Summary

A Field Guide to Coastal Fortifications is an essay film charting the technological evolution of military bunkers built within the San Francisco Bay’s eroding coast. The film observes a dynamic geological relationship between the literal structures of colonial power, and the land itself. As symbols of military might, the bunkers were tasked with protecting the coast from ‘perceived threats.’ Constructed, reconstructed and updated over time, these structures stood and waited for the enemy that never came. Against the backdrop of a changing landscape and its mythology, the film looks at the evolution of military technologies of seeing.