If new futures are to be imagined, there is an imperative for research which denies the assimilation of historically established knowledge systems such as those which absorb the Nature/Society binary. Utilising methods of world ecology through an entwined arts and social sciences practice, my research adopts a transdisciplinary approach to investigate the environment making dynamics of fossil carbons.

Nowhere is the hypostatization of the Nature/Society dualism more apparent than in the ontology of oil, described as “the structuring ‘Real’ of our contemporary sociopolitical imaginary” (Szeman, 2010). It is impossible to imagine or conceive of contemporary life existing as it does without fossil carbons. To overcome its inevitability, we need to change the way we know oil. Artistic research approaches enable imperceptible, distant and historical connections to be made visible, and new, emancipatory futures imagined. My research begins in the 75 hectares of land in Ingolstadt, Germany, formerly home to the ERIAG oil refineries of Bayernoil. Utilising situated photographic techniques as well as the analysis of existent visual materials, I follow the interconnected industrial practices of fossil carbons outwards from the Ingolstadt site as nexus.

My presentation questions established narratives of industry by drawing together constellations of materials to explore how artistic research can change our experience and understanding of deep time. Early postcards from extraction sites featuring text ‘TEXAS OIL WELL AFLAME!’; photographs created through situatedness in refinery neighbourhoods in Texas; sound recordings from global gas conferences; self-made maps of oil pipelines in Bavaria: what insight can a more-than-representational understanding of these materials offer when understood through oil as the ancient death of microorganisms and plants, and capitalism as an organising force? How might petro-geographies be unmade through transdisciplinary, artistic engagement?