About
01.
Summary
Topography is a multi-format documentary project that explores the histories, and futures, of land use.
Set in and around North American's increasingly imperiled public lands, the project spends time in the Badlands of South Dakota, California’s Death Valley, and Fire Island National Seashore in New York. From medicinal plant experts to paleontologists, rangers to ranchers, motel workers to tourists, environmental preservation to settler colonialism, seaside communities to seemingly desolate badlands—Topography fragments across time, species, scales, and histories to reveal how different perspectives shape the land and its futures.
02.
Formats
Topography spans documentary films, live-edited performances, immersive installations, artful video games, community publications, and interdisciplinary symposia. Formats symbiotically co-evolve in this uniquely iterative project, contributing material and learnings to each other. This allows the work to develop in community while reaching broad and varied audiences throughout the process.
03.
Elements
Topography brings together a rare combination of documentary footage, archival, and the creative misuse of emerging technologies including photogrammetry, game engines, and interactivity. We’ve gathered visible and hidden elements that make up these landscapes: documentary interviews and oral histories; ultrasonic, electromagnetic, and radio waves; field recordings, bat detectors, and contact microphones; mapping data including GIS, GPS and aerial laser scans; 3D scanned fossils, plants, and landforms; photographs, taxidermic animals, and herbaria; home movies, educational films, and images from wildlife cameras; the vast and the minuscule through microscopes and telescopes.
04.
Approach
Topography is created out of a collaborative place-based approach. Built on a practice of presence, we enter places without presupposing a story and instead build the narrative through listening deeply to what people choose to share. Through a slow and intentional process where we spend a long time in a place, projects emerge through relationships rather than preconceived ideas, while participants are centered as guides. This approach extends beyond production as we edit emergent narratives that are responsive to the material, create multiformat works, and build distribution strategies in conversation with the community.
05.
Directors' Statement
Directors'
Statement
We—Hannah Jayanti and Alexander Porter—have collaborated for the last decade on multiformat projects that combine documentary with emerging technology alongside social practices. These range from feature documentaries such as ‘Truth or Consequences’ (Rotterdam, 2020), to groundbreaking virtual reality documentaries including ‘Blackout’ (Tribeca, 2017), to live-edited performances such as ‘Strata’ (Transmediale, 2023), to co-creating large scale community projects such as the free and public arts festival, ‘Meteoric’, which takes place annually in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Our work pushes formal and artistic boundaries around what documentary can be, while maintaining a deep ethical commitment. As an immersive director and artist, Alexander strives to redirect new and often alienating technologies towards environmental justice, mental health, and the human imagination. As a filmmaker, educator and organizer, Hannah explores the transformative possibilities of process-oriented and formally expansive documentaries. In our collaborations, Hannah shoots, edits and does sound, while Alexander creates immersive virtual worlds. We are grateful to collaborate with a small and extremely talented team of artists, designers, engineers, producers, scholars, and community organizers.
06.
Project Timeline
2015
2018
2021
2021
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2015
2025
06.
Project
Timeline
2015
2018
2021
2021
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2015
2025
07.
Team
Led by Hannah Jayanti and Alexander Porter, Topography is a collaborative project that brings together a range of talented and interdisciplinary artists and ecologists working on the various formats in different capacities.
The core team includes:

