DEVICES FROM THE NO_PLACE
ALTERING THE PERCEPTION OF WILDERNESS AND WASTELAND THROUGH EXPLORATORY DEVICES
NEW PERSPECTIVES
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NEW PERSPECTIVES
PROLOGUE
The American West is an unusual landscape and conflicting vision of WILDERNESS and WASTELAND. Arizona specifically is a land that includes some of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in America. The regions’ populace is nestled in the most environmentally diverse areas of the Sonoran Desert, and is planning future development in some of its most delicate and uninhabitable zones. The NO_PLACE is the currently unrecognized zone that is perceived as a place without any specific designation, program, or value. Due to its situation in the NO_PLACE this environment is qualified mostly as WASTELAND. While society tends to think of WILDERNESS and WASTELAND as separate entities they are one in the same. The issue arises with the perspective from which one is viewing. WILDERNESS is a place, while WASTELAND is a NO_PLACE. The specific solution is to promote the exploration of this landscape by individuals and to arm them with the proper devices with which they will begin to see the landscape from new angles and in a new light, ultimately shifting the perception from WASTELAND to a place with a cultural value.
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DEVICES
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N E
1 W S
Fluvial Landscape.
SY, 2016 FL fig. 01. • Field Studies
DEVICES
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Fluvial Landscape.
SY, 2016 FL fig. 02. • The PERIscope
DEVICES
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Human Artifacts.
SY, 2016 HA fig. 03. • The MACROCscope
DEVICES
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Human Artifacts.
SY, 2016 HA fig. 04. • Artifact Items
DEVICES
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Bee Habitat.
SY, 2016 BH fig. 05. • Field Studies
DEVICES
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Bee Habitat.
SY, 2016 BH fig. 06. • The AUDIOscope
DEVICES
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3270
1’ 3
1 728
2’
Natural Landmarks.
SY, 2016 NL fig. 07. • Landscape Views
DEVICES
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Natural Landmarks.
SY, 2016 FL fig. 08. • The KALOSscope
DEVICES
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Field Recordings.
SY, 2016 FR fig. 09. • Exhibition, Innsbruck
DEVICES
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Field Recordings.
SY, 2016 FR fig. 10. • Maps
WW fig. 11. • 31°58’29.84”N, 111° 4’7.94”W – Asarco Mission Complex, Sahuarita AZ, 2013
NP fig. 12. • 31°58’8.10”N, 111°36’36.89”W – Kitt Peak National Observatory, Tucson AZ, 2013
NEW PERSPECTIVES
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NW • fig. 80. SY Field Studies
NEW PERSPECTIVES
EPILOGUE
The promotion of interaction with the No_Place is one intended to alter the perception of this particular landscape and the way in which one perceives landscape in general. A series of recording devices is designed to enable the alteration of perception. The devices are intended not only to produce a subjective individual experience but also to generate new data and knowledge of the No_Place. The devices are inspired by the instruments and actions of the explorers and surveyors of the West. Viewing and experiencing the landscape as an explorer puts the scale of landscape into perspective and reveals environmental qualities and details that otherwise would never be revealed. It is now the contemporary explorer’s duty to produce their own recordings of the landscape. Thus creating ballads, yarns and legends to enrich the value placed on this underestimated territory.
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“He arrived in a neverland of fragments, a place of wordless things and thingless words. [...] the state of is-ness. That was the ground on which the happenings of the world took place. [...] When words come out, fly into the air, live for a moment, and die. Strange, is it not?” – Paul Auster, The New York Trilogy, City of Glass
(c) Sylvia Baumgartner, 2016