Fly with Pacha, Into the Aerocene（2023）

Saraceno focuses on the indigenous community in Salinas Grandes, Argentina, whose salt-flat environment is threatened by the mining of lithium (chemical symbol Li). This is the alkali metal or “mineral intelligence” personified in part of the film, which is at the core of mobile phones and electric cars, among much else. The mining of lithium is depriving the community of water – which is why the embodied Li tells us she is “the neocolonial avatar of a science without conscience”. Saraceno and his collaborators capture the community’s resistance but also document a project by Saraceno and his Aerocene group to create the most sustainable human flight in history, with a balloon powered only by the sun and the wind. It broke 32 world records.