We recently returned from central Australia on a visit to the West MacDonnell Ranges, Kings Canyon, Uluru and Kata Tjuta.

While the focus of the postcard industry is on the iconic big rock, the region is in fact dominated by three monoliths, Mt Conner, Uluru and Kata Tjuta. While Mount Conner is some way away, Uluru and Kata Tjuta sit much closer to one another as a pair in the low scrub of the desert. Uluru is monolithic from a distance but spatially and ecologically diverse close up. Kata Tjuta on the other hand is a collection of objects from afar, sensuous in their plasticity, that up close coalesce into heaving forms of conglomerate red rock. The most startling experience is the realisation that at many points in the region the two landforms are visible simultaneously, capturing and defining the interior space of a desert whose primary concern I had previously thought was about objects centred on flatness.

The trip was the first leg in an ongoing piece of research into monolithic landscape and architecture. The research, funded by the NSW Architects Registration Board Byera Hadley travelling scholarship. In May and June we will be visiting, among other things the LA River, the Luxor Pyramid in Las Vegas, Monument Valley, Roden Crater (with any luck… it may have to be a drive by as it is proving exceedingly difficult to get access to the site while construction is still underway), Donald Judd’s art foundation in Marfa Texas, the Kubrick archives in London (yes), Peter Zumthor’s Bruder Klaus Chapel, Eisenman’s holocaust memorial in Berlin and finally the Pyramids in Cairo.

The research attempts to further some of the thoughts behind our Australian Peacekeeping Memorial project, namely the quiet resonance and transformative potential of monolithic structures and spaces.

In any case, I have set up a Tumblr site — MNLTH — where I will be posting images and reference material if you would like to follow along.

Over at Comic Book Cartography, we find Jack Kirby’s map of the World of Kamandi. Kamandi tells the story of a the last boy on earth, finding his way in a post-apocalyptic earth where animals have evolved and now rule the planet.

(full size)

The map describes an incredible future for this planet, a place of insane extremes both in terms of ecology and its inhabitants. It is a planet where central Africa is the “Mad-Hole Country of the Screamers” and Alaska a “Strange Fire Area”. Where New York is now the “Undersea New York Rat Network” and the Pacific Islands plays host to the “Orang-utan Surfing Civilisation”.

This is a post-people vision for earth that moves beyond the current fashion for imagining an idyllic world post-people, where greenery envelopes ruined buildings and flocks of birds are silhouetted against the sunset, to a place where the environment is charged with intense energy on the brink of madness and cataclysm.

I have not read much Kamandi (my introduction to the world was through the excellent serial by Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook in DC Comic’s broadsheet experiment, Wednesday Comics last year) so I am unsure as to whether the political geography of the stories reflect the extremes of this map, but I am certainly going to do some further investigation.

In any case, our favourite post-apocalyptic vision in the world of Kamandi as shown on this map has to be Australia which is now known as the “Kanga Rat Murder Society”. THE KANGA RAT MURDER SOCIETY. Which is if nothing else a great name for a band. Or an architecture office.

While Australia has generally had a solid running when it comes to the post-apocalyptic, the Kanga Rat Murder Society seems to presciently point to the specific Australia of Mad Max and Wolf Creek. Lawless, dusty places populated by mutant vermin. A place where although situated on an island, the coast is irrelevant, and the interior ascendant. Where kangarats are not only conceivable but have formed a proto-society based around killing.