What does a landscape allow me to do?
I observe patterns and start to recreate them over and over again. I observe the colors of the desert and how they change hour by hour. I listen to desert’s music. Never too loud, and combined with the heat (and loud running air conditioners) it creates its own world. I collected images of the signs in Wendover: signs are significant for peoples interpretation of their surrounding. Between bizarre and corporate I would find Coca Cola cans in the dusty dirt, next to flashy Casino neon logos, next to a hand made advertisement for a taco food cart. On top of that the desert puts everything in its warm-yellow light, heats it up with solar power, and even green becomes beige. As opposed to all the signs—examples of the brightest colors of the whole spectrum, all advertisement seems to fight the yellow beige-ness of this world. A delirium of colors and temperature.
This is my experience and my observation of the landscape in the wasteland of Utah.
The detail of the pattern is movement.
What does a landscape want me to see?
The dust devil making me be ONE with the earth for a few seconds. The sun burning the edges of my shirt between my shoulders. The dry wind making me wanna drink more and more and more water. The heat, the dry heat and hot wind makes me falling in love. Overall, it’s just too much of everything. Too much absence of green, water and trees. Too much presence and too much space. Too many Casinos and too many religious restrictions. Too many clouds making the sky look ten times bigger than I’ve ever seen before. This ocean of salt—this ocean of salt right in front of me; more white than an ocean could ever be
The imagery of the desert emerges into a large multi colored pattern of dust, sand, abandoned storage units, garbage of civilization, haunted ghost stories on the military bases, sun burned faces of Wendover citizens, proudly displayed and defended American flags, explosive fireworks on Independence Day, outlaw waste land and 100° Fahrenheit. The heat is all over and never goes away. Air Condition is our holy deity these days. Days are passing by so fast; at the same time it feels we’ve been out here forever. Perspectives are getting distorted entirely. Destination seems to be close but it takes forever to walk. A morning run and forenoon expedition out to the unknown would just burn my brain away. It all has a price. Wasting hours and hours getting rid of sunstroke; learning to respect the desert as also my physical and metaphysical body. What are we able to bear?
The desert is fast and unpredictable. Within one hour it can get incredibly and deadly hot, and within ten minutes there might be the next dust storm trying to get me. And luckily the desert even turns silly conversations and group dynamics into serious movie poster projects, which end up being actually amusing to others; telling the story of surviving in the desert. Permanent stress of the sun makes brains work differently. Makes communities work differently. Surviving is all we can think of—in a metaphorical way and for real. Getting water and getting inside (holy AC!)—being productive in the evening and preparing food for the group. Diffusing between a burning desire for solitude, the artist’s madness and the embracing joy of being part of a community—a family. Home can be anywhere. Even in the desert.
What does a landscape want me to learn?
Learning to respect this environment by seeing vastness. Feeling its powerful energy, which can both be elevating and destroying—and me in between those opposing sites: lost and found; passing out and waking up; sun stroke and getting tan. Learning to trust the deadly and the frightening; starting to have a relationship with them and becoming friends. Drinking too much coffee with too nice of people after my morning run. The desert creates space, but a certain kind of closeness. I am sitting on the porch and the warm wind is gently touching my legs. Love. Being calm and graceful. Graceful!
I am feeling the American West in its beauty and mercilessness. I am feeling the American Way of life by experiencing its challenges and powerful force. Nature forms the way people think and act. How much does a brain expand in such a vastness but at the same time gets scattered, unfocussed and burned away—our offering to the sun which once created the first life on earth. No trees, no lawn, no shade, no grace. Sun, wind, dust and world’s intensity concentrated at one spot. Thoughts about life and art and all important questions seems to be urgent and meaningless at the same time. What about just living as art—and the rhythm of every hour gives me time and space and meaning enough: to work, to create and to survive. Simplicity in its own beauty.
How blessed we all are. How humans have always been adaptable to each and everything. The earth is our home and we will always be welcome here. A large pattern where the line between human and nature disappears and merges into a wonderful pattern telling us stories. I came here to try to listen to them, and to learn what the American South West wants me to teach; whatever unexpected direction it might take. Turning the wasteland into… I am in Wendover.
Wendover.
Wendover.
Founded 1908. Named for “Wending over” the desert
“wend": 1. to pursue or direct (one's way); 2. to proceed or go; Origin: Middle English “wenden", Old English “wendan”, cognate with German “wenden"
The abandoned village called Wendover Utah in its unity and dividedness in itself, inspired me to work on this artwork asking existential questions on life, on caducity, and the question for meaning. After one week, and after I understood that I am going to burn away in heat, I asked the question for the ultimate meaning of life. Extensive research in Salt Lake City got me to the door of the Mormon temple, but the door was closed. Apparently religion does not want to give me answers. All I found in the "Book of Mormon” was the old New Testament, with its same old-fashioned phrases.
Then I kept asking myself what art is, and found out it is all about speaking in complicated and convoluted sentences. I am really good at that in my native language, but I am having trouble doing that in English. This epiphany took me an entire week. After that, I tried really hard for about 24 hours to understand this epiphany. And I found that it was really hot in Wendover. Still. There is no emptiness out here. Art makes it sound like it must be beautiful and very smart, and I try really hard to make myself even more confused than I was already. I hate everything which wants to make my life more easy. I seek the pain! But I also hate nature because it makes everything so uncomfortable. So I mostly stayed inside the AC. And every time I have to hose the car after I failed once more to find the meaning of life at the Salt Flats although I was really well equipped with cameras, recorders, and ready to exercise my brain. No answer. Just heat.
What you can see here is an analogy to my broken iPhone. It broke after falling down in the desert, closed to Salt Lake City at a gas station. I did not like that, because it was my fault. This piece of art is dedicated to all broken iPhone screens. My advice for you: never go to the desert. You won’t find anything other than heat and dust, and a insufferable self confrontation. And it is better to talk about art in air conditioned rooms in temperate regions. Amen.
