Retrofuture Los Angeles
There are six USGS maps from the 1920s that line up perfectly from west to east, showing the shoreline of a future Los Angeles.
66m sea level rise–the highest predicted by the IPCC if all the ice caps melt.
Arrange any number in a row for a cool diptych, triptych, or polyptych.
The Retrofuture series is all about deep time, and expanding our perceptions of what is past, what is current, and what is the future.
Looking at these maps of the past, we can see the massive changes humans have made over the decades or centuries. Adding the sea level rise brings the future…a world that may exist seven generations from now. We are in the middle, between the known and the possible.
Using antique maps as a base, we add 66 meters of sea level rise, the highest predicted by the IPCC if all the ice sheets melt.
