Menno Brouwer

Borders & Territories

Critical Zone Sensor

The Critical Zone is a thin layer of several hundred metres thick above and below the surface of our planet in which human activity has a significant impact on earth’s geology and ecosystems. The project facilitates the sensing devices used to research the Critical Zone and aims to integrate the multiple disciplines of Critical Zone Science such as geology, hydrology and ecology to understand the Critical Zone as one heterogeneous, complex system.

The self-sufficient shell, inspired by biomimicry, conceives the project as a sensory extension of the human body. Developed through several philosophical concepts, such as Deleuze’s Desiring Machines and the Body without Organs, the project speculates on an intimate relationship between the human body and technology with unconventional bodily perceptions of the sensed data and an intimate spatial complexity. Finally, the porous and corrosive 3D-printed shell generates a symbiosis between the project and the Critical Zone.

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