1000 Years

1000 Years

borosilicate glass, blown glass, saltwater, espresso, ocean sediment
3.04m x 44mm
2017

This is 1000 years - long, wet, salty and stinky, and sealed-up in 1.52m borosilicate tubes. One tube depicts the Meridional Overturning Circulation full of wet, salty and stinky flowing poop, and the other a layered collection of wet, salty and stinky poop at a single location.

The Meriodional Overturning Circulation is a system of ocean currents spanning the entire globe, driven by temperature and salinity-dependent instabilities, and large-scale wind patterns. Cold, salty water is more dense than warm, fresh water, and when you have this vertical instability in the water column, you have overturning. A complete overturning of the entire world's oceans occurs in ~1000 years.

This is the same amount of time represented by the accompanying long, wet and stinky sediment core. Oceanic detritus that's heavy enough and isn't recycled through ocean biochemistry eventually settles to the bottom, creating layers of sediment reflecting changes in the biogeochemical dynamics of the water column over many years. Sedimentation rates very considerably throughout the ocean, and in the Southern Ocean just west of Palmer Land, Antarctica, the sedimentation rate is approximately 1.52mm/per year, or 1.52m per millennia, the same length as the glass tube containing wet and stinky flowing poop.

1000 years is the time scale on which human activity affects the Earth in the Anthropocene. We can't see the depths of humanity's influence at this time scale, but if we could, it would probably look like poop.

FULL TEXT (PDF)

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1000 Years (detail)

archival pigment print
2017

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1000 Years (detail)

ocean sediment
1.52m x 44mm
2017

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1000 Years (detail)

archival pigment print
2017

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MOC - Surface and Deep Flows