Blasted Landscapes

The artistic-scientific research project »Blasted Landscapes« deals with the complicated history and controversial use of former military training areas in Brandenburg. Based on the different interests in relation to these sites - creating wilderness, tourism development, preferential release for renewable energy infrastructure - we want to investigate how different landscape concepts are created and what assumptions about nature and culture underlie them.

We will pay particular attention to the tools and processes of monitoring, mapping and evaluation, as these allow us to draw direct conclusions about the parameters by which landscape is described and created. These parameters are not self-evident, but are historically, materially, and technologically determined and always provide only a partial view of the whole. The artistic-scientific perspective allows us to critically question these tools and procedures and to make their effects visible, in order to show what our understanding and knowledge of action is in relation to the former military training areas. Through the experimental reuse of the tools, we also want to find out what, if any, alternative accesses to these complex sites can be opened up. In addition to academic publications, the project will result in a film work, critical cartographies, and an exhibition with accompanying publications.

Researchers: Michaela Büsse, Sandra Jasper

Collaborators: Chair of Digital Cultures at Technische Universität Dresden, Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences