PROJECT TITLE
“Landscape of False Information”

DETAILS
Computer-generated form. CNC-milled from high density foam. 

SUPPORTED BY
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility
The New School
A/D/O Brooklyn
Goldsmiths, University of London Jan Boelen

Generated from discredited scientific models of the Earth’s magnetic field, this piece contends with a geophysical phenomenon which has long been a site of cultural and scientific speculation. To this day, scientists are unable to explain the origins of the Earth’s magnetic field, produce reliable models, or accurately predict its movements - despite countless attempts. As it erratically swells and shifts, it leaves a build-up of scientific errors, false predictions, and miscalculations in its wake.

The resulting sculpture offers an alternative material record of the Earth’s magnetic field, which makes tangible the protracted and messy processes of building conceptual and computational models of complex Earth systems. Procedurally generated in Blender, its topography draws on a range of disproven models and data sets - from dimensions of a fictional magnetic mountain shown in the first known map of the Arctic (Gerardus Mercator, 1595) to more recent false predictions for the magnetic pole’s wandering path.