Post military AN EXPLORATION OF SCARRED LANDSCAPES
micah burger
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micahBburger
architecture|design|photography
MICAH BURGER Š 2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
post military AN EXPLORATION OF scarred LANDSCAPES
I used photography as a tool for exploring post-military landscapes. It became a means for me to enter into the sites, to investigate the landscape and ask questions. Crouching amongst the carnivorous fennel bushes, aiming the viewfinder at a sullen pile of rotting tires and concrete rubble, I become acutely aware my surroundings. The steady breeze coming off of the bay and the lonely sound of the wind on tattered blinds clanging against shattered windows. The sweet scent of fennel mixing with the heavy blanket of melancholy that hangs heavy over the ground. My eyes dart back and forth between building debris and cracked pavement and suddenly, a densely layered narrative becomes evident. The many histories of these scarred landscapes reveal themselves in the gutted buildings, the strange monstrous spider webs of steel structures, and the labyrinth of crumbling rail lines that have become a maze of weeds. Each piece of brittle infrastructure, each concrete bunker peaking out from below a mound of dirt and grass tells a story. My photographs attempt to capture the ethereal, timeless nature of post-military landscapes, reflected in the solidity of the remaining infrastructure. They are calm in the face of a disturbed landscape and a violent past. The use of wide-angle shots and post—production processing accentuate the disorienting, empty landscape. Often shot from low angles looking up, I try to convey the dwarfing scale of the infrastructures and the disorientating nature of these scale-less artifacts. Often, these utilitarian ruins are unrecognizable, their intended function a mystery to the viewer. Unsure how to situate them self in relation to these strange works, the viewer is filled with a gnawing uneasiness. They try to make sense of the landscape by creating their own narratives. They try to imagine the immense scale of operations that took place and the piercing sounds and acrid odors that saturated these sites. The viewer looks for small clues in the landscape that might reveal the original use of some foreign object or the last time someone stepped into that scene. These calm, sad, subdued scenes also offer the viewer a sense of the possible and of expectation. The viewer, a stranger in this land, can experience the “magic of the obsolete” and imagine an alternative, utopian future. \\ MICAH BURGER
The ‘natural landscape’ has taken on an artificial patination. Alien materials interrupt the process of growth and decay. New and evolving features created by man are to an extent, absorbed by the fluid and yielding nautre of our surroundings. What results is a hybrid environment, a utilitarian topography, a sustained artifice. Smout Allen | Augmented Landscapes
The scar is a mark of pride, and of honor, both for what has been lost and what has been gained. It cannot be erased except by the most cosmetic means. It cannot be elevated beyond what it is, a mutant tissue, the precursor of unpredictable regenerations. Lebbeus Woods | War and Architecture
Physical manifestations of America’s “war machine”, military landscapes present us with signs of the advanced engineering and complex systems of industrial production that made construction of these landscapes on such a large scale possible. America’s military, economy, and built landscape are inextricably linked. Fordist production systems allowed for the extremely efficient, calibrated production machines that powered America through two world wars and into economic dominance. The infrastructures that supported these war systems are pure systems of utility, engineered for the movement, storage and production of energy and materials. They were the backbone for over a century of military production, but today they lay fallow in their contaminated landscapes. The challenge that we are presented with today is how these redundant infrastructures, with so much embodied energy and resources, can be adapted to create new infrastructural systems that address current and future economic and environmental milieus. As Stan Allen writes in Infrastructural Urbanism, “Infrastructures are flexible and anticipatory. They work with time and are open to change. By specifying what is fixed and what is subject to change, they can be precise and indeterminate at the same time (Allen, 55).” Military infrastructure, however, presents unique challenges in
re-purposing for civilian use. The massive scale, unique functions, and contaminated nature require the imagination and creativity introduced by the practice of design. The way that we think about infrastructure, typically immune to formal debates, must be rethought. Coupling these infrastructures with spatial experiences creates the frame for a new type of city and ecology to fill in around them. Allen continues, “[Infrastructural work] allows for the participation of multiple authors. Infrastructures give direction for future work in the city not by the establishment of rules or codes (top-down), but by fixing points of service, access, and structure (bottom-up)(Allen, 55).” These bottomup systems must address a new urbanism, one inextricably linked with ecology, that deals with the contaminated nature of their sites. They must address environmental degradation and climate change. They must address future systems of de-industrialized production and global supply chains. These systems must address these fields while remaining flexible enough to deal with environmental, resource, and societal uncertainties. This book lays the groundwork for a new urbanism structured around the redundant military infrastructure that is so pervasive in America. It does this by questioning the introduction of formal and spatial strategies and future infrastructural systems that are flexible and responsive.