AV installation by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
Challenging the techno-utopian dream of space colonisation and its inevitably exploitative tendencies, The Wilding of Mars imagines a Mars colonised only by plants. Unfolding over millennia but exhibited at a timescale adapted to human hours, the installation simulates the growth of a planetary wilderness, seeded with extremophilic Earth life forms. Multiple simulations run in parallel; endless possible worlds emerge, challenging the assumption that the outcome of space colonisation must be human benefit. Like other “frontiers”, Mars is typically seen as open for exploitation, whether or not indigenous life exists there. The Wilding of Mars prioritises a non-human perspective with plants visibly growing and colonising the terrain, while voyeuristic camera angles heighten human intrusion, as we loom over a landscape of surveillance screens.
