Urban Ecologies and Social Practice Art

Fig 16.

Seismic Ruins, Nicola Twilley and Geoff Manaugh, Venue | v-e-n-u-e.com, 2013.

Over the course of its sixteen months on the road, Venue has visited many sites of simulation, both scientific and cultural. One of the project’s earliest interviews was with seismologists at the University of Nevada at Reno. In their internationally renowned shake-table facility—so large it was in the process of moving to a larger, purpose-built laboratory next door—the faculty perform real-time, structurally devastating simulations of notable earthquakes from the past. The ruins from these experiments—mostly cracked pillars and broken concrete—stand outside, forming an Acropolis-like gathering of broken architecture in the desert sun.