Hannah Jayanti
Director / Producer / Cinematographer / Editor / Sound

Hannah Jayanti
Director / Producer / Cinematographer / Editor / Sound

Alexander Porter
Director / Producer / Virtual Cinematographer

Alexander Porter
Director / Producer / Virtual Cinematographer

Keith Wilson
Producer

Keith Wilson
Producer

Katayoun Dibamehr
Immersive Co-Producer

Katayoun Dibamehr
Immersive Co-Producer

Richard T. Sherman
Consulting Producer

Richard T. Sherman
Consulting Producer

Delfina Vincenti
Associate Producer

Delfina Vincenti
Associate Producer

Juan Pedro Agurcia
Associate Producer

Juan Pedro Agurcia
Associate Producer

Michele Graffieti
Designer

Michele Graffieti
Designer

Jacob Burke
Game Developer

Jacob Burke
Game Developer

Linus Gruszewski
Architect

Linus Gruszewski
Architect

Christian Knutson
Field Producer

Christian Knutson
Field Producer
Various formats are supported by:
Ken Corday FDM Grow Grant /
University of California at Santa Cruz /
Fire Island Artist Residency /
About
01.
Summary
Topography is a multi-format documentary project that explores the histories, and futures, of land use.
Set in and around North American's increasingly imperiled public lands, the project spends time in the Badlands of South Dakota, California’s Death Valley, and Fire Island National Seashore in New York. From medicinal plant experts to paleontologists, rangers to ranchers, motel workers to tourists, environmental preservation to settler colonialism, seaside communities to seemingly desolate badlands—Topography fragments across time, species, scales, and histories to reveal how different perspectives shape the land and its futures.
02.
Formats
Topography spans documentary films, live-edited performances, immersive installations, artful video games, community publications, and interdisciplinary symposia. Formats symbiotically co-evolve in this uniquely iterative project, contributing material and learnings to each other. This allows the work to develop in community while reaching broad and varied audiences throughout the process.
03.
Elements
Topography brings together a rare combination of documentary footage, archival, and the creative misuse of emerging technologies including photogrammetry, game engines, and interactivity. We’ve gathered visible and hidden elements that make up these landscapes: documentary interviews and oral histories; ultrasonic, electromagnetic, and radio waves; field recordings, bat detectors, and contact microphones; mapping data including GIS, GPS and aerial laser scans; 3D scanned fossils, plants, and landforms; photographs, taxidermic animals, and herbaria; home movies, educational films, and images from wildlife cameras; the vast and the minuscule through microscopes and telescopes.
04.
Approach
Topography is created out of a collaborative place-based approach. Built on a practice of presence, we enter places without presupposing a story and instead build the narrative through listening deeply to what people choose to share. Through a slow and intentional process where we spend a long time in a place, projects emerge through relationships rather than preconceived ideas, while participants are centered as guides. This approach extends beyond production as we edit emergent narratives that are responsive to the material, create multiformat works, and build distribution strategies in conversation with the community.
05.
Directors'
Statement
We—Hannah Jayanti and Alexander Porter—have collaborated for the last decade on multiformat projects that combine documentary with emerging technology alongside social practices. These range from feature documentaries such as ‘Truth or Consequences’ (Rotterdam, 2020), to groundbreaking virtual reality documentaries including ‘Blackout’ (Tribeca, 2017), to live-edited performances such as ‘Strata’ (Transmediale, 2023), to co-creating large scale community projects such as the free and public arts festival, ‘Meteoric’, which takes place annually in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Our work pushes formal and artistic boundaries around what documentary can be, while maintaining a deep ethical commitment. As an immersive director and artist, Alexander strives to redirect new and often alienating technologies towards environmental justice, mental health, and the human imagination. As a filmmaker, educator and organizer, Hannah explores the transformative possibilities of process-oriented and formally expansive documentaries. In our collaborations, Hannah shoots, edits and does sound, while Alexander creates immersive virtual worlds. We are grateful to collaborate with a small and extremely talented team of artists, designers, engineers, producers, scholars, and community organizers.
06.
Project
Timeline
2015
2018
2021
2021
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2015
2025
07.
Team
Led by Hannah Jayanti and Alexander Porter, Topography is a collaborative project that brings together a range of talented and interdisciplinary artists and ecologists working on the various formats in different capacities.
The core team includes:

