Uncertain Grounds, or the Collapse of Time, Nature, and Technology

By 2030, the arctic city of Kiruna, Sweden will have relocated some 8,000 of its 18,000 inhabitants, forcing people out of their neighborhoods to make room for the continuous excavations of a valuable iron ore vein (depicted here as a black mass) that runs directly beneath their homes. Less than 100 years from now, the entire town will have disappeared, as the ground will have cracked and subsided several meters below its current level. This drawing marks the position of the buildings in Kiruna in 2019. These same buildings have been extruded downward to reveal the new level of the ground in the year 2100, when the dominance of economics and impending climate change will have managed to erase the urban fabric entirely. Displaced by the same mining industry that led to its foundation, Kiruna is but one case in a world obsessed with consumption and resource exploitation.