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Staring into a Void:
Groom Lake and the Imperial Production of Nowhere experimental lecture/performance
Staring into a Void: Groom Lake and the
Production of Nowhere
Groom Lake, Area 51, Dreamland, Watertown, the Ranch, the Remote
Location, Elvis’ House. A lot of names for a place that does
not legally exist. Founded in 1955 as a test site for the super-secret
U2 airplane, the base later known by the above-mentioned names would
become both a resonant non-image in the United States’ popular
imagination, and a place where military and intelligence activities
occur outside the conventions of the state. The site at Groom Lake
is, literally and figuratively, a non-place: local commanders claim
federal law does not apply, maps do not show its presence, and all
workers are sworn to lifelong secrecy. Until this day the Air Force
has refused to acknowledge its existence.
Despite its birth in the stygian recesses of the Cold War, the site
at Groom Lake refuses to become an anachronism. Instead, the visual
and legal “nowhereness” of Groom Lake plays a structuring
role in the contemporary state. Rather than close shop with the
end of the Cold War, Groom Lake has, in fact, expanded considerably.
Using conventions from experimental film, academic lecture, and
performance art, this “experimental lecture” uses the
trope of Groom Lake to examine the production on non-place in relation
to questions of sovereignty, international law, the militarization
of the domestic landscape, and the secret nuclear war which has
been fought in the Nevada desert since the early 1950s.
Performance History:
April 2004:
Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL
Performance in conjunction with Version Festival.
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
March 2004:
Philadelphia, PA.
Association of American Geographers Conference
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