Science Fiction Sooth Sayers - A trip with the Nomads of Unknown Fields Division
Published in the first print issue of Jotta, buy your copy here!
Unknown Fields Division, the interdisciplinary studio at the Architectural Association School, embark on annual expeditions around the world to explore and draw ideas from surreal landscapes. We talk to UFD co-founders Liam Young and Kate Davies, as well as participants of the 2011 summer journey through the abandoned futuristic sites of the former Soviet Union.
Imagine a museum twenty years from now displaying the first iPad, today’s coveted technology reduced to a relic. This would be akin to what Unknown Fields Division saw as they moved from Chernobyl in Ukraine to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazahkstan, with a pit stop at the dried up lake bed of the Aral Sea.
These abandoned sites were once pillars of futuristic ideals. The landscape redesigned by upheavals of the cold war : Chernobyl, the nuclear factory, abandoned in the 80s after a deadly explosion, The Aral Sea, a giant lake which drained out to promote agricultural growth, and the Cosmodrome in Baikonur, the world’s first launch pad which sent Yuri Gagarin into space.
In the 18th century, the Neo-Classicists were inspired by ancient ruins. They hoped to capture what they saw as the simplicity and rationality of the Classical era, but their perception of the past tells us more about the Neo-Classicists themselves, and how they tried to shape the future. Similarly, the UFD study the not too distant past, but one so obsolete it appears as ruins. This otherworldliness serves as a distancing lens through which “we can start to imagine what emerging trends, technologies and ecological conditions will look like,” says Liam Young, who co-founded UFD with Kate Davies in 2008 and helms futurist think tank Tomorrow’s Thought’s Today.
“In some ways we have overshot the futures imagined for us by science fiction writers and speculative thinkers in the 20th century,” says Davies. Just as several of science fiction’s most influential creators formally studied architecture - Fritz Lang (Metropolis) and Syd Mead (Blade runner, Tron, Aliens) to name two - UFD take a sci-fi approach to tackling current debates in architecture concerning the relationship between nature and technology. “We are beginning to encounter a new form of engineered nature,” says Young, “the unfamiliar landscapes of robotics, bio technology and a changing climate.” Preservationist views of nature are a thing of the past, he explains, “Nature is being redefined through technology."
An eclectic gang including artists, architects, scientists, filmmakers, designers and writers are invited to join each UFD tour, to document and respond to their findings. “We don’t have a specific future in mind,” Davies explains, “that’s why we bring people with us to speculate and to fuel discussion.” Will Wiles, writer and Deputy Editor of Icon Magazine joined the Chernobyl adventure: “I was interested in the lure of forbidden places, the mysterious melancholy draw of ruins, the romance and adventure of space flight - Chernobyl, Aral and Baikonur had taken deep root in my imagination already, and I wanted to find out why.”
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
The expedition began in Chernobyl, an abandoned space around a nuclear factory where a 1986 explosion contaminated the surrounding area. The team don red tyvek suits for protection from the radiation that still permeates the environment. Members were equipped with GPS trackers and Geiger counters so they could map changing radiation levels.
“We wanted to measure the sites for ourselves to form our own opinions in the face of debates about the effects of the disaster.” Young describes, “I packed two radio controlled robots with spy cameras to record the toxic sites remotely, to see the sites through the eyes of technology."
The exclusion zone shows rebirth in a post-apocalyptic environment. Young recalls: “We expected to see ruins of false utopias, the faded dreams of nuclear promise. Instead what we found was a pocket of illegalre-settlers in Chernobyl, living off the land, growing crops and feeding chickens.”
Waiting for the Aral Sea to return
The death of the Aral Sea, which lay between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, left an arid wasteland of salt and dried mud. Once one of the largest lakes in the world, it eventually dried out, as the rivers feeding into it were redirected in the 1960s. The plan was to turn the surrounding desert into an agricultural haven. Satellite photos of the lake, taken in 1985, 1997 and 2009 show the rapid decline of this large blue sea into a white crater of crackling salt.
“Now only a long horizon of empty water is left,” describes Nelly Ben Hayoun, an experience designer and participant on the expedition who would rally the troops at intervals to enact their encounters through performances. In her diary of the trip for architecture magazine Domus, Ben Hayoun conceptualised their experience of the lake as one of various “waits”: “Layers. Spaces that needed to be filled in.”
