taCity

One of the fundamental epistemological tenants of the Capitalocene can be analysed via a rather old-fashioned motif: a geographical, specifically, a scalar narrative. That is because our current conjuncture compels us to confront a stark and often discordant juxtaposition: one that chaotically zooms from the cosmological, the planetary, the national, our neighbourhoods, our families, ourselves, our thoughts and back again, sometimes instantaneously.  

It is a relentless confrontation between the fallible, fragile, and imperfect reach of human experience and the overwhelming reality of a planetary-wide tapestry interwoven with interlinking, related, but semantically separate, permacrises. They encompass a horrifying spectrum of existential and seemingly insurmountable challenges, including geopolitical conflicts, the omnipresence of capitalist realism, climate catastrophe and its associated capricious hand of extreme weather events, and the ever-present threat of artificial intelligence (among many others that I have yet to experience in the relative comfort of the global north).

But, this now ubiquitous jarring of un-collapsable scales imposes a violence upon our psyches that reverberates deeply within the collective zeitgeist of our cultural productions (it is no wonder our artistic and media landscapes are howling into the void – both literally and figuratively – with ever increasing anger and rage). The existential violence is born of the dissonance between the immediate and the far-reaching, the microcosm and the macrocosm, the individual and the planetary. We find ourselves at an unfathomable complex intersection of human limitations and cosmic consequences, a vista where the finite human condition grapples with the infinite expanse of planetary (and soon no doubt, interplanetary) challenges.

This dissonance rattles our cognitive and emotional capabilities, provoking profound questions about the fragility of our existence and the potency of our actions. The limitations of our perception and understanding stand in stark contrast to the vast and complex realities of the Capitalocene. It unsettles our understanding of time, space, and causality, pushing us to grapple with the profound ethical, spiritual and philosophical implications of our era. Put another way, we watch on our screens, listen on our earpods, and mull in our consciousness the multiple tragedies unfolding across our world, all the while we’re packed onto commuter vessels that are shuttling us to a place of work to perform mundane and increasingly bullshit jobs: but amazingly. Both are of equal worry to us; both wound us equally.

In response to this dissonance, our cultural productions, be they art, literature, philosophy, or simply the noise of the increasing banality of radio phone-in shows, TikTok videos and morning TV shouting matches; they all bear the scars of this struggle. They reflect the tension between the immediate, the personal, the localized, and the transitory, and the enduring, the planetary, the cosmological, and the existential. But it is a creative tension that permeates our art, challenging us to confront the perspicacity of the crises we face and to seek innovative pathways towards reconciliation, transformation, and, ultimately, survival. The collision between the hopeful, emancipatory and soaring narratives and/or political activism, and the inevitable doom-scrolling critique, capitalistic appropriation and/or brutalisation and the hands of Empire is yet another facet of the ontologies of chaotic juxtaposition that animates the Capitalocene.

As we continue to navigate the relentless bruising and blood-letting friction between the human and cosmological experiences, our ability to adapt, evolve, and transcend our limitations will be – and is being – tested like never before. The future of the Capitalocene demands nothing less than a profound re-evaluation of our role in the universe and a reimagining of the experiences we share, the worlds we build, the politics we enact, the histories we write and the stories we tell.