Tricksterism as a mode of resistance: An alternative freedom for the body inside military simulations and desertscapes

Research explores how a site-specific art practice, engaging the body in movement and installation making, can shift our perceptions of large scale terrain and its borders. Research propels the body on absurd journeys, which align with an adaptation of Tricksterism, to question the spatial dynamics which uphold ownership of large scale terrain. The core objective for this research is to contribute to a practice-led method which enables a different reading of the field of power.

The contradictory visions of North-American desertscapes, which are simultaneously a symbol of freedom, and a place of control and violence, will form the stage for developing these modes of resistance. Research focuses on desert training sites for Mars and the military, and is arranged into three main sections: Political rambling & desert freedom; Spatial control & militarisation of desertscapes; and Resistance: Tricksterism in multi-time, multi-space - new ways of sharing terrain. Research seeks to answer the following questions: How does movement cross borders in desertscapes? What is the effect of spontaneous encounter on force structure? How does absurdity disrupt power in desertscapes? What opening is created by evolving site actions through multiple mediums on and offsite?

American desertscapes are environments where the nation's power and an individual's claim to autonomy crystalize in surreal and cruel ways. Combining artistic methods of journeying, encounter, and absurdity, research develops a contemporary form of Tricksterism as a mechanism for questioning territorialisation in the desert. Within the framework of an open ended journey, travelling across private and public desertscapes, this adapted Tricksterism produces strategic events, spontaneous action, and uncontrolled encounters, blending reality with new realities. David Levi Strauss and Jean Fisher's contemporary assessment of Tricksterism as a mode of resistance against colonialism, or ground invasion, is a jumping off point. Alongside building a list of artists, who I believe have contemporary Trickster traits, I explore how site-specific Tricksterism, through sustained journeying, mapping and chance occurrences, can generate its own multiplying realities, permanent autonomy and future alternatives on the land. This evolution is supported by Burrows and O'Sullivan's work on fictioning the landscape, myth-science and alien perspectives, as a means to create new futures. Relevant methods include the fictioning capacity of travel. For example, in Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass', his walk enables fictional moves through time and space, allowing him to understand and mirror all around him, and concluding that all humans and species are equal.

Research develops Tricksterism-as-method in Trickster's mirror form: shapeshifting through multiple registers/mediums, which are also presented offsite to multiply the space of action. Smithson's theories of site/non-site, are important to my research's exploration of spatial intervention and the interdependent relationship to its representation elsewhere. Further supporting literature includes Woodward's theories on how military spaces frame landscapes and categorise territory; Scott's analysis of land art methods as either challenging or supporting militarised techniques; and Klein's work on power and control in the 'scripted space' of military training.