# [Rare Earth Sculptures] Thulium, 2013 By [ENERGY⋮PANGEA: Legacy Archive](https://paragraph.com/@energypangea) · 2025-09-21 climate change, ecologies of scale, planetary computation, arctic ice melt, mythology and technology, thule society, race and ecology, speculative design, computational models, environmental consciousness --- ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/ee1d7d2a296df13dd9c5a820f3aedf064bebc8a69f2473310d90d5c2222c8cc4.png) [ \[Rare Earth Sculptures\] Thulium (Handheld Burial Accessory, 2013) ------------------------------------------------------------------- THULIUM is a rare earth sculpture and modular vital apparatus: a Puma Punku H-block replica fused with a 1,000MW blue laser system, ice, hydrilla, organic banana, aluminum, acrylic, liquid melatonin - and its most crucial organs, the handheld burial accessories. These three ergonomic devices are diasporic activators, designed for interaction, renewal, and dispersion. https://manifold.xyz ![[Rare Earth Sculptures] Thulium (Handheld Burial Accessory, 2013)](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/68cd22939b154a26350e474daa14f31a5ee2fa8d8d1ac3805244fa192515e6b9.webp) ](https://manifold.xyz/@iainball/contract/157894896/2) _Puma Punku H-block replica, "BX" 1,000MW blue laser system, handheld burial accessories x3, liquid melatonin sublingual, organic banana, hydrilla verticillata, clear ice block, aluminium, laser cut acryli_c. ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/d01519421e5ad6f6bedac98a23d410a072d4bd4c605bdba555e15dd8855295c0.jpg) [ \[Rare Earth Sculptures\] Thulium (Installation I, 2013) -------------------------------------------------------- THULIUM (2013) - Part of the Rare Earth Sculpture Project, this lost work existed as a modular apparatus interlacing mythology, ecology, and technology. Built around a Puma Punku H-block replica and a 1,000MW blue laser system, its assemblage of burial accessories, organic matter, and crystalline materials acted as diasporic activators-tools for cognitive and environmental shifts. https://manifold.xyz ![[Rare Earth Sculptures] Thulium (Installation I, 2013)](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/5ae40b5c24aa0aadd30071fc5dd86b8d99e25bc1f21fd93735fc88928d4f0782.jpg) ](https://manifold.xyz/@iainball/id/4155791600) ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/564ea59a0cdaf4066c9433f7c96411fba5211bfa841713cfbafe3c1a6b6d8aae.jpg) ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/543cc4db3b2c6ba1fb0687c389f625655ef482ca0cae539be3500e1f49e4a51f.png) [ \[Rare Earth Sculptures\] Thulium (Installation VI, 2013) --------------------------------------------------------- THULIUM (2013) - Part of the Rare Earth Sculpture Project, this lost work existed as a modular apparatus interlacing mythology, ecology, and technology. Built around a Puma Punku H-block replica and a 1,000MW blue laser system, its assemblage of burial accessories, organic matter, and crystalline materials acted as diasporic activators-tools for cognitive and environmental shifts. https://manifold.xyz ![[Rare Earth Sculptures] Thulium (Installation VI, 2013)](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/68f04d28c68112160c155588b033709aa5f6ef4c011d0fbc13bd49d7c37059fe.jpg) ](https://manifold.xyz/@iainball/id/4155916528) ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/8702e5d9120a8610bec73c9b3f907a03b1a7b24e151843381845c8062bc1ba91.png) Installation view, Open Shape, Curated by Jasper Spicero ### **Application:** _RES Thulium is a multi-component modular vital apparatus with an integral_ **_seed dispersion formula_**_. The handheld burial accessories are_ **_diasporic activators_** _for application and renewal. We have developed a workshop program which can be used in communities and education centers as part of our_ **_outreach initiative_**_. Participants are able to interact with the various activation points on the object. The ergonomic capabilities of the burial accessories pertain to shifts in cognitive patterns which support our discourse-led incubator :_ **_divergent thinking for possible worlds_**_._ ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/6cc44d2f7865b7562622a73cf80d96b829a88857aa15d1f83a21079dbf2563c1.jpg) ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/fe0230f5f99bf6f3b60cff030504f2704d3e420b05f7b8cb73918a79b72e6c83.png) [ \[Rare Earth