Research

A global system of cold storages, cold chains, and air-conditioned spaces has become an energy-intensive, yet barely considered, planetary infrastructure. This artificial cryosphere is all around us, yet we have no unified account of its history, extent, or function. We know even less about the cryogenic cultures – social desires, norms, and values – that drive the globally growing demand, but unevenly distributed use of artificial cold.

Demand for artificial cooling will escalate significantly as countries around the world grapple with the unprecedented temperature increases coming with global warming. Projections indicate a fivefold increase in energy required for global cooling by 2050. Meeting this vast energy demand with existing resources is neither feasible, nor sustainable. Moreover, artificial cooling systems contribute considerably to CO2 emissions, further aggravating global warming and leading to even higher cooling demands. This creates a vicious cycle stoking social conflicts and ecological crises.

The global infrastructure of artificial cold is intricately woven into cultural practices, and without a better understanding of this, averting a global cooling crisis will be unattainable. To reimagine our increasingly fraught love affair with the cool, it is crucial to start with an in-depth examination of the cultural dynamics that drive this unsustainable reliance. This ERC Synergy Research Project explores the formation of both cold-producing and cold-consuming cultures, examining their spatial and temporal configurations, concepts, norms, and practices. By investigating their historical contexts and geographical varieties, Cultures of the Cryosphere also aims to identify potential alternatives that could foster a more sustainable future for artificial cold.

In order to analyze the constitution of cryogenic cultures, we undertake four interdisciplinary multi-sited case studies in the domains of food supply, air conditioning, biomedicine and computing, using mixed-methods rooted in the history of technology, geography, digital history of concepts, ethnography and the philosophy and ethics of technology.

1. Using a multi-layered open-access geodatabase, we will map the expansion of the cryosphere – making visible the complex infrastructural cooling networks that encompass our planet. This first planetary atlas of artificial cold will illustrate its hubs, nodes, flows, uneven distribution, and projected growth.
2. Cooling also fundamentally shapes the temporality of life: by deseasonalizing food supplies and extending time horizons for biological reproduction, thereby changing our concepts of freshness, availability, health, and life. We employ cutting-edge big-data text analysis tools, like SCoT and DiaCollo, to trace such cultural shifts and create a first digital history of these concepts.
3. To reveal the cultural drivers for the adoption of cooling technologies we undertake ethnographic case studies in four key regions: East Australia, West India, Central Europe, and the US-American South. Immersive participant observation and qualitative interviews will reveal why cooling practices have accelerated, while extracted focus groups and deliberative mapping exercises will test the reception of potential solutions amongst representative groups.
4. To re-orient our relationship with cold, we must understand the desires and norms that shape its use, along with their consequential objects and practices. A normative analysis that combines digital text mining with social research and philosophical inquiry will reconstruct how these values and their reasons vary through time and place.
5. Finally, to identify alternatives to the current (over)use of artificial cold, we will gather abandoned, overlooked, and alternative modes of cooling and incorporate these into an open-access database: the Cryogenic Cultures Archive.