Life Support System / DISNOVATION.ORG (FR/PL/CA) / Photo: disnovation.org

Life Support System

DISNOVATION.ORG (FR/PL/CA)

Ecosystem Services Estimation Experiment

This artistic provocation seeks to estimate the orders of magnitude of critical ecosystem services fundamental to all planetary life processes.

It is common to use economic metaphors, which entail specific understandings of value, to describe our relationships with society, the world, and the biosphere. Today’s prevailing economic conventions are unable to recognize the intrinsic value of the ecosystems on which all life depends. In cultures overdetermined by concepts from economics, we are left without adequate discursive instruments to socially or politically address the importance of ecosystem contribution to life on Earth.

This experiment consists of 1 square meter of wheat, cultivated in a closed environment. Critical inputs such as water, light, heat, and nutrients are measured, monitored, and displayed for the public. This procedure makes palpable the immense scale of ecosystem contributions and provides a speculative reference for a reckoning of the undervalued and over-exploited “work of the biosphere.”

Credit: 2020-2021 — DISNOVATION.ORG & Baruch Gottlieb
3d video design: Jules Barton
Video voice over: Baruch Gottlieb
Web Developer: Jérôme Saint-Clair
Production: iMAL (BE) | Coproduction: Biennale Chroniques (FR)