The Circumference is Everywhere, 2011
100 miles Northeast of Los Angeles in the Mojave Desert lies a city abandoned in advance of itself, a ruin that is an aerial monument to misguided optimism that was conceived of by Nat Mendelsohn and intended to rival Los Angeles in geographic size and economic promise. From satellite images, the geoglyphic lines of a poorly planned labyrinth of streets stretch out for 203 miles in the middle of the Mojave desert and resemble a lost ancient civilization with no paved roads, houses, electrical grid, or sewers. In fact, the only material remnants of the city are the concrete foundations that held the meticulously titled street signs named after the vehicles that would have navigated its’ streets. Many of these streets took their names from popular American cars of the 1960’s, and were the basis for the streets running north-south such as Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Lincoln Boulevards. On one hand, this uninhabited street plan serves as the fingerprint of suburban sprawl that at one time had as much buoyancy as any other California development by subdividing large swaths of land into tens of thousands of house plots, on the other hand it is a ruin that contemplates a history through its’ absence. Much like the mysterious Nazca lines etched into the desert of southern Peru awaiting their own signification, our own modern ritualistic ghost grid of suburbia awaits its’ completion.
The Circumference is Everywhere, 2011
100 miles Northeast of Los Angeles in the Mojave Desert lies a city abandoned in advance of itself, a ruin that is an aerial monument to misguided optimism that was conceived of by Nat Mendelsohn and intended to rival Los Angeles in geographic size and economic promise. From satellite images, the geoglyphic lines of a poorly planned labyrinth of streets stretch out for 203 miles in the middle of the Mojave desert and resemble a lost ancient civilization with no paved roads, houses, electrical grid, or sewers. In fact, the only material remnants of the city are the concrete foundations that held the meticulously titled street signs named after the vehicles that would have navigated its’ streets. Many of these streets took their names from popular American cars of the 1960’s, and were the basis for the streets running north-south such as Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Lincoln Boulevards. On one hand, this uninhabited street plan serves as the fingerprint of suburban sprawl that at one time had as much buoyancy as any other California development by subdividing large swaths of land into tens of thousands of house plots, on the other hand it is a ruin that contemplates a history through its’ absence. Much like the mysterious Nazca lines etched into the desert of southern Peru awaiting their own signification, our own modern ritualistic ghost grid of suburbia awaits its’ completion.