Something Scary Something Pretty

STUDIO IV “Knoxville Menagerie” | SPRING 2019 | Scottie McDaniel

“Something Scary Something Pretty” is an ongoing investigation of the landscape of anxiety in the United States of America. This project asserts the Vietnam War as the start of the decline of the American Dream, which followed the progress and prowess aff orded by World War II and the Korean War. I argue that the trauma of the Vietnam War has persists through today, albeit in diff erent forms of horror. This project uses TRAUMA as a medium to connect fragmented memories and visualize the connections by appropriating “scary” and “pretty” experiences of the past half-century.

The project draws from representation techniques employed by DADA artists such as Max Ernst. This ambitious project attempts to address expectations, masculinity, beauty, pain, youth, death, and other artifacts of war that persist into peacetime. Ultimately, the author hopes, that this atypical approach to ‘landscape’ yields to a critical examination of the normative practices of landscape architecture.

Trauma is a multigenerational phenomena that aff ects not only the fi rst generation of victims, but also consequent generations through socialization and exposure. I then asked, could trauma be a vehicle to connect people across geography and generations?

TOP: Timeline of signifi cant trauma for the US. MID: Opposing lifestyles in the Vietnam Era.

My (current) conclusion to the historic narrative research was that the WAR of twentieth century had greatly infl uenced and scarred the American consciousness and identity. I continue to argue that the Vietnam war, where the glory of fathers and the defeat of sons coincided, was the turning point for BOYHOOD turning into an everlasting TRAUMA - one that persists through today through victims OF WAR.

ORIGINAL SIN BOYHOOD

OF WAR TODAY

These collages of historic and current images, all representing the direct incidents they originate from, meld into evocations of pride and fear, shame and hesitation for the future. From the more ‘realistic’ depictions of the history portraits, I identify TRAUAMA, as the product of war, as the driver for the contemporary landscape of America.

These collage vignettes borrow the visual languages of DADA artists Max Ernst and Francis Bacon. Both artists experienced World War I and World War II and express their experiences of pain through art. This visualization technique departs signifi cantly from the normative practices of landscape architecture. I juxtapose images of children - all friends of baby doctor Nicolaes Tulp, representing innocence and regression - with texture-less icons to create three scenarios, all a response to the landscape of trauma.

THE BOOTCAMP THE SUBURBTHE STRATEGIC HAMLET

BURIAL

. . . L I K E T H E S U B U R B S AFTER WORLD WAR II.

PREVENTION

. . . L I K E A I R P O R T S A N D SCHOOLS.

MEMORIAL

. . . L I K E N AT I O N A L C E M E T E R I E S .