Landscape Noir and Other Contemporary Genres in One Case and One Exhibition

Abstract

In 2006 Pt Lapindo Brantas began exploratory drilling for natural gas outside of Sidoarjo, a small town in East Java, Indonesia. Its activities created a mud volcano which continues to erupt today and has displaced thousands without compensation and submerged villages, factories and agricultural land. This disaster persists and has created a new reality for its residents where corruption rules politics and government and design specialists and other experts exacerbate it. This extended case study is then related to a recent exhibition Contingency Plans: Or, Living with Unstable Grounds which analyses in depth similar contemporary landscapes which I argue can be productively understood in terms of contemporary landscape genres of noir and dark comedy of errors.