Mónica Naranjo Uribe
Cartography of an Impact

Mono-channel Full HD video [00:06:25, sound, loop], 2023
Sound by Daniel Lara Ballesteros
“Cartography of an Impact” explores geological forces beyond Earth’s interior coming from encounters with other cosmic bodies. The crater of Chicxulub in Yucatán, Mexico, left by the impact of a meteorite 65 million years ago, is considered to be related to the prominent formation of “cenotes” (local term for sinkholes).
The impact left a fragility on the bedrock of the Peninsula that concentrates along the external ring of the crater, where many cenotes formed and keep forming. This fragility suggests an active dimension of memory, that stays inscribed in the physical matter of territories and that has an effect on what emerges from it. This invisible state and aliveness of matter is explored in the work through sound and the idea of an echo in matter left after an event that continues having a presence beyond the visible and the audible.
The fictional narrative takes inspiration from the speculative thinking in science, imagining what happens precisely during a meteorite crashing into Earth, whose speed and force are of such magnitude that trigger unprecedented physical and chemical behaviors in matter that are impossible to trace.
The work is part of the research and series of works “The Cosmos in the Interior of the Earth”, developed around the Cenotes in Yucatán, Mexico.
