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TALK: Mock Towns and Command Centers: The Expanding Landscape
of Preparedness
Matthew Coolidge (Director, Center for Land Use Interpretation)
Wednesday, March 3 / 5PM / FREE
Isla Vista Theatre, 960 Embarcadero del Norte, Isla Vista
Using images from the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) archive,
Matthew Coolidge, the Center's Director will take the audience on
a visual tour of selected locations in the increasingly widespread
"Emergencyscape": the American landscape of preparedness
currently resurfacing in the wake of 9-11 from the ashes of the Cold
War. Sites visited include training centers for police, bomb squads,
military and other first responders and strategic pre-emptive strike
teams. The talk will traverse a landscape of mock hazards, virtual
threats and disaster simulation, including burntowers, accident props,
simulated towns and open bombing ranges as well as a netscape of underground
command centers where government and management personnel convene
to direct events, anticipating disaster.
The CLUI, an independent research organization with offices and an
exhibition space in LA's Culver City is committed to exploring, examining,
and understanding land and landscape issues. Since its inception in
1994 the Center has curated more than 30 exhibits and designed public
bus tours focused on land use themes and topics in the USA. It has
also developed an extensive electronic data base, and issued 10 publications
including "The Nevada Test Site: A Guide to America's Nuclear
Proving Ground" and "Antartic 1: Views Along Antartica's
First Highway". Center projects have included a study of "One
Wilshire: Telco Hotel Central", an aging 1960's high-rise in
downtown LA which nontheless claims to "the most interconnected
building in the West", a two-day bus tour and accompanying exhibit
of the Nellis Range Perimeter in Nevada ("Area 51", site
of fascination for sci-fi buffs and conspiracy theorists), the American
Land Museum, a network of geographically dispersed landscape sites,
and "Curious Oranges," an interactive exhibit exploring
and exposing the infrastructure and “extrastructure" of
Orange County's ”post-suburban”,master-planned community.
For more information see: http://www.clui.org
Co-sponsored by the IHC, the University Art Museum, the Department
of Art and the College of Creative Studies.
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