2022.02 VIOLENT ARCHITECTURE: Artifacts of the Killhouse
Killlhouses are mockups of domestic interiors used by special forces, law enforcement, and occasionally civilians to train infiltration, room clearing, and kill or capture raids. They are simulations with the express purpose of training for killing through tactical reading of architectural objects: the door, the wall, the window, and entourage. The door becomes a breach target and a ‘fatal funnel’ requiring the bodily technique of ‘slicing the pie’ to restrict information bandwidth. Walls either become cover or concealment depending on the ballistic integrity of their material (stud frame and drywall vs CMU). Windows become information leaks, rendered similar in function to doors. And entourage fills in the simulation to better prepare for real world violence using mannequins, images, and foam furniture to create a deadly domestic mise-en-place.
As killhouses are physically concealed through the remoteness and restrictions of their sites such as military bases, 'Violent Architecture: Artifacts of the Killhouse’ uses source materials of Government RFPs, patents, and FOIA requests to shed light onto the typology. By taxonomizing and recreating the artifacts of these simulations, the installation uncovers their intended ‘targets’ and the violence aimed at them. Just as the builders of a killhouse gaze at architecture for their creations, the installation closes the loop and returns an architectural gaze onto the Killhouse.
Nima Shariat Zamanpour is an Iranian-American artist who has undergraduate degrees in Art, Economics, and Computer Science from UC, Santa Cruz and is currently an M. Arch I candidate at Harvard GSD. Engaging with the political, environmental, and ideological, Nima’s conceptually based and materially focused work creates spaces for dialogue around subjects of bodies, spaces, and places.
