PhotographerChristian Houge‘sArctic Technologyseries offers a flavor at large - scale scientific installations on the Norwegian island of Svalbard .
Arctic Technology byChristian Houge ” / > .
As theHosfelt Galleryin San Francisco line the series , several object lesson of which you see here : There is an island located between Greenland and the North Pole called Spitsbergen or Svalbard ( “ the cold land ” ) . The privateness of the island results in its having the clean atmosphere in the macrocosm and being one of the best places to do astronomical , meteoric or mood research . Hence , the remote and pristine landscape painting is denounce by initiation of technological and scientific equipment . Since 2000 , Christian Houge has been making large - ordered series bird’s-eye image in this landscape painting , explore the human comportment in this bleak yet beautiful internet site .

Svalbard , of course , is also the site of the much - discussedglobal semen burial vault , making it easy one of the more interesting locations for studying extreme anthropological landscape painting - use .
Arctic TechnologybyChristian Houge ” / > .
Perhaps Svalbard needs its own , gamey - northern arm of theCenter for Land Use rendition - using these pic by Christian Houge as its initiative expo .

The sinful vacuum of this landscape institute to mind a recent book calledThe Edge of Physics , by Anil Ananthaswamy , in which the writer shoot the breeze site all of the planet where monumental spell of equipment necessary for cutting - edge purgative experimentation are being fabricate and installed .
At one tip , Ananthaswamy visits the distant South African country of the Karoo , where , in a country of “ accessible desolation , ” as Ananthaswamy key out it , theSquare Kilometer Array(SKA ) is being set up . The undertaking of securing this site from hinderance by sublunar transmitting - jail cell phone , radios , telecasting , GPS , wireless internet , etc.-not only affect getting peculiar legislation perish by the South African government but the creation of “ special antennas , ” designed with the help of global telephone set companies , “ that will cater signal to urban pockets while beaming nothing toward the SKA internet site . ” He quote another telescopic installation , this metre in India , where a burgeon wine industry has taken shape in what was once nearly as isolated as the Karoo . Now , “ Farmers at times dig up the fibre - optic cable when they are tilling the Din Land , ” and “ more receiving set and telecasting post , mobile telephone set tugboat , and power argument ” are begin to appear .
Thus the necessity of landscape like the Karoo and , to a related to extent , Svalbard ( where it is the cleanliness of the air that add together scientific note value ) . But electromagnetic isolation on this scale - whole landscapes quarantined from outdoor wireless interference - presents an challenging new branch for architectural investigating : new forms of fencing , or inclosure , scaled up to the continental , where the labor internet site , and even its overall orientation , is based not on local aesthetic factors but on the potential , otherwise invisible preventative present by distant source of radio Wave .

It ’s like a spacial weaponry slipstream waged against the grow presence of electromagnetism in our workaday life : radio - free landscape on the very bound of the habitable world .
In any case , these next two photos present an extraordinary combination . The first , called “ Antenna Forest ” ( 2000 ) , displays more of the gamy - tech , radio - spectral genius of the other images in the serial publication - but the 2nd image , ostensibly representing a very like such facility , does away with this illusion with its title .
That second photograph is called “ Sunken Ship ” ( 2001 ) .

Houge ’s body of work on Svalbard start out , it ’s worth point out , as a survey of thebleak , Soviet - geological era mining township of Barentsburg and Pyramid , and the picture in that serial publication are both haunting and well worth your viewing time . you could read more about those imageshere , courtesy of an essay by Basia Sokolowska , but an excerpt supply sufficient introduction : Houge ’s photographs of Barentsburg and Pyramid are a survey of a decline of a colonial culture , functioning away from the centre that break these community their ideological , social and aesthetic identity . The panoramic format of his picture often allow him to admit the uncongenial , phantasmagorical milieu in which they are embedded and thus to underline their isolation from other settlements as well as from the mainstream of culture and its changing fashion .
One of the more striking is an image called “ Therapy Wall . ” In fact , an entire book could be written about that one icon alone .
See much more of Houge ’s work at hiswebsite - and consider learn theAnanthaswamy account book , as well , as it ’s quite an inspiring diversion from the field of operation of traditional change of location writing .

( Houge ’s work originally spotted via theNevada Museum of Art‘sCenter for Art + Environment ) .
[ Top image : “ Seeing - Outlook ” ( 2001 ) fromArctic TechnologybyChristian Houge ] .
This post originally look onBLDGBLOG .

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