TTF 2021 – Borders of ZATO

Borders of ZATO / Границы ЗАТО
http://zato.strelka.institute/
Liu Bauer (RU) | Evgeny Bykov (RU) | Dana Molzhigit (KZ) | Xena Poleshuk (RU)

In the middle of the 20th century at the beginning of the Cold War, the USSR started the development of new kinds of cities: closed, military governed research centers, known as ZATOs. Based on the case of their enclosure, this project reconsiders city borders and designs new bordering techniques.

Initially ZATOs were united by one goal - creation of the atomic bomb. Despite a regime of secrecy, ZATOs formed industrial nuclear clusters and an interconnected scientific network. The growth of this network could be seen both as a planned strategic aim of the USSR, and as the formation of a giant multi-nuclear organism with a distributed cognition system. But how could closed cities be connected to anything? We expose this paradoxical complexity of ZATOs borders by bringing different notions of “enclosure / openness” from cybernetics and ecology. The further we explore ZATOs, the less information about them we have. Missing data about travel routes of scientists between ZATOs or construction of the wall reveals fundamental premises about the way we think about borders. We introduce the notion of bordering cascades and temporal vortices to describe not just the closed world of ZATOs, but various spectra of past and future planetary cities.

Credits:

The project was developed during The Terraforming 2021 at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow, Russia
https://theterraforming.strelka.com/

Project team: Liu Bauer, Evgeny Bykov, Dana Molzhigit, Xena Poleshuk
Program Directors: Benjamin H. Bratton, Nicolay Boyadjiev

Additional Credits:

Art director
Vlad Afanasiev

Thanks to:
Jussi Parikka
Ryan Bishop
Nabi Agzamov
Angelina Davydova
Daniar Yusupov
Lydia Kallipoliti
Andrey Tetekin

Видео TTF 2021 – Borders of ZATO канала Strelka Institute/Институт Стрелка