Wiles recounts his “unexpectedly strong emotional reaction” to Aralsk, the neighbouring town. “It’s a grim town by this desiccated seabed, poor and monstrously polluted. The Aral Sea, like the Baikonur Cosmodrome, was for Wiles, “the product of a modernist project to master vast spaces
- Kazakhstan, and outer space itself.” Both, he claims, “have wandered farfrom their original ideological goals to take on mysterious new directions.”
Baikonur Cosmodrome
Their final destination is the busy spaceport in Kazakhstan where 50 years ago, Yuri Gagarin was the first man to be launched into space. “A bizarre city,” Wiles recalls, “littered with technology that is simultaneously incredibly advanced and completely obsolete. It’s leased from Kazakhstan by Russia - a political island, a special zone, a space Hong Kong or Gibraltar.”
During their visit, the explorers dress as cosmonauts to view a real space rocket launch, and simulate a human rocket smoke (see below) Vere Van Gool, an architecture student also on the trip, describes Baikonur as “Some kind of manmade fantasy land in the middle of a desert. The immense statues and sculptures, the casino, the museum, the entire primary school was rocket themed.”
The breadth of this interdisciplinary project is seen through the explorers who take part. It is difficult to ignore the pioneering force of the Unknown Fields Division. Their nomadic approach defies concepts of studio space and research. They are not discovering new worlds, but visiting ghosts at the margins of modernity.
The chosen landscapes show a collision between the control of civilising powers and an unpredictable and sublime nature. In the past, cultural movements have tended to emphasise either one or the other: the Romantics celebrated craggy mountains and waterfalls, and the Futurists, as they drew closer to the first world war, hailed technology, speed and industry. The Unknown Fields Division create an aesthetic for this collision. Rather than buildings, these architects are designing scenarios for a future where the fusion of the high-tech and the organic will be a necessity.
The Unknown Fields Division travels again this August, driving from Roswell, New Mexico to Nevada, to investigate places of UFO sightings. The deadline for applications to join them is 6th August 2012.
For wonderful online pics, sketches and diaries, check out:
super/collider
Neil Berrett
Kate Davies' Sarcophagus
and more...
Unknown Fields Division, the interdisciplinary studio at the Architectural Association School, embark on annual expeditions around the world to explore and draw ideas from surreal landscapes. We talk to UFD co-founders Liam Young and Kate Davies, as well as participants of the 2011 summer journey through the abandoned futuristic sites of the former Soviet Union.
Imagine a museum twenty years from now displaying the first iPad, today’s coveted technology reduced to a relic. This would be akin to what Unknown Fields Division saw as they moved from Chernobyl in Ukraine to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazahkstan, with a pit stop at the dried up lake bed of the Aral Sea.
These abandoned sites were once pillars of futuristic ideals. The landscape redesigned by upheavals of the cold war : Chernobyl, the nuclear factory, abandoned in the 80s after a deadly explosion, The Aral Sea, a giant lake which drained out to promote agricultural growth, and the Cosmodrome in Baikonur, the world’s first launch pad which sent Yuri Gagarin into space.
In the 18th century, the Neo-Classicists were inspired by ancient ruins. They hoped to capture what they saw as the simplicity and rationality of the Classical era, but their perception of the past tells us more about the Neo-Classicists themselves, and how they tried to shape the future. Similarly, the UFD study the not too distant past, but one so obsolete it appears as ruins. This otherworldliness serves as a distancing lens through which “we can start to imagine what emerging trends, technologies and ecological conditions will look like,” says Liam Young, who co-founded UFD with Kate Davies in 2008 and helms futurist think tank Tomorrow’s Thought’s Today.
“In some ways we have overshot the futures imagined for us by science fiction writers and speculative thinkers in the 20th century,” says Davies. Just as several of science fiction’s most influential creators formally studied architecture - Fritz Lang (Metropolis) and Syd Mead (Blade runner, Tron, Aliens) to name two - UFD take a sci-fi approach to tackling current debates in architecture concerning the relationship between nature and technology. “We are beginning to encounter a new form of engineered nature,” says Young, “the unfamiliar landscapes of robotics, bio technology and a changing climate.” Preservationist views of nature are a thing of the past, he explains, “Nature is being redefined through technology."
 |
| At the Cosmodrome, photo by Nelly Ben Hayoun |
 |
| Cooling Tower reactor number 5 in construction during the explosion. by Liam Dunaway |
An eclectic gang including artists, architects, scientists, filmmakers, designers and writers are invited to join each UFD tour, to document and respond to their findings. “We don’t have a specific future in mind,” Davies explains, “that’s why we bring people with us to speculate and to fuel discussion.” Will Wiles, writer and Deputy Editor of Icon Magazine joined the Chernobyl adventure: “I was interested in the lure of forbidden places, the mysterious melancholy draw of ruins, the romance and adventure of space flight - Chernobyl, Aral and Baikonur had taken deep root in my imagination already, and I wanted to find out why.”
