Ceramics: Geologic Lens - Systemic Practice (original) (raw)

The origin, life cycle and existential nature of the planet earth may be thought of in terms common to both ceramics and geology. Primal elements of fire and earth, intrinsic to any definition of ceramics are also fundamental to the geologic interpretation of the physical earth. This analogy of the geologic lens includes a full range of organic and inorganic materials and processes such as igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks, geo-biotic assemblages and the morphologies of their denudative and generative processes, including parallel human constructs. From this concept, an extended definition of the materiality and processes of ceramics may be extrapolated and new associative structures proposed and examined. In this light, from nature throughout geologic time, ceramic-like structures could include: deposits of calcareous and siliceous ooze on oceanic basins, stratigraphic structures of terrestrial silt, mud and sandstone as well as intrusive/extrusive bodies of igneous and metamorphic rock. By similar association into the Anthropocene 1 Epoch, or current human era, ceramics may include: civic highway/hydrologic systems, skyscrapers, agricultural fields, earthworks, ceramic objects, among many others. By the addition of a broader scale of geologic terminology, context and concepts such as: intrusion, erosion, deposition, diagenesis, metasomatism, facies, geochrono-and allo-stratigraphy, etc., to the already partially geology-engaged language of ceramics, a discourse opens to new landscapes, timescapes and ecologies with cross-generative potential. This extended language can stimulate the creation of useful analogs of human activity and the human-built environment within natural systems and consciousness to vitalize forms of systemic practice for art, architecture, industry that both enriches our understanding of materiality and process as well as potentially creating a coequal relationship with our environment. Cities, architecture, roads and other civic constructions made by mankind of earth materials during the Anthropocene Epoch, may also be described as forms of anthroturbation 2 , which describes the disturbance, dislocation and restructuring of geologic formations and materials by human agencies into new forms. In addition to the anthroturbational analogies of: mining as erosion, transport as flow and construction as sedimentation, the built topography of a city can be understood in geomorphic terms: streets as canyons, buildings as plateaus, sewers as caves and plazas as playas.