“All else being equal” is a speculative digital simulation inspired by my encounter with AmazonFACE during the Labverde residency.

The phrase “All else being equal” comes from the Latin expression Ceteris Paribus, and it describes as a key assumption of the scientific method. While the scientific method is one of the most powerful tools we have ever developed, in immensely complex systems it is rarely true that if you isolate one element all others will remain the same or ‘equal’.

The real AmazonFACE aims to simulate the future conditions of the rainforest in one specific respect: raised C02. In my speculative, virtual simulation I tried to create the opposite situation: Amazonian flora growing with pre-industrial levels of carbon (approximately 280ppm). In the simulation, the plants exist in such a way to be isolated from all other complicating factors: they only respond to levels of C02, using a simplified Farquhar photosynthesis model. The simulation models an absurd form of ideal scientific conditions; conditions that are so ideal, however, as to be totally meaningless.