Scanscape

Essays by Elizabeth McNeil, Peter Marcuse, and Marc Rder.

On first glance, this book seems to be a collection of photographs of a carefully crafted scale model for a tract housing developer. Looking closer though, the barren fields, hills topped with cows and power lines, waterfalls and fountains, and sections of half-completed houses indicate that indeed these are real places where real people live. Yet the feeling of its being a model subsists. It's uncanny. Documenting the gated communities that have begun to sprawl into peripheral areas of the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles (and for that matter, identical developments all over the U.S.), German photographer Marc Rder shot these images in such a way that the foreground and background are mashed together, giving the sensation that these are photographs of miniatures. These images invite repeated inspection into the detailed minutia of fabricated living environments, and are a powerful, thought-provoking commentary on these artificial, fenced-in housing divisions. Scanscape also includes an essay by Elizabeth McNeil wherein she poses questions to members of these communities, an essay by Peter Marcuse titled "Commodifying the Garden of Eden," and telling photos of assorted trappings and signage.

"The protection that is needed is mental as much as physical. It would spoil some of the pleasure of living in a new Garden of Eden to know that it is built, unlike the old, on the labor, the sweat, the poverty and hardship of many millions of others." Peter Marcuse

Mark Rder currently lives and works in his hometown of Bochum in the Ruhr region of Germany. He studied photography at the Folkwang School, Essen and at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California. Scanscape was his final academic project. He currently works as a freelance photographer and designer.