionados. Mas el doctorado también se basa en otros dos dispositivos de investigación que vale la pena mencionar: una instalación (titulada Anarquivo Negantrópico) y una revista en línea (titulada Diario Intransitivo). En conjunto, la disertación ofrece un campo de donde podrás evaluar mi más amplia experimentación con infraestructuras, cosas epistémicas y pedestales sociales. Adicionalmente, la disertación revisa la tal olvidada lista de 'Epistemologica' (la categórica de preparaciones y fenomenotecnologías de exhibición occidentales) para hacer un llamado, y dar formato, a mi estudio y práctica como un tipo de epistemológica que es adaptable, cuidadosa y diferenciada ... una cuidadosa práctica y estudio que podemos compartir, mediante las relaciones-objetos que proporcionalmente demuestran perspectivas más-que-humanas para (re)mediar las formas y fuerzas de nuestras múltiples crisis climáticas.

Walter Benjamin deemed his Arcades Project [Das Passagen-Werk (Mit Bindestrich und Werk mit Capital W)] “the theatre of all my struggles and all my ideas.” As a vast accumulation of materials, it had become for him a literary laboratory for testing social, critical, and spatial ideas. The co-authors here present an exposition where they look to reactivate that ‘theatre’ to search, test, and draw from each other alternative recursions for their respective practices. Their respective discourses are intersected through a voluntary 'trialogue' that plays between three different roles aiming to diverge from the traditional form of a Q&A. The exchanges gravitate around ‘greenhouse’ as the historiographic display structure to the Arcades, as well as to Global Warming. But, the format also triggers ‘indirections’ urging unforeseen aspects that may further research and revisions of the Arcades. For the authors, such indirections actualise and translate, yet again, other dormant aspects of each others perceptions about Benjamin. Ultimately, joined by the attitude to share and reactivate that ‘theatre-laboratory’ with you—the reader and exposition visitor—the actors look for cues that encourage further procedures of experimentation and reflexion.

Through an artistic contribution, Luis Berríos-Negrón introduces his project “Earthscore Specularium,” developed at Färg fabriken in Stockholm in 2015. The work of Berríos-Negrón departs from a practice that deals with complexity to reflect upon notions that bring together ecology, art, architecture, science, and social practice. In recent years, he has been developing a set of conceptual devices he ultimately refers to as “social pedestals.” The latter consist of a series of architectonical installations that facilitate social encounters by resolving spatial practicalities, and at the same time reflect conceptually upon the dematerialization of sculpture. The “social pedestal” is conceived as a site for networked agency for social transformation, where the roles of the agents involved can permute, and different configurations can be organized depending of the needs of every specific situation. The “greenhouse”—which Luis treats as a social pedestal itself as well—is a long-term research site of the artist on the possibility of emancipating this type of technology in order to obtain anticipatory spatial, artistic, and social media.

Greenhouse is an opaque manifold of meanings. The opacity is not just the result of a layering that occurs when considering its many definitions. It is more so the result of the suppressed colonial violence that is implicit in its technological instrumentalization. This mythical violence, of willfully transplanting the exotic, is at the heart of allother compound terms and subsets of ‘greenhouse’. I have been working on how this opacity obscures a range of forces that shape the environment. More specifically, I amexploring how these opaque forces affect, and may be perceived through, the forms and languages of sculptural and spatial production beyond prescribed visual or imagined outcomes. The work you will encounter here is then a probe to test how the violent opacity of greenhouse may be demystified by shaping an index as potential format for dematerialized display.

I’ve wanted to talk to Walter Benjamin ever since encountering his Arcades Project. But – as much as that desire may be attune with Benjamin’s own commitment to bringing the past forth to the present – I can’t. I therefore turn to Arcades translator, and Benjamin scholar, Howard Eiland... and, it was inevitable that I had to return to the Arcades, not just because Benjamin meticulously objectified the glass and iron arcades as method and catalyst of research, but because, to me, ‘greenhouse’ does precede, and succeed, the arcades themselves as display and index of what was, and is to become of ‘natural history.’ For 'Legacy' I share excerpts of an interview (soon to be published entirely) that started at the Harvard Co-op in 2016; a conversation that continues to this day, by way of intermittent emails and other correspondence.

This is a text contribution that briefly explores the political, spatial, and pedagogical dimensions of Tropical Modernism in the Caribbean and Latin America.

In this paper I will propose that greenhouse superstructures are not just the surface envelop of an industrial typology: they are more so a spatial archetype. As such, they are historiographical boundary objects that at times display the spatiotemporal dimensions and geopolitical flows of environmental form in accelerated climate change. This abovementioned hypothesis is reflected through the manifold of “resilience” as defined by Prof. Lawrence Vale - of resilience being “a window into conflicting human values”. The aim of this effort is to ultimately centre the manifold notion of “greenhouse” as an index that points away from itself towards the impact of anthropological and technocratic ideologies on agricultural and spatial production. It is these binary ideologies that arguably create what we sense to be a crisis of scale, now further articulated as the hyperobject of climate change as a disjuncture that we nostalgically entertain as a chasm between the human condition and the living environment. Parsed by augmenting the notion of 'greenhouse superstructure' – as technology, gas, and effect – the hypothesis looks to articulate the greenhouse as a 'site-specific non-local' sensation on the expanding sculptural field. What this expanding sculptural netherworld implies needs to be rigorously addressed for it may very well become what tautologically heightens the greenhouse to the providence of becoming our future atmosphere and landscape. To elaborate this potentiality, I will first present the schematics and precedents of the dissertation, including four installations of my authorship in Germany, Brazil, and Sweden. These sections then lead to an argument instantiated by thinking of the greenhouse as 'social pedestal'. The objective is therefore to embody the notion of non-local site-specific resilience as modes of pedagogy and production that aspire to destabilise the anthropological machine, as resilient modes not limited to historic, scientific, artistic, correlational, nor speculative conventions.