You say dystopia, I say utopia.

 I've been on a dystopian future literature kick lately: rereading The Road, revisiting Margaret Atwood's books the Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake, and finally getting around to reading America Pacifica. There is something incredibly fascinating in thinking about how nature will eventually reclaim our dwellings and erase the scars we've left on the landscape.

 

I find a lot of beauty in decay and I hate most commercial architecture so I find it particularly soothing to envision it abandoned and overrun with vines and brush. I'm secretly cultivating a strident anti-consumerism stance (and a healthy dose of self-loathing for my role in perpetuating the cycle) and the thought of civilizations crumbling is no longer a depressing prospect but just an inevitable reality given our current trajectory. (Take note: apparently this blog is about to start documenting my transformation into a misanthropic hermit. I was definitely born in the wrong era for this, but I'll do my best to make it work.)

I really enjoy Alex Lucas's work for the reasons noted above. Frankly, I'd be way happier picking through briar bushes in a spray-painted shell of a Walmart than I would be digging through the sale racks of one in its current state. I especially like the fact that the top piece is acrylic and silk screen on book pages. Neat. His work reminds me of something else that I've already posted about: the 100 Abandoned Houses project. Also neat (albeit slightly depressing if you care about the economic health of the US).