January 29: Steve Wernke, “Colonizing Spaces in the Andes”
Tuesday, January 29, 6:00 pm
Cohen 203
Steve Wernke, “Colonizing Spaces in the Andes: Toward Embodied Archaeological Perspectives through Virtual Reality and Simulation”
The Spanish invasion and colonization of the Andean region of South America proceeded in large measure through projects of mass resettlement and compulsory urbanism. The Spanish brought with them certain Mediterranean orientations about urbanism: that orderly cities and towns were not only a necessary precondition but also a motor force for civic community. Fueled by this ideological fervor, over the course of just a decade—the 1570s—the Spanish forcibly resettled more than a million native Andeans into over a thousand compact “reduction” towns. How these towns were situated and built, how living in them affected daily life in indigenous communities, and whether they produced the docile subjects and communities envisioned remain vexing questions. This talk renders these processes in detail through holistic spatial-analytical research centering on a spectacularly-preserved reduction town in the high altitude reaches of the Colca Valley of southern Peru. Spatial analyses of the settlement and historical demography reveal the processes involved in locating and building the town, as well as the mapping of Andean community onto its urban grid. Combined simulations of movement and visual perception inside the town, together with high fidelity, high resolution virtual reality exploration, enable approximation of the experience of dwelling in its built environment.
Steve Wernke is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Spatial Analysis Research Laboratory at Vanderbilt University.
The lecture will be followed by a reception and a hands-on VR demo in the Cohen auditorium.
This event is co-sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America, the Program in Classical and Mediterranean Studies, and the Department of History of Art.