About

Background:

Growing up in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska I played an imaginary game called “power lines.” I  played by guiding an invisible avatar over the very visible wires in a series of “runs” and “jumps” inspired by video games like Frogger and Super Mario Bros. As I began driving myself around the country in my teens and twenties, I became more curious about power-lines and the seemingly digital nature of landscape. I was not only drawn to the physics of electricity but by the aesthetic position of these massive, high voltage transmission towers that often dominate the Western landscape, sweeping overhead and alongside roads and highways, climbing over hills and gashing through forests, pacing the journeys of vehicles, and sometimes tapping each power pole like a conductor’s baton. For many years I simply noticed the rhythms of the various lines, how they danced and flickered through the car window, keeping a steady beat for what seemed like miles and then suddenly dividing and diving into the distance to meet a small house or factory on the horizon.

As the years went by, I began to ask other people what they thought about power-lines. I tried to describe what distinguished the “good” power-lines from just the general eyesores. Though many people seemed as if they’d never given it much thought, others instantly related to my curious visual habit of playing games with the lines or noticing how the repetitive “dips” produced a strange rhythm inside the mind. Power lines were my funny little hobby and provided something to talk about during a few long road trips.

In 2006, my curiosity for power lines criss-crossed with my readings in American Literature. American preachers, poets, and philosophers translate the landscape through various systems of meaning (Creeds of Manifest Destiny, Economic of abundance, or Romanticism). Reading Jonathan Edwards’ “Spider Letter” produced a strange idea: I realized that, just as Edwards’ was blown away by watching spiders “fly” on webs through the forest, I had been fixated on power lines. In addition, both the spiders’ web and the power lines had the potential for producing a spiritual experience. It was not a revolutionary approach, but it was the beginning of a long journey.

I have learned that power-lines are a reminder of the electricity which all animals create and conduct between themselves and the world and I have watched with disgust as these seemingly monstrous shapes invade seemingly pastoral spaces. I have felt my mind leak into the power-lined grid of nature and to feel the buzz of the sublime just beyond its ubiquitous frame.

The blog is dedicated to the sinuous webs, steel towers and the electric power that drives our every day lives.  My modest proposal is that we might rethink our relationship to these visual symbols that provide a rhythmic breathing exercise for drivers and a meniscus for the photographers sky.