![\"katepeters1.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/katepeters1.jpg?resize=197%2C160&ssl=1\" "\\"katepeters1.jpg\\"")
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From 1867 to 1869, Timothy O\u2019Sullivan was commissioned as the official photographer for the Geological Exploration of the 40th Parallel, a government funded survey of uncharted territories in the American West, to investigate the region\u2019s mining prospects and attract settlers westward. His exacting documentation of unspoilt landscapes set a powerful precedent for how America, both country and concept, would and should be photographed. The American West has of course been thoroughly settled, its natural resources fully exploited, and its topography entirely transformed since then. Yet to this day, countless photographers traverse this strange landscape, mining it not for minerals or prophecies of a utopian future, but for open narratives and suggestive moods.<\/p>\n
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\u201cSanta Barbara is a paradise; Disneyland is a paradise; the US is a paradise,\u201d wrote Jean Baudrillard, \u201cMournful, monotonous, and superficial though it may be, it is a paradise.\u201d At the recent Format Festival, much of the work centred around explorations of Baudrillard\u2019s \u201cparadise\u201d. The secret of this shared fascination lay in the festival\u2019s theme, Photocinema. As one of the country\u2019s most influential exports, American cinema has followed O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s example and, perhaps more so than photography, served to define the country\u2019s mythology and perpetuate its cultural ideologies throughout the 20th century. Perceptions of America are now principally defined by filmic fictions rather than fundamental facts.<\/p>\n
![\"katepeters.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/katepeters.jpg\" "\\"katepeters.jpg\\"")
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