Two weeks of  intensive fieldwork and archival research in the Hombroich area resulted in a massive amount of data, images, and folklore.  How to allow people to retrace our psycho-archaeological steps? One: Make a place where visitors could grasp the relationships we uncovered. Two: Make visitors' guides. The result was a temporary installation and printed guide flyers with maps, modeled closely after the original Raketenstation guides. An audio track played continuously.

Site Selection and Preparation

 

 

After confirming that at least one of the distant miltary sites was visible from an elevated perspective atop an existing berm (originally constructed to protect the missiles from attack), the temporary intervention site was chosen.

 

A narrow path was cut in the weeds atop the berm to allow access to the intervention site, carefully detouring around a fine thistle plant. 

 

The one-day intervention was comprised of the team’s tools, notebooks, and worktable, which had been moved from the kloster where team members were staying and working, along with freely distributed visitors’ guides to the sites, which closely mimicked the existing Raketenstation visitors’ guide.  An audio recording of the analytical text played continuously.

 

The intervention became a provocative and comfortable site for impromptu debate on history, defense, and nuclear issues, and the role of art in illuminating the aspects of human nature underlying each.