The technical non-reproducibility of the Earth system: Scale, Biosphere 2, and T.C. Boyle’s Terranauts

Abstract

The Anthropocene concept draws on a technologically mediated macroscale, allegedly all-encompassing perspective on the interconnectedness of planetary, social and cultural systems. It is thus part of a genealogy traceable to systems thinking and cybernetic imaginaries of planetary-scale controllability; but at the same time, it relies on a techno-scientific infrastructure that is part of the accumulation of technical entities which Peter Haff calls “technosphere.” This oscillation between technology as a means of control and as an autonomous system that is inaccessible to sensual experience constitutes a theoretical challenge. Responding to this challenge, we combine Haff’s “technosphere” theory with a focus on the aspect of scale and the environmental character of technology. We discuss the Biosphere 2 experiment and its literary reflection in T.C. Boyle’s novel The Terranauts (2016) as an example of an attempted lower-scale technological reproduction of the Earth system. We show that the experiment suggests that technology has to be conceived as both scale variant (its functions differ across scales) and independent from its scale (as always already constituted by its respective environment).