ABSTRACT
The ruins of modernity are the most conspicuous archaeological remains of our era. Here, different kinds of ruins are explored in relation to the processes that produce them: systemic collapse, systemic operation, autophagy, failure and catastrophe. Systemic collapse refers to large-scale, irreversible changes in sociotechnical systems (such as those provoked by indigenous genocides or the end of peasant societies). Other ruins are related to the normal functioning of our era: this is the case with the debris produced by systemic operations and the self-cannibalising tendencies of modernity (autophagy). Still others are provoked by technical failures or by “natural” catastrophes, which are in fact the result of disastrous combinations of human and non-human agents. Finally, the contemporary era is also characterised by devastation beyond ruination—by ash and rubble. Rather than a metaphor for annihilation, they are understood here as material evidence of supermodern destructive operations.
