About American Vectors
“The United States is planning a long-term military relationship with the emerging government of Iraq, one that would grant the Pentagon access to military bases and project American influence into the heart of the unsettled region…”
In this project, American military bases in Iraq are visualized using techniques borrowed from basic bioscience. For each of the major “contingency operating bases,” a living culture of the bacterium Serratia marcescens is grown in the shape of airstrips and roads that form physical infrastructure of the base. As the cultures advance in age the bacteria grows and spreads in unpredictable ways, creating a landscape that evolves over time. Images of each bacteria culture are streamed via live webcams and viewers are invited to discuss the work and the issues it raises via the American Vectors blog.
The purpose of this project is to create an image of the American presence in Iraq, which is not limited to descriptive information and quantifying data about the war that can easily be found elsewhere. The image I seek to create is one that presents the US led war in Iraq as a corrupt and imperialist project designed to engineer a government and culture much like our own: one that serves the needs of powerful transnational oil corporations.
Many many people lent me their support and expertise in order to realize this project. They include: John Sturgeon, Andrew Hurley, Anderson Wrangle, Jeanine Garrett, Claudia Dishon, Robert Brownlow, Courtney Richards, Clarke Curtis, the Art Department and College of Architecture Arts and Humanities at Clemson University.
American Vectors by Christina Nguyen Hung is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.americanvectors.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at christinanguyenhung.net.
