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These images are from my project entitled Exurban Archipelago, which investigates the interconnections of the built environment and spatial experience. Underlying the project is an implicit claim that whole new kinds of space—and consequently, whole new experiences of space—are steadily emerging across vast tracts of formerly rural countryside that once lay between the larger metropolitan areas. I also contend that these new kinds of landscapes are no longer “thinkable” in the old familiar ways, but rather require radically different kinds of symbolic representation to become spatially coherent.
This Project focuses primarily on just one of the signature building types that proliferate across these regions, variously called distribution centers, logistics or even fulfillment centers. These are the massive, boxlike structures often within view of the major expressways. Their most salient feature is the ring of truck bays (loading docks) that often wrap around multiple sides. Among other things I am drawn to the shear scale of these buildings, which adds to their spectral-like presence on the landscape. But more than anything, the Exurban Archipelago project explores the rigorous geometries of these imposing architectural forms. The images in this presentation are captured satellite photos of these structures, using Google Earth, and subsequently manipulated on Photoshop. These images are part of an ongoing dialogue with these places-these geometries-and my paintings on Mylar and Plexiglas. - Steven Baris, 2011
