On their world wide internets site, the Center for Land Use Interpretation states that they are “Dedicated to the increase and diffusion of information about how the nation’s lands are apportioned, utilized, and perceived.” That’s a pretty tall order in both scale and scope, and you’d be forgiven for expecting another THC-steeped navel-gazing contest (scored by Phish). Luckily for all of us Earthlings, the CLUI is actually amazing, and just about knocks it out of the park.
Broadly speaking, the CLUI interrogates how humans and culture interact with the physical earth. If this sounds an awful lot like the academic discipline of Environmental History (i.e., the study of human interactions with the natural world through time), well, that’s cause it pretty much is, I guess. However, rather than using the tools of academic historians, the CLUI takes an artistic and interpretive approach to understanding human-earth surface relationships. In their own words, they “believe that the manmade landscape is a cultural inscription, that can be read to better understand who we are, and what we are doing.”
To this end, the CLUI maintains a residence program for artists, writers, researchers, and theorists in Wendover, Utah, where the various individuals come together to explore methods and approaches to investigating land and landuse issues. The work done there covers a lot ground, both physically and intellectually. Simultaneously, landscape interpreters from a variety of regions across the US also investigate land use and human interactions.
The results combine the addictive voyeurism of zooming around Google Earth with the thoughtful, meditative qualities of the best nature writing. Their newsletter, published annually, covers a wide range of locales and topics, things as diverse as uranium mining in the US, the Mississippi Delta, and aerial photo calibration targets from the 50s and 60s in the desert Southwest. Of course, given the emphasis on the form and morphology of specific landscapes, the pieces are commonly accompanied by excellent photography, essays in themselves.
Book reviews at the end of newsletters are appreciated resources as well, and include both dense academic works as well as art books, unified by the fact that BOTH ends of the spectrum provide some fibrous reading material.
In addition to the articles, the CLUI maintains a user-generated database of sites, browsable as a map. It’s well worth a look, and a good start to planning a completely rad road trip.
The CLUI also exists in meatspace, and if one was lucky(?) enough to be in LA, you could visit their physical location and actually see some of the remarkable exhibits on display. Unfortunately (again, ?) I’ve not been to LA in a while, and so haven’t visited. However, the images and descriptions of the exhibits suggest that they are just as awesome as everything else the CLUI does.
Humans, both individually and plurally, influence and are influenced by the world around them. The profundity of this fact is belied by its simplicity; the CLUI, a group of modern day zen-masters, recognize that we can read the landscape to better understand our story, both in terms of where we've been and where we’re going. As a geoliminalist, this is fascinating. As a human, this is vital.
Broadly speaking, the CLUI interrogates how humans and culture interact with the physical earth. If this sounds an awful lot like the academic discipline of Environmental History (i.e., the study of human interactions with the natural world through time), well, that’s cause it pretty much is, I guess. However, rather than using the tools of academic historians, the CLUI takes an artistic and interpretive approach to understanding human-earth surface relationships. In their own words, they “believe that the manmade landscape is a cultural inscription, that can be read to better understand who we are, and what we are doing.”
To this end, the CLUI maintains a residence program for artists, writers, researchers, and theorists in Wendover, Utah, where the various individuals come together to explore methods and approaches to investigating land and landuse issues. The work done there covers a lot ground, both physically and intellectually. Simultaneously, landscape interpreters from a variety of regions across the US also investigate land use and human interactions.
The results combine the addictive voyeurism of zooming around Google Earth with the thoughtful, meditative qualities of the best nature writing. Their newsletter, published annually, covers a wide range of locales and topics, things as diverse as uranium mining in the US, the Mississippi Delta, and aerial photo calibration targets from the 50s and 60s in the desert Southwest. Of course, given the emphasis on the form and morphology of specific landscapes, the pieces are commonly accompanied by excellent photography, essays in themselves.
Book reviews at the end of newsletters are appreciated resources as well, and include both dense academic works as well as art books, unified by the fact that BOTH ends of the spectrum provide some fibrous reading material.
In addition to the articles, the CLUI maintains a user-generated database of sites, browsable as a map. It’s well worth a look, and a good start to planning a completely rad road trip.
The CLUI also exists in meatspace, and if one was lucky(?) enough to be in LA, you could visit their physical location and actually see some of the remarkable exhibits on display. Unfortunately (again, ?) I’ve not been to LA in a while, and so haven’t visited. However, the images and descriptions of the exhibits suggest that they are just as awesome as everything else the CLUI does.
Humans, both individually and plurally, influence and are influenced by the world around them. The profundity of this fact is belied by its simplicity; the CLUI, a group of modern day zen-masters, recognize that we can read the landscape to better understand our story, both in terms of where we've been and where we’re going. As a geoliminalist, this is fascinating. As a human, this is vital.
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