If you've been reading Subtopia for a while now then this may not come as anything new since I've called attention before to these mysterious simulacrums of urban space--I'm talking about those ghostly MOUT (Military Operation on Urban Terrain) training facilities where entire pseudo landscapes and quasi architectures are designed solely for the purposes of being conquered and reconquered, over and over again to help prepare the armed forces for counter-insurgency warfare in cities abroad--life inside a simulative architectural loop; landscape as militaristic prop...
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This is a lengthy post on MOUT (Military Operation on Urban Terrain) training facilities by Bryan Finoki of Subtopia: A Field Guide to Military Urbanism. These large scale recreations of Middle Eastern urban towns, constructed in remote areas of the United States, allow trainees to rehearse simulated war scenarios within structures akin to enormous movie sets. The post discusses the development of CAMOUT, the largest MOUT initiative to date, which will be roughly the size of downtown San Diego when complete. In an age dominated by spectacle, Finoki's article points to chilling experiential developments.
"The essence of MOUT is that it prepares one for the conditions of an elsewhere; it is an active ghost town this way empowering its subjects to descend on cities the other side the world and enact their will wherever they see fit. It is again another manifestation of this military urbanism’s contemporary elasticity; it is the capability of bringing the complexities of a foreign city home in order to practice the art of conquering it there first. It is an eerie simulated architectural sublime in the art of war."
Originally posted on Subtopia by Rhizome
