Interstate Road Trip Specialist Field Kit, Public Programs and Billboard
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PROJECT OVERVIEW
![](https://www.americansforthearts.org/sites/default/files/styles/rectanble_280x220/public/07_Daleiden_InterstateRoadTripSpecialistFieldKit_07.jpg?itok=0rgoNsDo)
Los Angeles Urban Rangers
http://www.laurbanrangers.org/site/interstate
For the exhibition Interstate: The American Road Trip, the Los Angeles Urban Rangers developed a customizable Interstate Road Trip. Specialist Field Kit, a series of public programs (e.g. an orientation prior to departure and concluding campfire program where the "interstate artists" from the exhibition shared tales from the open road), a West to East reverse pioneer road trip from Los Angeles to New York City, and a billboard for the entrance at Socrates Sculpture Park. All were designed to facilitate sharpened observational skills for reading 21st century roadside geographies, particularly in light of the ever-increasing standardization of the American landscape. (The Interstate Highway System, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2006, is emblematic with its straightened corridors, limited access points, consistent speeds, and repetitive models of urban development.) Foregrounding not destination, but the transitory experience of roadside geographies, the field kit drew upon early topographic expeditions and included devices for orientation, measurement, collection, framing, and documentation. The billboard at the entrance to Socrates Sculpture Park welcomed the road trippers, while also bringing the scale and experience of the Interstate to the urban park, inviting reflection on transitioning from a car-based to pedestrian environment. The Los Angeles Urban Rangers - comprised of artists, geographers, environmental historians, architects, and other interdisciplinary practitioners - is a mobile and site-specific interpretive force that aims, with both wit and a healthy dose of sincerity, to facilitate investigations into our sprawling metropolis and its everyday ecologies.
PROJECT LOCATION
PROJECT TEAM
High Desert Test Sites
Socrates Sculpture Park
http://www.highdeserttestsites.com/hdts
http://www.socratessculpturepark.org/