Project Description
The research mines a library of films produced by the US Department of the Interior as a basis from which to reconsider the American landscape as a mass reproducible, and consumable, medium. Taking a new, oblique view of the American landscape is the methodological basis, where each output will re-present and represent novel American landscape forms as an inversion of the settler colonial gaze that has long supported its domestic constructions and foreign projects.
Tasks and Responsibilites
Going on tours, students will explore the American landscape as a film, and film as an architectural space in order to construct a new American landscape, produce new narratives, and propose alternate cultural formations. Touring the psycho-geographic space of the films, students will aid in the construction of a series of models, dioramas, and panoramas, in order construct new architectural sites from filmic sights that will expose and even propose new conceptions of American power and its institutions. Tasks will include a bit of carpentry and a lot of architectural model-making techniques. The students will be encouraged to bring their own backgrounds into the project, as their input will be key in guiding the formal configuration of the models. The models will propose a reconfiguration of the American landscape beyond the settler colonial displacements that staged its 21st century foreign conflicts.
Desired Qualifications
None Listed.