The Cabinet National Library

While designing the 2003 spring issue on "Property", Cabinet Magazine (a non-profit publication on art, sculpture & culture) purchased a 1/2 acre of land on Ebay for a mere $300. The property was a lot from the Sunshine Valley Ranchettes, an unsuccessful suburban development project from the 1960s.

The small New Mexico lot-- situated outside Deming, was subsequently dubbed "Cabinetlandia." Magazine -sized quadrants of the property were sold for one penny to Cabinet readers upon request. Cabinetlandia soon bragged of domains such as Readerlandia, Nepotismia, and Editoria, and other sectors within the greater motherland. Most importantly, however, Cabinetlandia became home to "The Cabinet National Library."

The Cabinet National Library is fittingly housed in a filing cabinet lodged within a cement wall. The top drawer of the library holds a card catalog, guestbook, and local service information. The middle drawer contains back issues of the magazine (open for public view, of course) and the bottom drawer serves as a snack bar.

If you plan to visit Cabinetlandia it is recommended that you contact Cabinet's editors beforehand, so that you can obtain recent issues of the publication for restocking the archive.

From Deming heading EAST:

- Take Route 549 East from Deming.
- Approx. 10 miles outside Deming, turn LEFT onto Lewis Flats Road (Luna County B041).
- Pass dairy farm and 3 sets of gates. Take the overpass over Highway 10.
- At the end of the overpass, turn immediately RIGHT on first DIRT road (parallel to Hwy 10).
- When you reach the end of that road turn RIGHT (toward Hwy 10).
- Take your first LEFT (parallel to Hwy 10).
- When you reach the end of that road turn RIGHT (toward Hwy 10).
- Turn to the RIGHT on the THIRD dirt road.
- About 200 yards down the road, the Cabinet postbox and Library should be on your LEFT

From Las Cruces heading WEST:

- Take Hwy 10 West from Las Cruces.
- Exit Route 549 West toward Deming.
- Approx. 10 miles outside Deming, turn RIGHT onto Lewis Flats Road (Luna County B041).
- Pass dairy farm and 3 sets of gates. Take the overpass over Highway 10.
- At the end of the overpass, turn immediately RIGHT on first DIRT road (parallel to Hwy 10).
- When you reach the end of that road turn RIGHT (toward Hwy 10).
- Take your first LEFT (parallel to Hwy 10).
- When you reach the end of that road turn RIGHT (toward Hwy 10).
- Turn to the RIGHT on the THIRD dirt road.
- About 200 yards down the road, the Cabinet postbox and Library should be on your LEFT.

Michael Heizer, City

Tom Vanderbilt's article Desert of Dreams posted on Oct.3 by Chelsea reminded me of Michael Heizer's current project located somewhere near Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The project consists of several massive structures built of stone, steel, and earth. Some of the structures are 80 feet high and a quarter mile long. Heizer began construction on City in 1970 and is expected to finish by 2010. Currently the site is closed to visitors.



Heizer's structures imitate the cold war structures Tom Vanderbilt mentions in his article Desert of dreams. The large, blank facades of earth reinforced with sterile concrete indicate a defensive function, similar to a bomb shelter. In the second image, the arangement of narrow spaces between huge concrete wedges resemble the slots in castle walls from which archers could fire while being protected, or shields designed to deflect a blast.

City was begun in the early seventies as an attempt to distil everything that had come before it into a single work of art. It is meant as a sort of relic to convey the accomplishments and feelings of humanity to later generations. Int his way the structure is defensive. It is designed to defend itself against the attack of time and possible warfare.

Relating to the defensive posture of City, I would also like to comment on Donald Judd's Marfa, Texas. Marfa is a small town near the Mexican border in west Texas. Beginning in the seventies Donald Judd, a well known sculptor, began to purchase buildings in Marfa including an old bank and a decomissioned air force base. Judd eventually bought most of the town turning the buildings into galleries for like minded artists to install their work permanently without interference. Dan Flavin, David Rabinowitch, and John Chamberlain are among the artists featured in Marfa.

Judd has since died but Marfa remains... exactly as he left it. Judd left New York in search of a place where he could place art works that he deemed valid permanently on view. Judd was a strict minimalist. He is best known for making variations on a box in various materials. As he watched tastes change and art that he considered bad gain popularity he resolved to create "stronghold" where pure minimalism could live on. When visiting Marfa one gets the sense that tha artwork is quietly waiting to be reborn, weathering the storm until a time when people realize their mistake in turning away from the purity of Judd's boxes. Though Marfa has none of the mega-structures of City or any accoutrments of a millitary installation (even the air force base has glass walls where concrete used to be) the protectionist ideology is still felt.

