Kiang Gallery: ...After the Suburbs

Travis Shaffer’s Residential Facades includes multiple photographs (two shown here) arranged side-by-side depicting a typical late-20^th century suburban residential occurrence, the blank wall. The walls shown in the photographs are so generic and familiar it is impossible to say where the pictures were taken- the two pictures above could have been snapped a block apart or on opposite sides of the continent. In this respect, the artist is communicating, to borrow Kunstler’s infamous phrase, the “geography of nowhere”. In addition, these blank walls are a response to the suburban ideal as a commodity- a safe, private, and sanitized residential environment. Remnants of America’s puritanical beginnings have reemerged since modern technology (HVAC and interior lighting) has largely negated the necessity for windows; i.e. once it became possible to live in hermetically sealed boxes, American’s have found comfort in a heightened sense of privacy which is most evident in suburban residential architecture. There is also a dose of mass-paranoia here embodied as well. Another consideration is that these are “cookie cutter” house models which are, more often than not, placed between two other houses. As a result, it has become necessary to observe an alternating window-less façade scheme throughout a development to assure “no peaking” between neighbors (a crafty developer might claim windows aren’t placed on the western façade to avoid direct sunlight in the hottest part of the day…. But how much sunlight can infiltrate the generally narrow space between these houses?). The fact the artist could grab these pictures from a public right-of-way (i.e. street corners) speaks to the disconnected and unconcerned manner in which most residential subdivisions are slapped together.