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The Routledge Companion to Design Research
GeoMerce: Speculative relationships between nature, technology and capitalism
This paper chronicles and reflects on the processes and the meanings of a project titled GeoMerce. GeoMerce is a project of speculative design that creates a narrative based on the scientific notion of phytomining, the activity of extracting metals from the soil using plants. The narrative of the project generates a scenario in which agriculture and finance blend with each other. The project brought together a diverse network of professionals ranging from biologists, technologists, financial advisors, tinkerers, videomakers, enabling an exchange of voices that otherwise would have not occurred. Besides the scientific and technical challenges posed by GeoMerce, the authors of this paper reflect on the critical framework that set the basis for such a complex project. In fact, while GeoMerce seems to hint at the possibility of a bright and positive future, it also casts the shadows of a dystopian scenario in which financial profit and actual or speculative monetary value determine every aspect of our world, including nature and our relationship with it. In this sense, GeoMerce serves as a trojan horse that first seduces the viewer with the promises of a rising Green Capitalism; while on the other hand it reveals the horror of a world where nature is just another financial asset.
Words
I would like to thank: Stimuleringsfunds Creative Industries; Giovanni Innella; the Plant Sciences and Environmental Sciences group of the University of Wageningen. This book chapter partially builds on work previously presented at conference: The Ecological Turn, January 2021. Another version was presented at conference: Safe Harbors, October 2021.
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Team
Design & concept
Giovanni Innella; Gionata Gatto
Methodology
Giovanni Innella; Gionata Gatto
Writing
Giovanni Innella; Gionata Gatto
Review
Giovanni Innella; Gionata Gatto
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