TRANSMISSION ART ARCHIVE

Frontier Mythology

2007
EcoArtTech
EcoArtTech’s Frontier Mythology consists of a mobile, solar-powered environmental digital video and FM radio installation made of recycled shipping pallets. Three portable multimedia players inhabit a primitive lean-to structure displaying videos of diverse contemporary landscapes. Concurrently, a transistor radio picks up a microradio transmission reciting quotations from classical works of American literature that both develop and critique the frontier myth that informs American constructions of land, nature, and wilderness. Originally designed to be located along a remote section of the Appalachian Trail, Frontier Mythology incorporates new media and sustainable technologies in an exploration of issues of sustainability, technological progress, and the experience of modern, hybrid environments. Authors of texts broadcast via FM transmission include the following: Ursula Le Guin, Willa Cather, Cormac McCarthy, Samuel Clemens, Leslie Marmon Silko, Frederick Jackson Turner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner. Frontier Mythology debuted in New York City at Solar One, Stuyvesant Cove Park, in July 2007 during the CitySol music, art, and culture festival.