Into the Second Dust Bowl

Valerian Blos CLB Berlin Oct – Nov 2023

Interactive installation

Produced based on the workshop »There’s Something in the Air: Stage & Environment«

Futures of Air

Photos: © Michelle Mantel

The point of departure for Into the Second Dust Bowl is the so-called overshoot period – the time beyond the currently agreed limit of 1.5°C of global warming. »Dust bowl« refers to a devastating period of drought that, exacerbated by monoculture farming, devastated the Midwest of the U.S. in the 1930s. In the style of a Western theme park, the interactive installation shows everyday situations and processes of adaptation to new climatic conditions of persistent heat and heavy sandstorms. Large-scale technological climate interventions shape the collective reality of life sketched in the installation.

Such approaches are already being strategically implemented in research and industrial projects under the banner of geoengineering. These technologically motivated attempts at regulation, such as the injection of silver particles into the stratosphere, have far-reaching consequences because »What goes up must come down«.

Placed on top of the locomotive, the viewer’s smartphone becomes a video recording device, providing an inside view of the Second Dust Bowl, where new everyday strategies, rituals, and business ideas emerge from extreme weather situations. The video is a testament to the loss of supposedly stable ecological conditions, a process that has been ongoing since the mid-20 th century.