Sculptures\] Thulium (Installation II, 2013) --------------------------------------------------------- Rare Earth Sculptures\] Thulium (Installation I, 2013) THULIUM (2013) - Part of the Rare Earth Sculpture Project, this lost work existed as a modular apparatus interlacing mythology, ecology, and technology. Built around a Puma Punku H-block replica and a 1,000MW blue laser system, its assemblage of burial accessories, organic matter, and crystalline materials acted as diasporic activators-tools for cognitive and environmental shifts. https://manifold.xyz ![[Rare Earth Sculptures] Thulium (Installation II, 2013)](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/dcf60482fc8e572c6c91257cfb2fd4dda07025a1ccf870d5cc6f8f6cf5242676.jpg) ](https://manifold.xyz/@iainball/id/4155785456) ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/a46a17cb0da87432d69be9f266ffd419e525030205795b956bc21627481952bc.jpg) [ \[Rare Earth Sculptures\] Thulium (Installation V, 2013) -------------------------------------------------------- THULIUM (2013) - Part of the Rare Earth Sculpture Project, this lost work existed as a modular apparatus interlacing mythology, ecology, and technology. Built around a Puma Punku H-block replica and a 1,000MW blue laser system, its assemblage of burial accessories, organic matter, and crystalline materials acted as diasporic activators-tools for cognitive and environmental shifts. https://manifold.xyz ![[Rare Earth Sculptures] Thulium (Installation V, 2013)](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/d468740b22580eff179604d793a8527d5736318e82ea98d1872a4a91ecbd29c9.jpg) ](https://manifold.xyz/@iainball/id/4155883760) ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/7ded28ef79653ed618a2299ed063942539117cc0671c84e0a27416ca886621a5.jpg) [ \[Rare Earth Sculptures\] Thulium (Installation III, 2013) ---------------------------------------------------------- THULIUM (2013) - Part of the Rare Earth Sculpture Project, this lost work existed as a modular apparatus interlacing mythology, ecology, and technology. Built around a Puma Punku H-block replica and a 1,000MW blue laser system, its assemblage of burial accessories, organic matter, and crystalline materials acted as diasporic activators-tools for cognitive and environmental shifts. https://manifold.xyz ![[Rare Earth Sculptures] Thulium (Installation III, 2013)](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/58bb058468dd0546bfc8d408ba1da91a4d3bd8b908150a28347c219a53d789ac.jpg) ](https://manifold.xyz/@iainball/id/4155869424) ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/37e66537180d2d48adefd28de758a5ddf517efda5cc5c57d80d7527790fe12ed.jpg) [ \[Rare Earth Sculptures\] Thulium (Installation IIII, 2013) ----------------------------------------------------------- THULIUM (2013) - Part of the Rare Earth Sculpture Project, this lost work existed as a modular apparatus interlacing mythology, ecology, and technology. Built around a Puma Punku H-block replica and a 1,000MW blue laser system, its assemblage of burial accessories, organic matter, and crystalline materials acted as diasporic activators-tools for cognitive and environmental shifts. https://manifold.xyz ![[Rare Earth Sculptures] Thulium (Installation IIII, 2013)](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/1b32254c3f00348ebdc530d6e88983a4f45200a3ac0ccd41784bbb42a53e3206.jpg) ](https://manifold.xyz/@iainball/id/4155898096) ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/7a004ed2674c0c0cfd3bf06ac31abd33684b9382929596d23e7e1facb0bf9088.jpg) ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/dd9d7a215950a69c96541e99ef930e9775c2d120b08f19b230a8447db1b75cd9.jpg) [ \[Rare Earth Sculptures\] Thulium (Installation VII, 2013) ---------------------------------------------------------- THULIUM (2013) - Part of the Rare Earth Sculpture Project, this lost work existed as a modular apparatus interlacing mythology, ecology, and technology. Built around a Puma Punku H-block replica and a 1,000MW blue laser system, its assemblage of burial accessories, organic matter, and crystalline materials acted as diasporic activators-tools for cognitive and environmental shifts. https://manifold.xyz:443 ![[Rare Earth Sculptures] Thulium (Installation VII, 2013)](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/fc1e438fba29aad152eaafb7d16906a259cbb86c36d760285e5dda0e6c8ed0c4.jpg) ](https://manifold.xyz/@iainball/id/4156010736) [Speaking