We are pleased to announce the launch of the latest issue of Scenario Journal – Scenario 5: Extraction.
Extraction sustains our society. We rely on energy to power the technology in our lives but are disconnected from the landscapes that must be exploited to yield that energy. We dig and blast materials to construct and repair the physical infrastructure of our towns and cities, but rarely pause to think about the origin of the gravel, concrete, stone, and steel that comprise the built environment.
This issue of Scenario Journal explores a range of extraction landscapes, and the networks that sustain them. The pieces in this collection bring us to the sites of extraction of a range of materials (coal, oil, water, gravel, slate, cement, phosphate, copper and gold, as well as more intangible materials like wind, fish, and solar radiation). They tie together the materials and spaces of extraction with the underlying processes and flows that drive these landscape transformations. Collectively the pieces in this collection present extraction as a condition rooted in history, yet actively transforming the future of the landscape, and along with it communities, economies, technology, and equity.
Extraction collectively represents humanity’s most drastic and lasting imprint upon the geological and ecological patterns of the Earth. By looking closely at the relationship between resource consumption and networks of extraction, we aim to highlight the reciprocal nature of these paired landscapes, and to give designers, artists, planners, engineers, and urban citizens a spatial vocabulary for taking collective responsibility for landscape transformation.
Scenario 5: Extraction brings together critical essays, projective design proposals, rich photo pieces, historic research, and speculative fiction by Bradford Watson and Sean Burkholder, Gavin Bridge, J Henry Fair, Frank Matero, Guy Trangoš and Kerry Bobbins, Claudia Bode, Rob Holmes, Lauren Sosa and Christie Allen, Neyran Turan, Neeraj Bhatia, Nicholas Pevzner, Jamie Vanucchi, Elizabeth Yarina, Matthew Wiener, and Alexander Breedon.
The full issue of Scenario 5: Extraction can be found free of charge on this site. Its been a pleasure working with such a talented group of authors. We hope you enjoy reading this issue, and share it with your friends and colleagues.
Stephanie Carlisle and Nicholas Pevzner
Editors-in-Chief // Scenario Journal