Field Instruments –

A series of lightweight, dynamic structures for the performing arts pivot along a geometric field, marking rural territories and inviting artists and audiences to tune their environment. This project emerges from an inquiry into the hidden geometries of rural land and their entanglement with history, infrastructure, and perception.

While the countryside often appears as a soft counterpoint to the city grid, it is structured by a rectilinear land division system defined by section stones—boundary markers often buried beneath the soil to avoid disrupting farming. These divisions, rooted in human-scale surveying traditions dating back to Roman knotted ropes and Egyptian rope stretchers, persist today beneath the surface of rural life. Modern agricultural patterns, such as the vast circles of center-pivot irrigation, overlay these older grids, revealing the layered geometries of land shaped by labor, technology, and the economics of production.

HIGHLIGHT

Field Instruments continues the design lineage of Plural Territories and Ring Rover, advancing our investigation into movable, dynamic, and portable structures that activate space and invite participation.