THE SOLAR SHARE is a sustainable flows estimation experiment. This artistic provocation seeks to estimate the orders of magnitude of new solar energy income harvested by photosynthetic organism at a planetary scale, fundamental to all planetary life processes.

A project by DISNOVATION.ORG — 2024... [Installation, automated spirulina cultivation, live streaming, custom softwares]

Co-design: Katharina Ammann | Project assistants: Romain Theron, Léo Lima
Co-production: IFT Paris, Xcenter Nova Gorica, ART2M, and More-Than-Planet
Co-commissioned by Hac Te with the support of the S+T+ARTS program of the European Union

THE SOLAR SHARE — AN EDIBLE SOLAR CURRENCY

THE SOLAR SHARE stages a form of planetary economics based on photosynthesis. Every day a microalgae culture converts sunlight into edible biomass. The yield of the 1 sq.m bioreactor is a concrete means of measuring solar income—actual new energy entering the Earth’s metabolism.

THE SOLAR SHARE project challenges prevailing economic models with insights from sunlight-harvesting organisms, crucial to life's metabolism. Featuring a one-square-meter microalgae bioreactor, it highlights human dependence on photosynthesis and proposes edible microalgae as a new economic unit, representing daily biomass yield. It offers a transformative economic system that reintegrates human metabolism and energy needs with photosynthesis, redefining sustainability within planetary limits.

THE SOLAR SHARE project challenges prevailing economic models with insights from sunlight-harvesting organisms, crucial to the metabolism of life on Earth. Staged as a one-square-meter microalgae bioreactor, the artwork foregrounds human energy dependence on photosynthesis and proposes harvested edible microalgae as a radical economic unit: THE SOLAR SHARE.

This unit is the biomass produced on one square meter of the Earth’s surface that day. This edible algae unit is a photosynthetic proof of work that can be consumed, exchanged, or stored as a currency.

THE SOLAR SHARE is an invitation to experience firsthand a transformative economic model that reintegrates human metabolism and energy needs with the actual new energy entering the Earth system as photosynthesis. THE SOLAR SHARE provocatively recenters Earth’s metabolism in economics, redefining sustainability within planetary limits.

EXHIBITIONS
ARS ELECTRONICA 2024, Linz, 2024
X-CENTER, Nova Gorica, 2024


PRESS
PRESS-KIT ☛ Flickr
Eating The Sun - Essay published by Makery, En, 2024
Manger Le Soleil - Essai publié par Makery, Fr, 2024
Article: Eating The Sun - Exploring Human Sustainability as Solar-Based Regenerative Networks, In the journal: Laboratory Planet N6 - Planetary Peasants, 2024
Manger Le Soleil - Explorer la soutenabilité des activités humaines comme réseaux d’engendrement d’origine solaire, dans le journal: La Planète Laboratoire n°6 - Paysans Planétaires, 2024


INPUTS
Breeding techniques inspired by Gilles Planchon, Spirulina farming, Low-tech Lab
Accounting tricks inspired by J.M. Jancovici, Oh my climate !, Lecture at ESSEC.
Live stream design inspired by Premna Daemon by TerraO collective.
Exhibition design inspired by NASA, Growing plants in Space experiments.
Post Growth Prototypes patch design inspired by NASA STS-91 crew insigna.