Ever want to know why urban exploration, or urban archaeology, is such an intriguing, almost addicting activity for me and my friends? What compels us to enter vacant, forgotten, and possibly dangerous structures with a camera in hand? It’s not just to take a bunch of photos and brag about your badassness all day, even though that can be fun. Alan Rapp, a former senior editor at Chronicle Books, asked me and several other photographers that same question a while back. He was writing a thesis on urban archaeology photography in pursuit of an MFA at the School of Visual Arts. And just last week his final presentation, titled “The Shadow City: Urban Exploration and the Reclamation of Architectural Space” was posted online, and can be watched on Vimeo in its entirety.

I really thought Alan got to the bottom of why urban archaeology is such a compelling subject for both the viewer and the explorer. For starters, he quotes my good friend Jeremy Blakeslee, maybe the best industrial archaeology photographer around today. Jeremy says, “These places become like a drug for some reason. Places of this magnitude get you high. A combination of the history, the architecture, the light moving through, the smell of 100 years of motor oil from internal combustion engines flowing all over the floor like blood. And you’re just another layer in the history of this place.”

Wow. I knew Jeremy was pretty good at photography & design, but I never took him for a writer. Jeremy’s imagery may be beautiful, and it gives us a good idea of the feel of urban archaeology. But Alan looks further still. He remarks that because all architecture decays over time, ruined spaces hold more emotional weight than new buildings. For centuries, artists have found inspiration from ruined architecture, where every crack & layer of dust speaks about an environment’s history. This fascination of the decayed can be seen in countless 18th and 19th century paintings, some of which depicted fantasy visions of ruined modern cities.

He also hits upon something really key, at least for me. Alan says that urban explorers find a thrill in ruined or massive infrastructural spaces because the spaces “feel out of joint, not just due to their weird physical condition, but their position in time is uncertain. This seeming dislocation can alter the perception that time is not, as we would suppose, a one-way-road.” So urban archaeology can displace the explorer from time. It can give the impression that time is standing still, or that time has run wildly backward or forward. So urban archaeology is like time travel, in a way.

But there’s more. Alan asserts that, “[urban archaeology] serves a critical function as well: that people who do this express a dissatisfaction with the status quo… Whether the motivations are unconsciously romantic or consciously political, they express the same thing: that the regulations of property and social manners enforce a kind of spacial normalcy.” Breaking this normalcy, really, is a form of protest. Exploration protest. I have always kind of felt this protest bubbling under the surface of urban archaeology. For me, it is protesting the way history is so easily forgotten. It protests new sprawling developments, farther from the city, farther from our collective cultural heart. It protests the suburban trend of isolation versus community. It protests a lot of things, really.

Alan also wrote about the subject on his blog, CriticalTerrain… Alan’s blog is also worth browsing for those interested in art, architecture, space, photography… Great stuff.

Thanks Alan for a really intelligent and comprehensive analysis of urban archaeology. Your efforts are helping introduce urban archaeology as the legitimate and original practice it is, not the bold and reckless game some make it out to be.

Hey everyone. Well I’ve been away for a while. Here is a quick rundown to keep you all updated with my life… I am sure you’re all DYING to know…

Over the Spring I worked on a great indie horror/sci-fi/comic book flick called SUCKER, directed by Mike Manasseri with cinematography by the amazingly talented Deka Brothers, not to mention an amazing crew of creatives & friends. It was a really great experience to work so closely with “the Deka’s”, as we call them, who have a unique vision and style all on their own–keep an eye out for the soon-to-be-released Sodium Babies, the Deka’s first feature film, a visceral and stunning work of cinema produced over the last 5 years. Mike was a driven & tough director, and he not only ran an insanely huge crew on a tight schedule & budget, but he played the lead character of man-turned-mosquito. Mike sat through about two hours of makeup every “morning” (I put that in quotes because our schedule was usually 7PM-7AM) and wore painful full-eye contact lenses to play the part. Amazing stuff. I also got the pleasure to meet none other than Lloyd Kaufman of Troma fame–a comedic genius and a real sweetheart to boot.

Right after that wrapped up, I traveled far, far away to Kennecott, Alaska, a remote abandoned mining town in the center of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.

Traveling with fellow industrial archaeologist Jeremy Blakeslee, we found Kennecott to be a veritable ‘motherlode’ of history, architecture, abandonment, and just plain craziness. A future article will feature the trip and many photos, and a forthcoming documentary will showcase the mines, their history, and the occasional people who still live in the nooks and crannies around this magnificent abandoned wonder of the world.

Keep an eye out here for a new series that will feature video portraits and interviews with some of my favorite Detroit-area artists. First up will be Kevin Joy, the elusive artist of grasshopper fame (yes, we found him), followed by my good-good friend Adam Ziskie, children’s book artist and all-around professional weirdo. Good times!

Troubled Assets is a photo series that documents the abundance of repurposed bank buildings in Detroit, Michigan. The dominance of these buildings, and the bold architecture they employed, was a testament to Detroit’s wealth. Today, many of these historic structures still stand — no longer as banks, but rather as churches, hair salons, nightclubs, pawn shops, and day cares; others are abandoned, for sale, for lease, or status unknown.

Most of these structures were the property of the Detroit Savings Bank company or the Peninsular Savings Bank company. When Detroit’s wealth was sucked out of its neighborhoods and transplanted into the suburbs, these corner banks became superfluous. Many banks, including Detroit Savings, folded or were absorbed. Their assets, including their properties, were liquidated, leaving behind the structures for commercial and sometimes residential use.

The buildings have always intrigued me, but they grabbed my attention more lately as the economic situation has grown. While these buildings were not abandoned during today’s economic crisis, they are the physical remains of Detroit’s own money disaster.

The map below compiles the locations of these bank buildings. Many of the GPS data points are connected to images, while others are still waiting for a photo. Keep checking back here for updates — more photos will be added, and the map will grow as locations are scouted and added.

Green tags signify buildings with images, red tags signify buildings without images. Yellow tags signify buildings that may or may not have been banks.