The Military-Geography Complex: A Study in Form
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Archival mages, map, typewritten text
This collection of images considers the “form” of the military-geography complex, exploring what links the pursuit of geographic knowledge and technology to the conduct of warfare.
Each pairing is composed of two images: one from the United States Geological Society’s archive of cartography and surveying photographs, and one from a scene of war in Korea, Iraq, the United States or an unspecified location. You get to guess which is which.
Upon dissecting the images, identifying their coordinates and contexts, and mustering a sternly apolitical and logical perspective, one might think the pairings can be entirely disassociated. The mapmakers only seemto resemble soldiers, and the wars only superficially take the form of a cartographic survey. The rest of the shared elements – unknown territories, Calvary horses, tents, flags, telescopic lenses, visual representations, drones, bored young men and a vigilante masculinity– are only accidently caught up in the frame of such a perverse experiment. The form these images share, after all, is only a co-incidence, it is only a product of a forced and reckless juxtaposition.
The connections between the military, cartography, and GIS, of course, cannot be willed away so easily, taken as a simple case of mistaken look-alikes; archives like this and entire curricula worth of untaught histories (and quickly accelerating and mystifying presents) tell the story of a geography made for war. Nor can this relationship be clarified with better captions that would separate images of knowledge from the images of violence, technical words and crisp terminologies that would delineate the noble quest for understanding from the noble pursuit of war.
* Pennsylvania State University is ranked as the 15thmost militarized university in the United States. “In addition to earning the 15th spot, Penn State ranks third in national security funding of all institutions, thanks largely to an Applied Research Laboratory that has worked with Navy Weapons for more than 50 years.Penn State is one of 17 ‘powerhouse research universities traditionally supporting the oft-cited military-industrial complex…’. These institutions do not strictly research weapons, as a traditionalist’s view of the military-industrial complex might suggest. Instead, oft-confidential studies focus on ‘intelligence technologies, cyber security, and big data analytics, challenging the common view of what militarization means’.”
- “Penn State is America’s 15thMost Militarized University.” Onward State, 11/10/15.
This collection of images considers the “form” of the military-geography complex, exploring what links the pursuit of geographic knowledge and technology to the conduct of warfare.
Each pairing is composed of two images: one from the United States Geological Society’s archive of cartography and surveying photographs, and one from a scene of war in Korea, Iraq, the United States or an unspecified location. You get to guess which is which.
Upon dissecting the images, identifying their coordinates and contexts, and mustering a sternly apolitical and logical perspective, one might think the pairings can be entirely disassociated. The mapmakers only seemto resemble soldiers, and the wars only superficially take the form of a cartographic survey. The rest of the shared elements – unknown territories, Calvary horses, tents, flags, telescopic lenses, visual representations, drones, bored young men and a vigilante masculinity– are only accidently caught up in the frame of such a perverse experiment. The form these images share, after all, is only a co-incidence, it is only a product of a forced and reckless juxtaposition.
The connections between the military, cartography, and GIS, of course, cannot be willed away so easily, taken as a simple case of mistaken look-alikes; archives like this and entire curricula worth of untaught histories (and quickly accelerating and mystifying presents) tell the story of a geography made for war. Nor can this relationship be clarified with better captions that would separate images of knowledge from the images of violence, technical words and crisp terminologies that would delineate the noble quest for understanding from the noble pursuit of war.
* Pennsylvania State University is ranked as the 15thmost militarized university in the United States. “In addition to earning the 15th spot, Penn State ranks third in national security funding of all institutions, thanks largely to an Applied Research Laboratory that has worked with Navy Weapons for more than 50 years.Penn State is one of 17 ‘powerhouse research universities traditionally supporting the oft-cited military-industrial complex…’. These institutions do not strictly research weapons, as a traditionalist’s view of the military-industrial complex might suggest. Instead, oft-confidential studies focus on ‘intelligence technologies, cyber security, and big data analytics, challenging the common view of what militarization means’.”
- “Penn State is America’s 15thMost Militarized University.” Onward State, 11/10/15.