at The Center for Design and Geopolitics](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnG6mjdqWdI), a think-tank directed by Benjamin Bratton at Calit2, Peter Krapp described a shift from racial tensions which existed throughout the 19th and 20th century towards a 21st century global environmental consciousness. The shift from racial tension to temperature measurements corresponds to what Bratton describes as ecologies of scale and planetary computation. Krapp states; > _"..Indeed one might claim that the complex racial tensions which used to be found in every conical text during the 19th century more recently yield to climate consciousness and global politics. That of course raises the question whether we have simply overcome racial difficulties or whether we're now covering them over."_ The rare earth element Thulium is named after the mythical island of Thule, a legendary Nordic region which existed in ancient antiquity. Like the mythologies which surround other antediluvian regions such as Atlantis, Hyperborea and Mu, the legends of Thule became the focus of spiritual and political upheaval during the turmoils of the 20th century. The Thule Society was an esoteric occult group founded in 1918 by Walter Nauhaus and Rudolf von Sebottendorff - both German occultists and researchers. The society became a precursor to Nazism when it merged with the German Workers Party. The merging of these esoteric and exoteric factions then became the foundations of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party. Occult and racist fantasies about the far north stemmed from an interpretation that Thule was the ethno-geographical origin of the Aryan Race. Like other legends such as the biblical Nephilim and the Mayan God Quetzalcoatl, the inhabitants of Thule were said to have celestial origins. However, the Aryan category was fabricated through linguistic interpretations and erroneous theories of origin, not genetics. Contemporary interpretations of race have no taxonomic significance as **all human beings belong to the same species** - homo sapiens. Because races are not biologically valid categories within human populations, race is largely an outmoded social/anthropological system of categorization. If it can be said to be true that racial tensions are being replaced by a planetary ecological awareness then this also parallels growing tendencies across various fields which favour the networks, complex systems, computational models, diversity, quantum information, algorithms, and interfaces which take precedence over binary and outmoded systems of classification. What’s more, scientific based models allow for empirical traceability rather than biased interpretation. **In a bid to probe the cosmography, topographies and sympagic ecology of the far north rather than cover it up, Energy Pangea built a device which would symbiotically facilitate radical changes in consciousness and the environment.** Based on current estimates, the arctic sea ice and Greenland ice sheet will be entirely free of summer sea ice before 2100 whilst some predictions suggest this is in imminent collapse within the next few years. The unveiling of the topographical arctic landscape yields to the uncovering of geographies which haven’t seen ice free summers since the Holocene Warm Period roughly 9,000 to 5,000 years ago. This time-scale corresponds with a cyclic connection to biblical and legendary accounts of the time when the mythical pre-flood civilizations were in optimal maximum, having allegedly developed dangerous and unsustainable technologies and practices which were a threat to themselves and the planet. Thus by maximising computational power and data sets that support **computational gnosis** over human biases, the sculpture aids the acceleration of navigable algorithmic data as a catalyst for coming cultural shifts which have a symbiotic interrelationship with climate change. \_ E N E R G Y⋮P A N G E A 2013 _Install at Perfect Present, Copenhagen DK,_ [_http://www.perfectpresent.dk/_](http://www.perfectpresent.dk/) ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/e07f7d403a179a4f6d6fcb5ddb539ede411052d6d460f886cde23f584e16cae1.jpg) --- *Originally published on [ENERGY⋮PANGEA: Legacy Archive](https://paragraph.com/@energypangea/[rare-earth-sculptures]-thulium-2013)*