Humans have an ambiguous relationship to the ground, often identifying and personifying with the soil of their ‘homeland’, and depending on its fertility to survive – and yet, all too often, treating it as mere dirt. This neglect is more extreme in technological zones, not only in industrial areas, but in spaces of communication and transportation. In her new art project TERRA XENOBIOTICA Saša Spačal explores soil life at airports.

The installation Eternity Scanner, based on a residency at the Rillig Lab for Plant Ecologies at Freie Universität Berlin, invites the public to explore how pollutants, especially Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) such as Teflon, so called ‘forever chemicals,’ permeate the soils of airports. Essential in the art piece are 85 soil chromatograms developed from earth gradually polluted by increasing amounts of PFAS, making up Gradients of Eternity, a database created as first of many to train an AI neural network to recognise PFAS pollution on soil chromatograms, and metaphorically symbolising the 85 years since PFAS were first accidentally discovered. Visitors are encouraged to choose a soil chromatogram and place it on the Eternity Scanner, which acts as a contemporary oracle. “The directive is clear and compelling; our only requisite action is to attune ourselves to the scanner’s perpetual soundscapes” remarks the artist. Powered by AI, the scanner reads the chromatogram, producing a sonification of the information it contains, acting as a clarion call for a new generation to come forward and regard the land not as dominion, but as kin.