Hannah Jayanti
Director / Producer / Cinematographer / Editor / Sound

Alexander Porter
Director / Producer / Virtual Cinematographer

Keith Wilson
Producer

Katayoun Dibamehr
Immersive Co-Producer

Richard T. Sherman
Consulting Producer

Delfina Vincenti
Associate Producer

Juan Pedro Agurcia
Associate Producer

Michele Graffieti
Designer

Jacob Burke
Game Developer

Linus Gruszewski
Architect

Christian Knutson
Field Producer
Various formats are supported by:
Ken Corday FDM Grow Grant /
University of California at Santa Cruz /
Fire Island Artist Residency /
About
01.
Summary
Topography is a multi-format documentary project that explores the histories, and futures, of land use.
Set in and around North American's increasingly imperiled public lands, the project spends time in the Badlands of South Dakota, California’s Death Valley, and Fire Island National Seashore in New York. From medicinal plant experts to paleontologists, rangers to ranchers, motel workers to tourists, environmental preservation to settler colonialism, seaside communities to seemingly desolate badlands—Topography fragments across time, species, scales, and histories to reveal how different perspectives shape the land and its futures.
02.
Formats
Topography spans documentary films, live-edited performances, immersive installations, artful video games, community publications, and interdisciplinary symposia. Formats symbiotically co-evolve in this uniquely iterative project, contributing material and learnings to each other. This allows the work to develop in community while reaching broad and varied audiences throughout the process.
03.
Elements
Topography brings together a rare combination of documentary footage, archival, and the creative misuse of emerging technologies including photogrammetry, game engines, and interactivity. We’ve gathered visible and hidden elements that make up these landscapes: documentary interviews and oral histories; ultrasonic, electromagnetic, and radio waves; field recordings, bat detectors, and contact microphones; mapping data including GIS, GPS and aerial laser scans; 3D scanned fossils, plants, and landforms; photographs, taxidermic animals, and herbaria; home movies, educational films, and images from wildlife cameras; the vast and the minuscule through microscopes and telescopes.
04.
Approach
Topography is created out of a collaborative place-based approach. Built on a practice of presence, we enter places without presupposing a story and instead build the narrative through listening deeply to what people choose to share. Through a slow and intentional process where we spend a long time in a place, projects emerge through relationships rather than preconceived ideas, while participants are centered as guides. This approach extends beyond production as we edit emergent narratives that are responsive to the material, create multiformat works, and build distribution strategies in conversation with the community.
05.
Directors' Statement
We—Hannah Jayanti and Alexander Porter—have collaborated for the last decade on multiformat projects that combine documentary with emerging technology alongside social practices. These range from feature documentaries such as ‘Truth or Consequences’ (Rotterdam, 2020), to groundbreaking virtual reality documentaries including ‘Blackout’ (Tribeca, 2017), to live-edited performances such as ‘Strata’ (Transmediale, 2023), to co-creating large scale community projects such as the free and public arts festival, ‘Meteoric’, which takes place annually in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Our work pushes formal and artistic boundaries around what documentary can be, while maintaining a deep ethical commitment. As an immersive director and artist, Alexander strives to redirect new and often alienating technologies towards environmental justice, mental health, and the human imagination. As a filmmaker, educator and organizer, Hannah explores the transformative possibilities of process-oriented and formally expansive documentaries. In our collaborations, Hannah shoots, edits and does sound, while Alexander creates immersive virtual worlds. We are grateful to collaborate with a small and extremely talented team of artists, designers, engineers, producers, scholars, and community organizers.
06.
Project Timeline
2015
2018
2021
2021
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2022
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2025
2015
2025
07.
Team
Led by Hannah Jayanti and Alexander Porter, Topography is a collaborative project that brings together a range of talented and interdisciplinary artists and ecologists working on the various formats in different capacities.
The core team includes:

Hannah Jayanti
Director / Producer / Cinematographer / Editor / Sound

Alexander Porter
Director / Producer / Virtual Cinematographer

Keith Wilson
Producer

Katayoun Dibamehr
Immersive Co-Producer

Richard T. Sherman
Consulting Producer

Delfina Vincenti
Associate Producer

Juan Pedro Agurcia
Associate Producer

Michele Graffieti
Designer

Jacob Burke
Game Developer

Linus Gruszewski
Architect

Christian Knutson
Field Producer
Various formats are supported by:
Ken Corday FDM Grow Grant /
University of California at Santa Cruz /
Fire Island Artist Residency /








