# Excursions on Volume. Counterfeit Terrains by Shawn Sims & Erik Martinez

Excursions on Volume. Counterfeit Terrains is the research achieved by Shawn Sims and Erik Martinez for Michael Chen and Jason Lee's Pratt undergrad thesis studio named Crisis Fronts. This research presentation is half way of the thesis project which would be released in May 2010.
Shawn and Erik studied very seriously the apparatus of counterfeit product transportation globally and locally. An important part of the research observes the processes of control and suppression of those products and how those processes are passed through by a certain amount of clandestine goods.
The proposition made here is a scenario worthy of a Geoff Manaugh's story, a narration of urban landscapes directly influenced by this clandestine economy and even counterfeit landscapes constructed thanks to the waste of this economy.

Here is an excerpt of the project's precis:

Certain logistical points along the trajectory of product movement are susceptible to highly intelligent protocological hacks. The global logistical infrastructure of shipping can be seen as a set of highly rigid channels providing passage to a steady flow of matter. The system is most comfortable when it exists in its normalized state of equilibrium. While this perpetuates the rigidity of the system, this is a highly fragile moment. At any instance there may be a point in the system that is experiencing great pressure, while, opposite that, there is a void created by this dynamic. The greatest threat to a system with this nature is flooding. Unlike a hack, which is a systematic attack on specific ingress typologies, flooding does not necessarily attempt to operate with stealth; instead it locates its ingress moment, and through sheer force, attempts to breach the rigid system. The flood is an attempt to disrupt the structure of the network and the equilibrium. This offers the illicit matter an opportunity to blend in with the masses. Both hacking and flooding occur due to specific counter-protocols in operation. The two modes are able to correspond at times and, at others, operate independently. In correspondence the power of the collective hack is able to generate a new, differentiated rigidity spawning internally out of the licit network.

Historically, logistical spaces were positioned within the closest proximity to urban areas. This was in attempt to maintain the singular space of commercial and social programs, often resulting in urban environments producing high degrees of capital flow. Within these spaces, a public forum, often times a plaza or park, begins to emerge as a viable topology for understanding the link between commercial and social infrastructures as they pertain to capacities of slippage.

You can read and see more on the Crisis Fronts' website

To be continued...in May