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dust_and_shadow:collected_fieldnotes [2019-09-10 08:01] – [Dust and shadow. Fieldnotes #1] maja | dust_and_shadow:collected_fieldnotes [2019-09-23 14:29] – nik | ||
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**Sonoran desert 020171123 to 020171206** | **Sonoran desert 020171123 to 020171206** | ||
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We spent two weeks on and around The ASU Tempe campus— immersed in university life and surrounded by urban sprawl — inquiring about the relationships between people and the desert. Uncovering the mythical foundations of contemporary lifestyles. Seeking out counter-myths more closely attuned to the desert environment. Exploring the topological spaces of bodies as fields, bodies as listening devices. Creating propositions, | We spent two weeks on and around The ASU Tempe campus— immersed in university life and surrounded by urban sprawl — inquiring about the relationships between people and the desert. Uncovering the mythical foundations of contemporary lifestyles. Seeking out counter-myths more closely attuned to the desert environment. Exploring the topological spaces of bodies as fields, bodies as listening devices. Creating propositions, | ||
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From time to time we would follow the edges between city and desert. Searching for sites of dust and shadow, where the city-desert and the wilderness-desert entwine. The Piestewa peak, Moeur park. We followed shadows along the abandoned “Cut” of a railway that was not to be, in the remains of utility poles, in the cairns beneath a flight path and a wetland between two highways. We traced a path of divination. In the delirium of heat and jetlag, we hiked into the Superstitions in search of the mythical source of dust storms, finding enigmatic petroglyphs and a dry creek bed. From our higher vantage point the city became a mirage, merging into the hazy plain punctuated by saguaro cacti. Centuries of human inhabitation evaporated in that mirage. Occasionally re-appearing with small groups of hikers, a procession of jeans, t-shirts, trainers, ball caps, water bottles, snacks, dusty sunglasses. At full-moon, we joined a larger group for a night walk in the liminally illuminated Papago park. Silence without stillness. The hum of internal and external traffic pulling at our attentions and perceptions. | From time to time we would follow the edges between city and desert. Searching for sites of dust and shadow, where the city-desert and the wilderness-desert entwine. The Piestewa peak, Moeur park. We followed shadows along the abandoned “Cut” of a railway that was not to be, in the remains of utility poles, in the cairns beneath a flight path and a wetland between two highways. We traced a path of divination. In the delirium of heat and jetlag, we hiked into the Superstitions in search of the mythical source of dust storms, finding enigmatic petroglyphs and a dry creek bed. From our higher vantage point the city became a mirage, merging into the hazy plain punctuated by saguaro cacti. Centuries of human inhabitation evaporated in that mirage. Occasionally re-appearing with small groups of hikers, a procession of jeans, t-shirts, trainers, ball caps, water bottles, snacks, dusty sunglasses. At full-moon, we joined a larger group for a night walk in the liminally illuminated Papago park. Silence without stillness. The hum of internal and external traffic pulling at our attentions and perceptions. | ||
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We watched The Last Angel of History speak of fractures and dislocation, | We watched The Last Angel of History speak of fractures and dislocation, | ||
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What are the environmental politics in the North American South West, specifically to life in the desert? What are the implications for the people, plants, plastics (etc.) and the environment they live in? What peculiar futures or parallel presents exist in this “Valley of the Sun”? What new worlds can emerge from a region swayed by the unpredictability of heatwaves, poor water distribution and over-enthusiastic promises of the tech industry? | What are the environmental politics in the North American South West, specifically to life in the desert? What are the implications for the people, plants, plastics (etc.) and the environment they live in? What peculiar futures or parallel presents exist in this “Valley of the Sun”? What new worlds can emerge from a region swayed by the unpredictability of heatwaves, poor water distribution and over-enthusiastic promises of the tech industry? | ||
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We travelled through layers of signals, systems and stories in search of the hardened sediment of metaphoric undercurrents. The libertarian ethos and protestant work-ethic ration desert time into a neurotic drip and trickle of temporal scarcity. Time is submitted to a relentless economic valuation. There is an inherent trust in “the market” as regulatory system. Politicians gamble with a growing population, in a labyrinth of tax benefits, cheap real-estate and myopic risk tolerance. Scale up Arizona’s 5Cs (copper, cattle, cotton, citrus and climate.). Work must continue, no matter the conditions, in the “Sand of the Free, Sprawl of the Brave”. School starts in the hot, sticky month of August as kids hold tight to youthful curiosity while navigating a system caught between funding cuts. Idleness is still considered the devil’s playground, siestas close to sacrilege. A distrust of “elites” and the rhetoric of self-reliance encourage a culture of conservative individualists and a precarious belief in the Dominion of Man over Earth. | We travelled through layers of signals, systems and stories in search of the hardened sediment of metaphoric undercurrents. The libertarian ethos and protestant work-ethic ration desert time into a neurotic drip and trickle of temporal scarcity. Time is submitted to a relentless economic valuation. There is an inherent trust in “the market” as regulatory system. Politicians gamble with a growing population, in a labyrinth of tax benefits, cheap real-estate and myopic risk tolerance. Scale up Arizona’s 5Cs (copper, cattle, cotton, citrus and climate.). Work must continue, no matter the conditions, in the “Sand of the Free, Sprawl of the Brave”. School starts in the hot, sticky month of August as kids hold tight to youthful curiosity while navigating a system caught between funding cuts. Idleness is still considered the devil’s playground, siestas close to sacrilege. A distrust of “elites” and the rhetoric of self-reliance encourage a culture of conservative individualists and a precarious belief in the Dominion of Man over Earth. | ||
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//Tuba City Uranium disposal cell// | //Tuba City Uranium disposal cell// | ||
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