Territorial Agency

John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog

ANTHROPOCENE TERRITORIES

0000 The simultaneous definition of Gaia as a living entity and as a cybernetic device is a central difficulty in James Lovelock’s and Lynn Margulis’ view of the processes connecting the biosphere to the atmosphere of the Earth. While an auto-poietic system is self-producing and self-maintaining, a mechanism cannot change by itself, it requires the intervention of external beings, often through technological action.

0001 This simultaneous condition of Gaia is one of its most radical aspects: it forces one to re-conceptualise agency and the bonds, or limits of systems. The multiple strands of discussions around this key difficulty in Gaia have intensified in the 21st century, with the concomitant intensification of human spaces, which has led to the emergence of the contested notion of the Anthropocene.

0002 James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis developed the Gaia hypothesis, proposing that Earth functions as a self-regulating complex system, where living organisms interact with their environment to maintain conditions suitable for life, at the same time as the Great Acceleration that marks the inception of the Anthropocene epoch. In the Anthropocene, human activities disrupt the Earth’s feedback systems, challenging her resilience. In many ways Gaia and the Anthropocene emerge at the same time.

0003 Gaia theory, which proposes that the Earth's living systems actively regulate planetary conditions to remain habitable is ensconced in this difficulty, and has to address both the notions of regulator and the closure of an auto-poietic system. The direction of this address is a complete overhaul of modern technological thought, largely based on notions of enframing, isolation and action from the outside. Lovelock and Margulis explored evidence for Gaia, such as the unusual chemical composition of the atmosphere and the stability of climate over geological time, despite factors like the sun's increasing output. They contrasted this view with the traditional mechanical understanding of nature and highlight how human actions, particularly technological development and overpopulation, are now disrupting Earth’s auto-poiesis, leading to significant and potentially irreversible changes. These disruptions are the focus of the Anthropocene thesis of a new geological epoch.

0004 Anthropocene Territories are a proposition towards the stabilisation of the contested notion of the Anthropocene, and the apparent contradiction present in the double description of Gaia. Firstly, an Anthropocene Territory is one that emerges, and transforms existing living spaces, and thus needs to be outlined, their figure determined amidst multiple other forces and cycles, bearing both human and non-human signatures. In this sense an Anthropocene Territory does not pre-exist, it needs to be sensed, grasped and needs to be weighed in reference to a complex and shifting backdrop.

In a second sense, an Anthropocene Territory needs to be considered always from within, as a complex and dynamic network of agencies that connect an entity with the other entities that keep it alive. Due to Gaia's responsiveness (its unexpected reactions to human action), the meaning of territory is subverted. Following Bruno Latour, it is no longer a static, well- delineated pastoral landscape but consists of "highly surprising networks of unexpected connections" necessary for survival that can suddenly fail. It needs to be described as a "violent re-appropriation of all Humans titles by the Earth itself," suggesting a shared root between territory and terror.

0005 Remote sensing and space exploration played a crucial, originating role in the development of the Gaia concept, particularly for James Lovelock. Lovelock's initial thoughts about Gaia came from his work with NASA in the 1960s at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he was involved in the program concerned with the detection of life on other planets. The Gaia hypothesis arose directly from the invention of a method for planetary-life detection intended for use on the Viking missions to Mars. Atmospheric analysis as a detection method: the idea was that a planetary-acting biosphere would shift its physical environment away from thermodynamic equilibrium. Specifically, Lovelock recognized that life on an extraterrestrial planet might be detected by analyzing its atmosphere for a composition that was far from chemical equilibrium, indicating active maintenance by living organisms.

0006 A digital prototype for exploring Anthropocene Territories through integrated Earth and non-Earth Observation data can be understood as a platform to draw the various contested notions of processes shaping contemporary inhabitation (human and more than human) not out of nature into an abstract space, but back into the murky and hazy feedbacks and retroactions of the Earth.

This digital prototype is designed to help users identify and explore ‘Anthropocene Territories’—interconnections between human activity and other entities that has significantly reshaped Earth system processes. It does so by integrating Earth Observation (EO) remote sensing data with non-Earth Observation (non-EO) datasets in a unified, annotated platform. The prototype combines satellite-derived EO data—such as land cover change, atmospheric pollutants, and surface temperature—with non-EO sources including socio-economic data, in-situ measurements, policy documents, and historical archives. By projecting these diverse datasets onto a common semantic framework of Earth processes, the platform enables users to explore how human and natural systems interact across time and space.

