This pamphlet transcribes and reformats 3GRADPLUS: A Journey to the End of the World, a public performance by the Swiss journalist Hannes Grassegger, produced by the 2019 International Summer Festival Kampnagel in Hamburg. For the event, Grassegger re-enacted his reporting process for the piece “Der Fall Benjamin Green” [“The Case of Benjamin Green”] in the Swiss weekly Das Magazin, interviewing the writers, scientists, researchers and characters from the piece in the contingent and unpredictable setting of live theater. Some participants were present via video link; a few of Grassegger’s illustrations are reproduced here. Across its three hours, the event moved ...

Translation is imitative yet transformative. It can and routinely does establish a semantic correspondence and a stylistic approximation to the source text. But these relations can never give back that text intact… Change is unavoidable.

The discourse of sustainability in architecture is often associated with eco-capitalism: the theory and practice of a free-market economy in which natural resources are regarded as capital. Since profits are partially dependent on environmental protection, nature is treated as a commodity that needs to be restored after it is exploited for economic growth. This results in a looped accounting cycle of checks and balances… Likewise, the economic incentives for using “green technology” to create new markets rarely consider how these competitive, profit-driven scenarios will necessitate (new) forms of social mistreatment in order to flourish. Herein lies the crux of the ...

In 2015, the American Library Association adopted the Resolution on the Importance of Sustainable Libraries; since then, other international organizations have been quick to go along with the proposal, reporting on the potential relationship between sustainability and libraries. However, such documents (which, in general, support the role of librarians in building “sustainable, resilient and regenerative” communities and making “sustainable decisions”) remain purely statements of intent… that include a handful of trendy topics in their paragraphs, and fall short of being credible action plans. It is worrying to note that, despite the seriousness and urgency of the discussion, these statements tiptoe ...

In the bloody and destructive aftermath of the U.S.-led Coalition’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, cultural heritage workers debated how to prevent or suppress the looting of museums and archaeological sites. At the Fifth World Archaeological Congress, held in Washington, D.C. three months after the invasion, the destruction and looting of Iraqi cultural property, and the ethical responsibilities of archaeologists, were central concerns. Troubled by the explicit statements of some archaeologists and the implicit tone of others, I submitted Proposition 15. It cited the human right to “a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and ...

Underground nuclear and military materials have been the subject of international commissions, tribunals, and wars. Yet subterranean facilities also commonly inventory a similarly volatile, though less noxious, resource: information. SubTropolis’s central location, solidity, and security have drawn technology companies, who host data centers in the mine’s massive pillared rooms. Many underground garrisons and command centers of the Cold War era have likewise become “data bunkers.” Given that industrial metaphors of “mining” and “smithing” have long pervaded the discourses of intellectual labor, it should be no surprise that we’re now data mining inside our mines. And alongside the subterranean servers and ...

Mecca is the holiest city in the Islamic religion and the birthplace of the prophet Mohamed. Located just off Saudi Arabia’s western coast, all Muslims are required to visit at least once in their life if they are physically able to. With air travel becoming easier, the number of pilgrims has been rising rapidly over the last few decades, with a record number of 3 million people visiting Mecca simultaneously during the 2012 Hajj. More recently, visa regulations have been made more strict to keep the situation under control. In this episode, we discuss with various experts how this rising number ...

Archives have become a nexus in the wake of the digital turn. This book sets out to show how expanded archival practices can challenge contemporary conceptions and inform the redistribution of power and resources. Calling for the necessity to reimagine the potentials of archives in practice, the three contributions ask: Can archives fulfill their paradoxical potential as utopian sites in which the analog and the digital, the past and future, and remembrance and forgetting commingle?

Founders of nonfood, Lucy Chinen & Sean Raspet discuss contemporary food supply chains and sustainable food futures, including the R&D of their own algae-based nonbar. Along the way, we address: monocultures, fear, skeuomorphic flavor, cellular agriculture, and the real cost of “all-natural.” (w/ Caroline Busta, Daniel Keller, @LILINTERNET)