View Kinne Road Trip in a larger map
My route for the next three (four? five? – funded fellowships and the absence of steady employment allow the luxury of improvisation) weeks. The overall, zoomed-out, google-eye view of the trip revolves around research through observation of structures, installations, natural landforms, urban growths, manipulated landforms, etc. constructed in the great blank slate of the Southwest desert. A place where time stretches from Planck’s constant – used to record the chain reactions that produce an Atomic detonation – up to Robert Smithson brushing up against the infinite on the Great Salt Flats. All of which is tested and implemented under the powerful spell of the Western landscape – a strange entity mixed in with notions of nation and empire, with bravery and myth, history and ficition. That’s what makes it interesting, and that’s what I want to check out.
The format is the road-trip. The ambling, somewhat desultory first-hand narration of a nomadic journey across the desert’s offensively vast spaces, situated between fragmented vignettes of activity. A goal of the research will be to attempt to resolve the disparate nature of the desert’s strange, isolated events into a cohesive, related narrative. I’ll be posting updates along the way (as free desert wi-fi allows) and a longer, more thorough paper after the conclusion (hopefully).

Some highlights will include:
Smithson’s Spiral Jetty // The Nevada Nuclear Testing Site // Maquiladora Settlements in Juarez // White Sands Missile Museum // Death Valley // Donald Judd’s Marfa Installations // Mexico City // BioSphere 2 // Heizer’s Double Negative // Canyonlands National Park // Informal urban growth along the U.S./MEX border // foreclosed ghost towns in the Phoenix suburbs

view the original proposal Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control (Without Architects) or: Why Infrastructure Won’t Save Us

My proposal for a post-graduate Kinne travelling fellowship was accepted. Not only does it further delay the inevitable job search, but it affords me the means to visit what I consider to be some of the most interesting territory in the world – the American Southwest and the US-Mexico Border area. It’s an area I’m familiar with having lived in California and Texas, with frequent detours into Mexico, but it’ll feel good to re-visit with a more critical eye. Dean Wigley also seemed to particularly relish reading the title at graduation, giving extra emphasis to “won’t.” Download the entire pdf proposal here. See Abstract below:
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