The Dystopia of the American Suburban Landscape

Juan Carlos Castro
University of British Columbia

The series post-suburbia and monuments ii, are part of a larger body of work that addresses human impact on the environment. As a whole, this work explores and confronts the dsytopia of the contemporary American suburban landscape. Our dreams of the open road, fast food, and cheap goods have been recognized as environmental disasters and have created soulless places without cultural histories (Augé, 1995). In the mid-1990’s, this work was used as part of the campaigns to generate public support for anti-sprawl and land preservation legislation in the state of Maryland. The programs were modeled off of Portland’s Smart Growth program that has enjoyed public funding and support. In 1996, Smart Growth and Rural Legacy, a farm buyback program, was passed and signed into law. Unfortunately, current Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich dismantled the Office of Smart Growth at the start of his tenure four years ago. However, Democrat Martin O’Malley pledged, this fall campaigning for governor, which he won, to restore the office and look towards creating a more environmentally sound state planning policy (Smart Growth Online, 2006).

post-suburbia
1998
The series, post-suburbia, was in response to a question of cultural artifacts. While flipping through a book on ancient Greece, I wondered what would future explorers and archeologists think of America through the discovery of our architectural structures. This series belongs in a larger body of work started in 1996, entitled suburbia, that examined the structures and ironies of designed communities in American suburbs. Using digital technologies, symbols of description used by NASA, I position a lens to contemplate a post-suburban landscape of a futuristic explorer. What structures will be left remaining and what values will future cultures observe in our architecture of the post-landscape?

monuments ii
1999
The series, monuments ii, is part of a larger body of work, that is ongoing, which explores design, aesthetics and meaning in the American suburban landscape. In the series monuments i, I positioned my camera to examine the abandoned and sign less commercial structures along America’s strip mall roads. In monuments ii, I use digital technologies to aesthetize the prosaic by striping away natural forms, excess information (people and text) of the contemporary commercial landscape. This re/presentation dislocates the viewer, who recognize a familiar, yet it is in fact a non-place that is nowhere (Kunstler, 1993).

Post Script
Considering these two series, eight years later, I have come to new understandings of what dystopia means at this historical moment. Dystopia, as manifested in our emotional response to suburbia, or technology-in-education, are not necessarily anti-utopias, but phenomena that have shrugged off their initial expectations. These two bodies of work attempted to strip away, decenter, and reposition the languages of the suburban landscape and contemplate existing, unfolding structures; in monuments ii, as timeless aesthetic moments; and in post-suburbia, as residue of past structures. I see utopia as a fixed construct, quite stable and dead. When our lens of utopia is a fixed and immovable dream, expectation, and design, we often fail to grow with it, to change in ways that are present and attentive to the evolving system. It is not until we start bumping into things that our utopian lens cannot see that we find ourselves in a virtual dystopia.

Augé, M. (1995). Non-places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. London: Verso.

Kunstler, J. H. (1993). The geography of nowhere: The rise and decline of America's man-made landscape. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Online, S. G. (2006). Mayor O'Malley Pledges to Restore Maryland's Office of Smart Growth if Victorious in November. Retrieved December 3, 2006, from http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/bystate.asp?state=MD&res=1680

About the Artist

Juan Carlos Castro is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Curriculum Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. His research interests include: the intersection of artistic processes of knowing and art pedagogy, the use of photography and film/video as a means of re/presenting research knowledge, complexity and ecology theories, and social networking, user generated content, and meaning making in online learning environments.

Juan’s own photography focuses on humankind’s impact on the environment and was involved in promoting Maryland’s anti-sprawl legislation in the 1990’s. In addition to working as an artist, researcher, and educator, he is also an active freelance and editorial photographer, most recently as Urban Climber Magazine’s photography editor (2004-05).