Landscapes of Capital

Landscapes of Capital

Multinational corporations are the most powerful institutions of our time. Their power is symbolised by their products and services, all of which depend in some way on the expropriation of nature.

Today, many of capital's key decisions incubate in the conference rooms of Las Vegas hotels - the world’s foremost destination for corporate conventions, trade shows and motivational events. While the casino-city is an obvious index of capitalism’s excess, less familiar are the vast, air-conditioned meeting spaces, some larger than football fields, in which the world’s most powerful actors shape our futures.

Beyond their doors lies Death Valley, Las Vegas’ inverse image; a paragon of silence and natural beauty. Beneath its surface are the elements and minerals upon which industrial capitalism has been built: from silicon and oil to uranium and tungsten. Landscapes in ruin show the ravages of capitalism, but the great nineteenth-century American landscape painters expressed the nation’s spirit of expansionism and Manifest Destiny through visions of pristine natural design. Unlike European Romanticism, which idealised a natural world threatened with industrial destruction, U.S. painting appreciated the landscape's potential for economic development, the imperatives of property and capital, as much as for its beauty.

"Death Valley and Las Vegas are inseparable. There is a mysterious affinity between the sterility of wide open spaces and that of gambling... For the one is the hidden face of the other and they mirror each other across the desert, the one as acme of secrecy and silence, the other as acme of prostitution and theatricality".
Jean Baudrillard

1 • H • Hydrogen

Hydrogen makes up about 90 percent of atoms in the entire universe. The element is used heavily as both a gas and liquid fuel. Hydrogen was used by NASA as the main fuel for the Space Shuttle program and is used currently by the petroleum and manufacturing industries.

"the horizon of the thinkable"

14 • Si • Silicon

Electronics, circuit-boards, semi-conductors, microprocessors, image sensors.

"simplify your approach to privacy"

35 • Br • Bromine

Agricultural chemicals, dyestuffs, insecticides, pharmaceuticals and chemical intermediates. Used as a fire-retardant in plastics and electronics. Water disenfectant for swimming pools and hot tubs. Silver bromide is used in film photography.

"image is everything"

40 • Zr • Zirconium

Zirconium is used as an anti-corrosion compound in pumps and valves. It does not absorb neutrons, so it is also widely used in nuclear reactors.

"it’s everywhere you want to be"

47 • Ag• Silver

Jewelry, tableware, coins, scientific equipment, photographic processes.

"your vision, our future"

19 • K • Potassium

Potassium is mainly used in compounds. It is combined with chlorine to produce potassium chloride which is used in fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, and saline drips. Potassium hydroxide is also used in soaps and cleaners, while Potassium carbonate is used in the manufacturing of glass.

"compliance made easy"

38 • Sr • Strontium

Used in pyrotechnics to produce brilliant reds. It can also be used in ferrite magnet production and zinc refining.

"the science of desire"

17 • Cl • Chlorine

Plastics. Used to make paper. paints, textiles to insecticides. Disinfectant. 85% of pharmaceuticals use chlorine or its compounds at some stage in their manufacture.

"producing the right psychological response"

56 • Ba • Barium

Barium is used to produce a green glow in pyrotechnics. It is also used to remove gases from vacuum tubes. Compounds of barium are used as a contrast medium in X-rays.

"what kind of future do we want?"

33 • As • Arsenic

Electronics, Pyrotechnics, Chemical warfare, Medicine, Dye for paints, wallpapers, fabrics, cosmetics.

"the way it’s meant to be played"

29 • Cu • Copper

Electrical wiring and motors. Roofing and plumbing. Copper is thermally conductive, so used in radiators, air-conditioning units, and heating systems. Copper sulfate is used as an agricultural poison and as an algicide in water purification.

"fighting terror with commercial technology"

8 • O • Oxygen

Pure oxygen is used to treat breathing problems and to make spacecraft livable. Mainly used in manufacturing alloys and chemicals such as nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide. Also used as an antifreeze and to make polyester, and chloroethene, the precursor to PVC.

EWAN TELFORD.