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
The expedition began in Chernobyl, an abandoned space around a nuclear factory where a 1986 explosion contaminated the surrounding area. The team don red tyvek suits for protection from the radiation that still permeates the environment. Members were equipped with GPS trackers and Geiger counters so they could map changing radiation levels.
“We wanted to measure the sites for ourselves to form our own opinions in the face of debates about the effects of the disaster.” Young describes, “I packed two radio controlled robots with spy cameras to record the toxic sites remotely, to see the sites through the eyes of technology."
The exclusion zone shows rebirth in a post-apocalyptic environment. Young recalls: “We expected to see ruins of false utopias, the faded dreams of nuclear promise. Instead what we found was a pocket of illegalre-settlers in Chernobyl, living off the land, growing crops and feeding chickens.”
 |
| photos from an abandoned classroom in Pripyat, the now deserted village near Chernobyl . by super/collider |
Waiting for the Aral Sea to return
 |
| 1985 |
 |
| 1997 |
 |
| 2009 |
The death of the Aral Sea, which lay between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, left an arid wasteland of salt and dried mud. Once one of the largest lakes in the world, it eventually dried out, as the rivers feeding into it were redirected in the 1960s. The plan was to turn the surrounding desert into an agricultural haven. Satellite photos of the lake, taken in 1985, 1997 and 2009 show the rapid decline of this large blue sea into a white crater of crackling salt.
“Now only a long horizon of empty water is left,” describes Nelly Ben Hayoun, an experience designer and participant on the expedition who would rally the troops at intervals to enact their encounters through performances. In her diary of the trip for architecture magazine Domus, Ben Hayoun conceptualised their experience of the lake as one of various “waits”: “Layers. Spaces that needed to be filled in.”
Wiles recounts his “unexpectedly strong emotional reaction” to Aralsk, the neighbouring town. “It’s a grim town by this desiccated seabed, poor and monstrously polluted. The Aral Sea, like the Baikonur Cosmodrome, was for Wiles, “the product of a modernist project to master vast spaces
- Kazakhstan, and outer space itself.” Both, he claims, “have wandered farfrom their original ideological goals to take on mysterious new directions.”
Baikonur Cosmodrome
Their final destination is the busy spaceport in Kazakhstan where 50 years ago, Yuri Gagarin was the first man to be launched into space. “A bizarre city,” Wiles recalls, “littered with technology that is simultaneously incredibly advanced and completely obsolete. It’s leased from Kazakhstan by Russia - a political island, a special zone, a space Hong Kong or Gibraltar.”
 |
| Polaroid sequence of Zenit M-3 Launch by Neil Berrett, taken from super/collider |
During their visit, the explorers dress as cosmonauts to view a real space rocket launch, and simulate a human rocket smoke (see below) Vere Van Gool, an architecture student also on the trip, describes Baikonur as “Some kind of manmade fantasy land in the middle of a desert. The immense statues and sculptures, the casino, the museum, the entire primary school was rocket themed.”
 |
| "Human Smoke" sculpture at Soyuz Rocket, by Samantha Lee |
The breadth of this interdisciplinary project is seen through the explorers who take part. It is difficult to ignore the pioneering force of the Unknown Fields Division. Their nomadic approach defies concepts of studio space and research. They are not discovering new worlds, but visiting ghosts at the margins of modernity.
The chosen landscapes show a collision between the control of civilising powers and an unpredictable and sublime nature. In the past, cultural movements have tended to emphasise either one or the other: the Romantics celebrated craggy mountains and waterfalls, and the Futurists, as they drew closer to the first world war, hailed technology, speed and industry. The Unknown Fields Division create an aesthetic for this collision. Rather than buildings, these architects are designing scenarios for a future where the fusion of the high-tech and the organic will be a necessity.
The Unknown Fields Division travels again this August, driving from Roswell, New Mexico to Nevada, to investigate places of UFO sightings. The deadline for applications to join them is 6th August 2012.
For wonderful online pics, sketches and diaries, check out:
super/collider
Neil Berrett
Kate Davies' Sarcophagus
and more...
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