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INDIVIDUAL: Agent Man Made 

GROUP SIZE: Under 5.4 /sq mile 
NATURE OF GROUP: Wyoming Rough Necks, Cow-Hands, & Pilgrims on Dérive 
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: MAN MADE 

 

For this census MAN MADE across Wyoming was tagged, mapped & photographed.

Central Wyoming is the least populated part of the continental United States. On a 531 mile foot survey of Wyoming’s Continental Divide 3 IS agents encountered 414 Pronghorn Antelope (and 647 ticks) yet only a handful of man.           

 

Despite a lack of physical presence in the area, humans have scattered the organic landscape with an unfathomable amount of MAN MADE ranging from infrastructure to detritus. Fences, blazes, trails and roads. Gas wells and flight markers. Salt licks and a huge bowl of kibbles. Signs with rotting type. Rust etched garbage melting into the desert.

The infrastructure maintained on the census route often performed a control function. Way finders, harnessers of resources, containers, blockades. Though aesthetically out of context the logic of their place in the landscape was incontrovertible.

Much of the detritus was straight trash, though some of it presumably had a function in the past. (i.e. There were no blatant instances of intentional sculpture.) The harsh environment of central Wyoming continually reclaims any MAN MADE, breaking it down until even its function is eroded. Bereft of a meaningful context abstract forms begin to clutter the natural environment – an exact inversions of weeds growing through cracks in the driveway.

In the depopulated zone along Wyoming’s continental divide, MAN MADE and the organic landscape perform a continual dialectic: the attempt at one way control and the cyclic entropy thwarting it. (See diagram below.)  Man fills unpopulated space with functional infrastructure and a hidden scatter of debris. Anything unmaintained is either consumed by the harsh environment or takes on a battered sculptural form. By tagging notable MAN MADE, this census aimed to heighten an aesthetic and psychogeographical awareness of our footprint in a place we rarely tread.

Supporting documentation:
All 111 MAN MADE images
Agent Cyberhobos report and route map
Typeset Report (printable version)
Download a MAN MADE sticker sheet!  
Related Incidence of Sociometry: PaCT
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ThIS report was originally published on flickr in August of 2009, after the initial survey. IS’s reposting as MAN MADE prominently featured on a 6’x8′ tri-fold display at iSFair 2O12, our quadrennial exhibit of reports generated between 2008 and 2012.

 
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Tags: Continental Divide Trail, culture jamming, guerilla communication, Guerilla Sociometry, Institute of Sociometry, is, is agent, isfair 2012, iSFair 2O12, psychogeography, through hiking, Wyoming

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 23rd, 2013 at 9:00 am and is filed under Incidence Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.