DAN MILLER
INDEX
ABOUT
2025
It’s no surprise that the last 12,000 years of human history have taken a dramatic toll on the planet. But something similar has been happening inside the human body – the wilderness within us has also become markedly more homogenous.
The front of the disk visualizes the largest dataset of such microbes ever assembled. It shows an evolutionary tree of these microbes, comprising more than 150,000 unique genetic sequences grouped into almost 5,000 tree elements, or species. The oldest microbial ancestor in the human microbiome is at the center of the spiral.
The back of the disk visualizes a model of 12,000 years of human activity. It shows that almost three-quarters of terrestrial nature has long been shaped, in very different ways, by people. The crisis of biodiversity does not stem from human habitation and use as such, but from the intensifying appropriation, exploitation, and urbanization of the planet we live on.
As urbanization accelerates, biodiversity shrinks within and without.
The visulizations on either side of the 6m diameter disk, to be installed in the Triennale di Milano, relate two very different scales of biodiversity related to human activity: mircobiomes and anthromes, along a 12,000 year timeline.
Tools:
Python, D3.js, QGIS, Adobe Illustrator