Sighting: Unidentified Aerial Objects

Thus far, Michel and I have witnessed two bizarre aerial objects on this very trip. Oddly enough, both instances occurred in remote locations at major earthworks, i.e. Smithson's Spiral Jetty and Heizer's Double Negative. We captured this photograph on the evening of the 17th.


If you look closely, you can just make out the profile of Spiral Jetty. We first noticed a vertical orange streak in the sky, as if an object with a straight trajectory was leaving a trail of fire in its wake. For several minutes we analyzed what we were seeing, which seemed unique in comparison to the hazy trails left by airplanes. These condensation trails (contrails) appeared to be parallel to the landscape, while this fiery streak was purely vertical. We finally snapped this photograph (above) as the burning streak dimmed, dissipating in a smoky haze.

("Faux" Photographic Recreation of Said Object)

Even more impressive were the strange lights we watched in the distance from Double Negative. As the sun went down we watched a fantastic array of shooting stars and meteors (evidently the area was experiencing a shower that evening). The lights of a few planes blinked in the distance. Then, around 9:00pm, just above the horizon, two tiny white lights (about the same scale as airplanes at that distance) appeared at equal distances apart and moved rapidly toward one another from the east and the west. Just before crossing one another due north, they both suddenly stopped and hovered. Simultaneously they lit up about three times larger than their initial size, glowing a fierce white in the center with a green and red aura on the fringes. They remained in this state for about a minute, then once again dimmed to their original state and retreated to their point of origin. They simultaneously disappeared.

Two explanations for our experiences exist, they don't help with plausibility. The nearest town to Spiral Jetty, Corinne UT is home to a rocket-motor test facility. The Thiokol Promontory Complex, a facility that builds shuttles for NASA, is also situated in Ogden, UT. As for anomalous aerial objects observed at Double Negative, one has to wonder if we witnessed some sort of aerial test performed on the infamous Nellis Air Force Complex, located about fifty miles from us. Nellis is also home to the rumored facility Area 51.

Nomad Space (A Thousand Plateaus)

Deluze and Guattari (A Thousand Plateaus) suggest that spaces of great expanse such as the desert, the arctic, and the high sea elicit an overwhelming sensation of detachment on the part of the viewer. It is a natural response to orient oneself by taking in, gauging and analyzing all aspects of a spatial encounter. To grapple with the endlessness of direction one must distinguish relationships between the sand, the bushes, the rushing of the wind and the location of rock. We struggle to gain our bearings in the incomprehensible void. Under these conditions one becomes acutely aware of elements such as the wind, and instinct takes over. As we "listen to direction," or these multiple voices ("poly-vocality") of space, we become aware of the fact that in realty we do not occupy a mere place within a region; rather, we "exist through the whole region." In effect we become nomadic.

"I, as nomad--live and move on the steppe. I exist through the whole region, here/there in all of it, not just in art of it. Localization undeniably exists: at any given moment. I am somewhere but drifting nowhere (as non-nomads who have never lived on the desert or steppe, or been at sea, doubtless fear). But my being somewhere is not restricted to being in a single locality: The ship is always moving on, the caravan continues, the dog team careens over the ice. I am distended everywhere within the region: I am potentially at any place within it. The region is the place that I am in. Thus the absolute has become the local, rather than the reverse. For place itself is everywhere- everywhere in, indeed as, the region." (A Thousand Plateaus, 494)

Mirror Displacement (Smithson)

Below is an image of broken glass laying on the desert floor. This particular bit of glass is located next to Morman Mesa Road as it leads up to Michael Heizer's Double Negative. And, as I drove past this glass I thought it was a mirror because it reflected the sky very well. My mind was immediately drawn back to the reflections in the saline crystals at the Spiral Jetty and to Robert Smithson in general. In his work Yucatan Mirror Displacements, Smithson lays small pieces of mirror in various places, covered and uncovered, throughout South America. By laying a mirror into the sand Smithson brings a little bit of sky down to earth, compressing the distance between.
But, the thing that strikes me most about this spider web of broken glass in the desert is the arbitrary placement beside a dirt road leading to nowhere. In fact, broken shards of glass and mirror littler the sides of the desolate desert road until it becomes a nearly impassible trail guarded by sharp rocks. Why do people place all of these reflective surfaces in this endless flat landscape? I would like to suggest one thought. When faced with the seemingly interminable void, the human instinct is to define it. One way to define a space is to define ones location within it, relative to it. A mirror, providing a reflection of oneself, allows the viewer to envision him/herself as part of that infinite distance and to break down the terrifying vastness of space.

Las Vegas

Speaking of Double Negative, Michel and Chelsea are doubly negative about Las Vegas.

Double Negative

Chelsea and I arrived at Double Negative, an earthwork by Michael Heizer, about an hour before dark. The trip was quite long. Double Negative is located outside of Overton, Nevada. Overton is located in the middle of nowhere. We have included a link with directions to the work at the bottom of the page. It also has a few aerial shots.

