Detecting Latent Landscapes

Detecting Latent Landscapes
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`Map_18. “Network Cities” of the North Sea. Platforms, pipelines and oilfields. Maps created by Neyran Turan. Data compiled from Oilfield Publications Limited, The North Sea Oil and Gas Activity and Concession Map, (Ledbury, Herefordshire, England: Oilfield Publications Limited, 2003), Map Collection, Yale University Library.
Map_3. Nevada Test Site underground nuclear explosions according to years. Created by Neyran Turan in Arc-Map GIS according to the announced longitude and latitude data compiled from US Department of Energy Nevada Operations Office, United States Nuclear Tests: July 1945 through September 1992, [DOE/NV—209 (Rev. 15), December 2000], and “The Official List of Underground Nuclear Explosions” (UNEs) in Nevada from Sandia National Laboratories (July 1994), http://nuketesting.enviroweb.org/hew/Usa/Tests/Nevada.html.
Map_4. “Fake Property Zones” of some US cities. All created by F. Neyran Turan by data compiled from Richard Wiles and James R. Cox, “Nuclear Waste Accident Scenarios in the United States,” Environmental Working Group, (June 2002), http://www.mapscience.org/plumes/national.pdf, Arjun Makhijani, Howard Hu and Katherine Yih ed., Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and Its Health and Environmental Effects, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1995). Final Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. February 2002, http://www.ymp.gov/documents/feis_a/web_pdf/rgd_summ/rgsum_bm.pdf, and “Nuclear Neighborhoods”, http://nuclearneighborhoods.org.
Map4. “Fake Property Zones” of some US cities. All created by F. Neyran Turan by data compiled from Richard Wiles and James R. Cox, “Nuclear Waste Accident Scenarios in the United States,” Environmental Working Group, (June 2002), http://www.mapscience.org/plumes/national.pdf, Arjun Makhijani, Howard Hu and Katherine Yih ed., Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and Its Health and Environmental Effects, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1995). Final Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. February 2002, http://www.ymp.gov/documents/feisa/webpdf/rgdsumm/rgsum_bm.pdf, and “Nuclear Neighborhoods”,
http://nuclearneighborhoods.org.
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By Fatma Neyran Turan

This thesis concerns itself with latent landscapes. Latent landscapes, in this discussion, are landscapes with active layers that are not always apparent, but become visible over time or by means of detection techniques. While in contemporary readings in architecture we see the concept of landscape expanding with new interpretations, I speculate in the thesis that the temporal and political aspects of the concept are not explicitly explored. My use of the term latency is somewhat similar to the use of the term in psychoanalytic theory. In such theory, the phrase “latent dream” or “latent content” refers to the collection of dream-thoughts, which are psyche’s hidden and repressed desires. While the psyche is unaware of these dream-thoughts which are kept in the unconscious mind, in a dream they are distorted and transformed by the mind to avoid anxiety and examination. This reinterpretation results with a “manifest dream” or “manifest content”, which is the dream that the sleeper remembers.

As if tracing the relationship between latent contents and manifest dreams, I try in this thesis to decode the connections between latent landscapes and their spatial manifestations or consequences. I call these spatial consequences, which are embedded in urban and political conditions, strata and I argue that there are durational lapses between activities and their detection or activities and their after-effects. I pursue this by researching two types of terrains that harbor latent landscapes: (1) Nuclear Landscapes [The Nevada Test Site] and (2) Resource Landscapes [The North Sea]. While each case study identifies the far-reaching temporal and political boundaries of a given site, I argue that these sites also emphasize the need for new definitions and terminologies in architectural and urban vocabularies.

The thesis employs two complementary texts, one visual and one verbal. The maps prepared from research data constitute a second text, and are to be read in conjunction with the written text. While the landscapes analyzed also use various detection techniques for their own activities, for my argument those techniques become the evidence of stratifications.