2014
At over 800 miles in length, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) is one of the world's largest oil lines. Its unique above-ground structure exists in stark counterpoint to the natural environment around it. Since its completion in 1977, TAPS has helped transfer almost 16 billion barrels of oil from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, Alaska. Topophilia is an experimental documentary that follows the pipeline from beginning to end and uses the conduit's linearity and unwavering repetition as a fixed point from which to measure movement and stasis. The film seeks to present the pipeline and its surroundings harmoniously as a continuous, giant building; a structure that simultaneously projects modern necessities and the resulting consequences; an architectural space that not only reorders the landscape and ideas of our place within it, but also offers an unmistakable juxtaposition between the endgame of industrial revolution, and the environment from which this scenario eventually plays itself out.