Body Double: Mythmaking and Identity in a Virtual Countryside

This thesis looks at how the romanticized image of the American countryside has shifted over the last century. By tracing a lineage of mediation through different mediums (print, television, internet), we argue that there has never been a pure rural condition. Currently, the countryside is undergoing new changes brought about largely by the connectedness of an ever-shrinking internet. Everything at this moment seems more local, personal, and urgent than before. We describe this condition as a 'flattened' state, where information no longer encounters the same thresholds of legacy media, where 'facts' are handed from above and distributed outward. In this context, there is no truth or falsity, only indeterminacy. This poses challenges for the discipline of architecture, long considered a cultural practice, as the internet and its infrastructures blur distinctions between place, time, and identity. The goal of this work is twofold: first, to develop a clearer understanding of this condition; and second, to propose a conceptual framework for architects to design within moving forward.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Architecture

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Architecture

Department dc:contributor.department

Architecture

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Caywood, Collin Chandler

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Borunda, Luis

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Gipe, Andrew
• Garcia Carrasco, Edgar Eduardo

• Platform Capitalism
• Identity
• Culture
• Representation
• Rural Idyll
• Digital Labor
• Critical Theory

Statement dc:rights

• Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:44202

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/134249