Shawnee Silhouettes
Hand drawn silhouettes of the porches of Shawnee Ohio. This architecture style is unique to the the micro region of The Little Cities of Black Diamonds in South-east Ohio.
Ghosts of Repetition – Shawnee
The following high resolution surface scans are taken with the MPSU (mobile platen scanning unit). These images, upon inspection, reveal a glimpse of the decline from a once thriving community center to the meager town that Shawnee is today.
In these scans, time is compressed; past becomes present, present becomes future, the artificial and natural co-mingle and the artifacts become “ghosts of repetition”.
MPSU Shawnee 091204
Another cold day on the streets of Shawnee with the mobile platen scanning unit (MPSU). From time to time the MPSU requires more hands thank I have and on this trip I had an assistant with me, Kent Cubbage.
We explored the main street of Shawnee finding our way in to the rarely opened antiques store. We walked in and the door jingled a bell over our heads. Two old men craned their necks around to see who it was. The coal fed pot belly stove in the middle of the room gave a welcome warmth. The propriter and his friend were kind but dismissive to our strange motivations as we searched the interior of the building.
Back out into the cold. We encountered the pile of coal and lumber that the old men were using to keep warm. The few remaining traces of ice crystals from the season's first snow remained in the shadows of once noble buildings.
MPSU in Shawnee
This afternoon was a cold one in Shawnee and it was as empty as a ghost town. In stark contrast, beneath every fallen leaf and embedded in every patch of dirt, artifacts of this community's previous glory were abundant.
The following high resolution surface scans are taken with the MPSU (mobile platen scanning unit). These images, upon inspection, reveal a glimpse of the decline from a once thriving community center to the meager town that Shawnee is today.
In these scans, time is compressed; past becomes present, present becomes future, the artificial and natural co-mingle and the artifacts become "ghosts of repetition"*.
* - "ghosts of repetition" is a phrase coined by W. G. Sebald. I came across this phrase in the article An Archival Impulse by Hal Foster (October 110, Fall 2004 pp 3 - 22).
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash
This movie is a major inspiration for my recent body of work. The impending oil crash is in many ways analogous with the coal crash in south east Ohio, specifically Shawnee.
Downloadable resources from the film's Website
Recent Posts
- Thesis Proposal Abstract
- Preliminary Coal Ball Scan
- Big Muskie: King of the Giants
- Coal collecting and Mine Tour
- Archive Coal Cut-out
- OU SoA Critical Regionalism Initiative Spaces Installation
- Strange Geoglyphs Discovered Beneath Clearcut Amazon
- “… IN A MOST DANGEROUS MANNER”
- Shawnee Silhouettes
- Installation: OU-SoA Critical Regionalism Initiative
- Nelsonville Bypass: American Reinvestment and Recovery Act
- Appalachian Carboniferous Map
- Big Muskie First Person
- MPSU – Acid Mine Drainage
- Ghosts of Repetition – Shawnee
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