“Dishes and Track” by James Corner, Magdalena, New Mexico

This is another piece of photography depicting how a landscape has been changed for the worse. This landscape is in Magdalena, New Mexico and was taken by professional photographer James Corner. James Corner is an internationally known Landscape Architect and photographer. The structures you can see are a few of 27 dishes (84 foot antennas) all scanning outer space for some sign of life all in the hope of a major discovery. In the image we can also see tracks, these tracks are used to move the dishes to different placements so that NASA can focus on a certain part of space and scan a more defined area. But something which I am asking myself is, is it worth ruining such an amazing area which is so breathtaking. Obviously some may argue that anything to research our future is worth the sacrifice but when we think about it, so far, have we made any truly life-changing discoveries thanks to these huge, ugly and landscape-altering structures. I am not denying that many discoveries have been made, but none of them have really had an impact on Billy sitting at home. I think this is what Corner is trying to comment on. How, is it really necessary to spend so much money on a program which has so many flaws.

Now for an analysis. The thing that immediately strikes us when you look at the image is the huge satellite dish in the foreground. I think this was something of Corner’s choosing, he wants to show you exactly what this picture is about from the second you see it. Also, it is a way of drawing attention to the piece, if you just saw a large plain with dishes  on it then you might not really look at it, but this picture, it really grabbed my eye immediately. Furthermore, he has taken the picture at a certain angle so that you see the line up of the dishes stretching off out of sight, both to show his point about how much they are influencing the landscape and to emphasize an eternal influence on nature. Finally, the sky is clear (apart for a couple of clouds). Maybe this is a kind of analogy meaning, the sky is clear: there is nothing out there and so setting up these dishes to search space is useless and so the consequences out way the benefits.