Killbros Model 350 Gravity Box

Helen Hayes

What is it? Who owns it? How long has it been here? What was here before? These four questions opened Lisa Parks’ keynote presentation at the ECREA Infrastructures and Inequalities Conference I attended in Helsinki last October. Presenting her work on network sovereignty and the materialities of media infrastructures in Tanzania, Parks explained that a “footprint analysis” involves investigating the political, social, and geographic practices that stem from a single infrastructure (see the 12 “footprint” questions outlined below). In doing so, it suggests that all infrastructures are nodes of larger political, geographic, or social development projects – at least to some extent.

On a walk a few weeks ago, I noticed a red machine in an empty field. Its colour starkly contrasted the greenery of the woodland behind it and the tilled grass that was covered with what seemed like a million yellow dandelions. As I approached, it became clearer that the field must have been tilled using this machine in order to prepare for a new development on the “empty” land in which it was parked. Using a reverse image search of a photo I took of the scene, I determined that the machine was a Killbros Model 350 Gravity Box. Understanding how, why, and to what extent the gravity box was implicated in the larger political and economic project of land development piqued my interest and led me to undertake a footprint analysis using Parks’ framework:

What is it? – Killbros Model 350 Gravity Box
Who owns it? – unknown
How long has it been there? – about two months (it’s still parked on the field today)
What was here before? – forestry
Who owns the land? – Metrus, a development and property management corporation
What kinds of materials and equipment are here? – Only the gravity box
How did it get here? – unknown
Who brought it? – unknown, but assumed to be Metrus or a company contracted by Metrus to prepare the land for property development
How long did it take to build the site? – unknown
Who does it serve? – unknown
What is it connected to? – unknown
Who operates, maintains, repairs, and secures it? – unknown

Attempting to use Parks’ footprint analysis left me with more questions than answers, spotlighting the opaqueness of the infrastructural development process to local residents like myself. All I know is that, in some way, the gravity box embodies the materiality of land “production” – its infrastructural power a link in a larger chain of networked development tools. Although I’m unable to answer all of Parks’ questions with the (limited) information gathered from my observation, that unknowingness has produced an infrastructural mystery that I’m eager to see unfold over time.

Text and images by Helen Hayes