Orienting in the Planetary Chronology
To represent a planetary section, we begin with North and South Dakota. Standing in Minneapolis, we look towards the Dakotas. North Dakota is to our right, South Dakota is to our left. Going far enough through the earth, we arrive at the Antipode.
But we have not made a tunnel, we have cut the whole Earth, through everything on all sides, on our way from the Dakotas to their antipode, the Kerguelen Plateau. In making that cut, we cut through any number of spheres (geospheres, atmospheres, biospheres, technospheres); submarine internet cables in the Colombian trench, Walruses on Wrangel island, a glacier, the Federal Petroleum reserves, the Tianjin Municipality, a bioluminescent lagoon, a cloud of methane… all instances of planetary chronology.
By identifying the antipode, a peculiar friend, and expanding the scope until we encircle the earth, we have created a planetary section. This sectional understanding of the world is a mobilization of deep times, in terms of representation, depth, and temporality [1].
