How We Measure What We Lost

2015

How We Measure What We Lost is a single-channel video that visualizes the relationship between memory, architecture, and measurement. Filmed inside Fort Warren on Georges Island in Boston Harbor, the piece uses a network of 99 self-leveling construction lasers and a military parachute to chart the boundaries of a massive stone vault.

The work expands the McMillans’ long-term inquiry into orientation and observation—originating with the 2008 Finland projects This Land Is a Ship at Sea and A Slight Shift of Gravity—into a contemporary architecture of precision and loss.