Monument as Ruin is a project completing the trinity of sites that maps the decentralization of warfare across the 20th century: from WWI sound experiments, through WWII visual command bunkers, to Cold War electromagnetic radar stations. TRAILER INSTALLATION Filmed on location in the UK, Belgium, France and the Netherlands, Stankievech conducted fieldwork at WWI and WWII military outposts (completing Arctic fieldwork for the DEW project). The project resulted in a science fiction film (with an original soundtrack by Colin Stetson), immersive installation with a custom built 12-foot cement speaker system, several 1-ton architectural models, large photographs, and a curated exhibition composed of: meteorites, 1774 Giovanni Battista Pirenasi print, 1960s IBM punchcard from Cold War radar station, 1967 Harald Szeemann "Science Fiction" broadsheet and the original publication of the 1939 scifi novella "Black Destoyer" by A.E Van Vogt. Project publication includes critical essays by Charles Stankievech and David Murakami Wood with an edited collection of textual fragments à la Jena Romanticism.
First shown at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queens University (the sister institution to the Royal Military College of Canada), the exhibition won Exhibition of the Year (OAAG), was acquired for the museum's permanent collection and became a platform for public programming in collaboration with Canada Research Chair in Surveillance Studies David Murakami Wood.
