Document:Q10046

"American Views: Stories of the Landscape" by Russet Lederman presents a personal and eclectic view of the American landscape as experienced and remembered by three diverse individuals. Emulating the fragmented, non-linear, montage-like construction found in the writings of the German cultural theorist, Walter Benjamin, this interactive work brings together a collection of private and public images, audio, ephemera and text from three "storytellers." They are: Cindi, a digital designer in Irvine, Kentucky, who lives on a 27 acre farm at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains; Adam, a environmental engineer from Northern California who specializes in the analysis and clean-up of hazardous waste sites; and Neil, who shares his recollections of growing up in an emerging New York City suburb on Long Island in the 1950's and 1960's. Woven together with "visual" quotes from 4 central themes -- seen[scene], use[re]use, permanence[im]permanence, and earth[un]earth -- this randomly accessed, non-linear work reveals the many different "micro" tales of specific places that exist within the larger American experience.
Because this piece is experienced in a random manner, the accompanying description below loosely outlines the larger structure and modules of the work.