And here is a “desktop documentary,” a web-based artform inspired by the works and lectures of Kevin B. Lee, about an agricultural area north of Amsterdam. Like other examinations on this blog, it’s an invitation to look past the beigeness of the region and understand its vitality. It is my attempt at the re-enchantment of a landscape that only appears dreary to the uninitiated.
This is a kind of tourism I enjoy practicing: instead of visiting the Grand Canyon, try finding a sanitary canal and pondering the high drama of its creation. “Dumb nature” is after all, nothing more than mere physical processes. The more appropriate object of wonder is the triumph of human effort, even if it’s a flat stretch of grass that’s been subdivided by investors.
There is also a critique of Manifest Destiny, and a comparison to more familiar ways of obtaining land. Draining swampland in northern Europe is a cleverer way to get some space for crops than dispossessing natives. And faster than watching magma congeal into arable land after it hits the ocean.
The other theme of this video is not stated outright. I have never been to Beemster Polder, I have not been able to perform this kind of touristic re-enchantment myself, so I am left to nose around on the Internet and look at others’ videos. Assembling a stack of things that I am interested in, then gently guiding a reader or viewer through what I think it might mean, is how I approach this blog, and it’s how I approached this project too. The Internet facilitated and mediated my approach to the subject matter, and I foregrounded that fact.