Plastology 2100

By the year 2100, the former scientific disciplines of ecology, biology, geology, archaeology, and climate science have all merged into one discipline: plastology - the science and study of plastagems of the past, their uses and sites of contact, to better understand the plastic planet's climatic and ecological challenges. In fact, plastology is the only discipline in the future where malnutrition and a survival-first “lifestyle” mean that even the arts are no longer practiced. This is a time when frequent catastrophic weather events have caused people to live predominantly underground, making it difficult to study the ecology of the plastic planet. Because of this, a certain number of plastologists must travel through time to conduct their research.

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Dr. Katherine Greenfield is a time-traveling plastologist from The Real Institute of Plastological Sciences [R.I.P.S] in the year 2100. Dr. Greenfield's 2019 mission was to objectively study plastagem uses and culture, but she has lost contact with R.I.P.S. and her plastime machine is broken from her journey. However, her findings are now leading to some startling conclusions about the role that corporations and consumers played in creating the conditions of the future from whence she came. On the other hand, she finds herself with more freedom to develop an activist and artistic practice as she begins to stray from her original mission. Utilizing social interventionist tactics, Dr. Greenfield encourages people to develop an awareness of the presence of the future and how decisions we make in the present have real consequences for people and planet in the coming years.

Plastology 2100 is an ongoing interactive work that uses persona, humor, video, participation and public performance as methodologies for addressing climate malaise. There are many avenues through which a viewer or participant can encounter the work including live performances in public spaces, Instagram posts and stories, as well as YouTube videos or gallery installations of video works. It is a constantly evolving project wherein science fiction, time-travel, eco-feminism, eco-futurism, childhood nostalgia, and dark humor coalesce via multiple mediums: performance, video, photography, social media, writing, and a research-based methodology.

With the aim to inspire conversation and action on plastic pollution, climate change, and the modern human psychology in relation to ecological systems, Dr. Greenfield invites people to imagine better possible futures and reassess our individual and collective roles within them. Through representing and questioning systems of consumerism, waste, and digital culture in a thoughtful and humorous manner, Karolyn Greenstreet is currently developing her theory of Bathetic Futurism - a productive cultural practice for the psychological digestion of difficult realities that lie ahead for human civilization.

February 2019 - present