Topography

A multi-format documentary project exploring the histories and futures of land use.

Period
2021–present
Status
Active / Ongoing
Form
Multi-format documentary project
Virtual Ecologies Symposium — Terrain scan study

The project

Topography is an ongoing multi-format documentary project that includes films, live-edited performances, interactive experiences, and community collaborations. Set in and around America’s public lands, the project spends time in the Badlands, Death Valley, Fire Island, and Zion. Paleontologists, medicinal plant experts, rangers, ranchers, motel workers, and tourists describe land at different scales and from different positions. Across these forms, Topography fragments across time, species, scales, and histories to reveal how different perspectives shape the land and its futures.

Documentary field notes

We aspire to apply the most appropriate form to each subject. Hannah and I spend time with people, landscapes, archives, images and sounds, then ask what form the material needs. A film can follow someone over years. A live performance can recombine images and voices in front of an audience. An installation can let visitors move through a scanned place. Sometimes one subject needs several approaches, so the forms produce material for one another.

Supported by

Selected credits

Alexander Porter
Director / Producer / Virtual Cinematographer
Hannah Jayanti
Director / Producer / Cinematographer / Editor / Sound
Keith Wilson
Documentary Producer
Katayoun Dibamehr
Immersive Co-Producer
Richard T. Sherman
Consulting Producer
Delfina Vincenti
Associate Producer
Juan Pedro Agurcia
Associate Producer
Michele Graffieti
Designer
Jacob Burke
Game Developer
Linus Gruszewski
Architect

Links & presentations