0007 Central to the prototype are ‘interactive annotations’ that guide users in identifying key Earth processes within the data. These annotations highlight correlations between datasets— e.g., linking deforestation visible in EO imagery to commodity price changes or land-use policies found in non-EO records. Machine learning and expert input help generate these annotations, offering context that turns raw data into insight: the aim is to safeguard beforehand, to outline what entities depend on to survive.

The prototype’s visual interface supports thematic and temporal navigation, allowing users to trace the evolution of Anthropocene Territories—such as urban expansion zones, industrial agricultural frontiers, or coastal areas affected by sea-level rise. Users can compare regions, explore feedback and causal links, and build image narratives that reveal patterns of anthropogenic impact.

0008 Gaia fundamentally alters the perception of territory, moving it away from a static, bounded, and appropriable space governed by external laws or states towards a dynamic, interconnected, responsive, and self-regulated system that demands a rethinking of sovereignty, belonging, and political organization. Collaboration tools allow users of the prototype to contribute annotations, validate findings, and co-develop knowledge about Earth processes. This participatory approach helps refine the system while fostering interdisciplinary insight.

0009 The prototype functions as an aesthetic and semantic device for recognizing and interpreting the dynamics of Anthropocene Territories. By connecting EO and non-EO data with annotated context, it makes it possible to get glimpses of Gaia, not only as intrusions in a static and controlled space, but as an instrumented, informed analysis of how humans are reshaping planetary systems—making it a vital resource for research, education, and policy.

0010 Anthropocene Territories are ways of being appropriated by Gaia, of belonging to the entangled dance of agencies, and making tangent, sometimes ephemeral connections between knowledges: both auto-poiesis and life are knowledge events. Gaia is an aesthetic condition.

ANTHROPOCENE TERRITORIES, Use Case Scenario: Integrating Earth Observation and Sedimentary Records for Anthropocene GSSP Analysis

In the context of ongoing efforts to formally define the Anthropocene epoch, the analysis of sedimentary records from twelve candidate Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) sites provides a key line of evidence. These records reveal geochemical, biological, and physical indicators of rapid Earth system changes associated with human activity in themid-20th century, including radionuclide fallout, microplastics, combustion particles, and abrupt shifts in sediment composition.

To complement these high-resolution, site-specific sedimentary data, researchers employ the Anthropocene Territories prototype to integrate and dynamically annotate Earth Observation (EO) data that capture spatially and temporally broader environmental changes associated with the same systemic drivers identified in sediment cores. This integration allows for a holistic, multi-scalar understanding of the Anthropocene's stratigraphic markers and their planetary footprint.

The project is led by Territorial Agency with the Anthropocene Working Group, an international, multidisciplinary research team comprising stratigraphers, geology experts, climate scientists, Earth System scientists and social scientists. Their objective is to spatially contextualize and temporally correlate changes observed in sediment records with broader anthropogenic signals visible in satellite data from the mid-20th century to the present.

The twelve GSSP candidate sites—including Crawford Lake (Canada), the Baltic Sea, Beppu Bay (Japan), and others—are first geo-referenced and ingested into the GeoAnnotator platform. For each site, satellite imagery and ancillary EO datasets (such as land surface temperature, vegetation indices, impervious surface area, and atmospheric NO₂ or aerosol concentrations) are loaded as time-series layers spanning from the 1940s to the present.

Researchers annotate EO data dynamically, tagging land cover change, urbanization patterns, deforestation, and surface water variation visible in historical satellite imagery. At the Baltic Sea site, for instance, annotations track the progressive encroachment of increases in nutrients runoff from intensified agriculture, and changes in sedimentation rates in the sea catchment are. These spatial annotations are linked to specific stratigraphic features in sediment cores, such as the appearance of fly ash, radio nuclides, microplastics and shifts in pollen assemblages corresponding to landscape conversion.

At Crawford Lake, where varved sediments record annual deposition, the research team overlays EO-derived phenological data to correlate abrupt ecosystem shifts in the sediment record with regional land use changes and industrial emissions captured by remote sensing.

NDVI trends and thermal anomalies are annotated to highlight the onset of heat island effects and forest disturbance events. These features are cross-referenced with plutonium isotope spikes in sediment cores, marking the onset of the Great Acceleration and the beginning of the Anthropocene epoch.