The Intraplanetary Ecopoetics of Chaos: Astrogeography and the Construction of Surface

Keywords: Outer space, astronomy, astrogeography, critical poetics, areography
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 38

Abstract

From Martian valles to Enceladean sulci; the astrogeological term ‘chaos terrain’ describes any extraterrestrial location where dense patterns of conflicting structures reside. These strange terrains are hypothesised to be relatively young resurfacings caused by collapse, eruption, impact, subduction, erosion or sublimation. Embedding tumult as strange and estranging ground, chaos terrain are a particularly dynamic threshold where solar systemic and subterranean processes meet. Co-produced through an areographic gaze, chaos here signifies not only the release of wild energetics, but also its fossilised remains.

Beyond areography, can we encounter chaos terrain on their static, ceaseless ground? Does the chaos remain at this closer scale? Attempts to traverse a chaos terrain might be seen in Stanislaw Lem’s novel Solaris, where an alien surface is intimately close yet maddenly out of reach. Closer to home, in the Strugatsky brothers' novella Roadside Picnic, activity from an alien visitation leaves behind Zones, spaces which could perhaps best be understood as technological chaos terrain.

Attributing the condition of chaos to extraterrestrial surfaces reflects how areography reproduces, but also troubles, particular ways of seeing. Grouping geophysical forms into a chaos perhaps demonstrates how Euro-American aesthetic traditions (particularly regarding landscape) remain persistently present in astronomy. Meanwhile, chaos terrain offer a conceptual tool through which to unpack speculative experimentations with extraterrestriality. Finally, as climate collapse accelerates, could Earth be increasingly understood as a chaos terrain? Mobilising an intraplanetary mode of ecopoetics, this paper will interrogate the pitfalls and potentials of chaos terrain.