We were both very excited to see Double Negative as it is an iconic earthwork, but after spending a full day and night at the site we are both still a bit underwhelmed. As we left, driving across miles of flat mesa we discussed the reasons for our lack of enthusiasm. Just a few days ago at the Spiral Jetty we had both been blown away. We felt alienated from Double Negative rather than drawn in.

During our 24 hour stay at Double Negative no one else visited the work. In fact, most of the locals don't even know it's just a few miles outside of town. The overwhelming sense of isolation made it hard to see the work as alive.

In aerial images the work looks monumental and it is. The cuts are each approximately twenty feet deep and fifty feet long. But Double Negative is located on the edge of a huge mesa, the perfectly flat top of which stretches endlessly into the distance. Heizer's work also drops off into a green valley. Despite it's size, Double Negative is dwarfed by the immense scale of its surroundings.

Adding to the overall sense of lifelessness, Double Negative shows the marks of time. Erosion has caused the once parallel walls to crumble in places leaving debris piled in the bottom. This could lend the work a dynamic aspect, though the stillness of the space overshadows the effect. Perhaps witnessing the decay occuring could unlock the potential energy inherent in the work.

Overall, Double Negative felt inanimate though it was well worth the experience. The first thing we saw at the Spiral Jetty was a group of children running out onto it. In comparison to this spirited image, Double negative felt lonely and stagnant. We tried to capture the desolation in our photographs.

Getting to Double Negative is easier than getting to Spiral Jetty.

Though it is a bit confusing

The main hazard is popping a tire on the sharp rocks.

Once there, you can set up a tent just about anywhere on the flat mesa. Chelsea and I chose this precarious spot perched on the side of the south cut. Just don't go stumbling around in the dark.

This image shows the interior of the north cut. You can see how one of the walls has collapsed partially obscuring the view across the chasm.

Chelsea sitting next to the south cut looking over the lush valley below Heizer's work.

Michel warily peers into the north cut.

The intense sun casts a stark shadow in the south cut creating a striking image.

A context shot showing the mouth of the north cut as it drops off.

Looking south across the gorge.

Click here to see all of the images from Double Negative.

Click here for more information and directions.

Torrey, Utah

Chelsea and I spent the night of the 18th with Christopher, a friend of a friend, in Torrey, UT. Torrey is located in southern Utah just outside of Capitol Reef National Park. Christopher and some friends of his are working to create a self sustaining farm equipped with several greenhouses an orchard, and a chicken coop. We had a fantastic meal made from their produce. Christopher also took us into Capitol Reef to go stargazing and, in the morning, hiking through the Grand Wash. The Grand Wash is a canyon that has been used for more than a century as the only thoroughfare to... the other side? Anyway, you can read the names (and see the pockmarks from bullets) of pioneers carved into the cliff walls as early as 1812. Petroglyphs can also be seen from the Freemont Indians.

Michel jumping at the Tanks in the Grand Wash.

Chelsea standing on a natural bridge at the Tanks in the Grand Wash

Thanks Christopher and friends for opening your home to us!

Spiral Jetty, Smithson

The Jetty shot from midway up the hill in front of it. The rocks forming the shoreline seem to rush out into the lake forming the jetty. While we were there several families with children visited the Jetty. The first reaction of the children was to run out onto the Jetty much like Smithson does in his video. The site inspires a kind of weightless euphoria in the visitor.

This is a photo of the end (or beginning) of the Jetty. We took it specifically for Joan Watson.

Michel is weightlessly demonstrating the euphoric nature of the site. He is actually lifting out of the center of the Jetty itself.

Chelsea stands with the "promenade" of stone behind her as the Jetty flows out of the shore into the salt flats of the lake.

Behind Chelsea we see the profile of the Jetty rising from the lake bed.

Looking oddly like dental work, the stones of the Jetty are caked with several inches of salt deposits.

The convergence of the Jettys lines as seen from inside.

Salt flats around the Jetty. The salt layer on the lake bed is several inches thick. It can be hard or soft. Underneath the softer sections red water can be seen which sometimes makes the salt appear pink. Also punctuating the salt flats are outcroppings of what first appear to be stone similar to that of which the Jetty is constructed. Upon further investigation one realizes that this stone is actually a soft, oily clay.

Remnant of attempts at drilling the Lake for oil. This photo was taken near the straight jetty constructed in the twenties several hundred feet from the Spiral Jetty.

Our tent in alignment with the Jetty's point of origin.

Last night Chelsea and I camped at Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty. The Jetty is located about an hour and a half North of Salt Lake City Utah on Promontory Point. The trip involves travel 15 miles of gravel roads worn out of the desert floor. Several shots of the trip can be seen in the video Smithson made about the Jetty (1969). Below we have included directions.

The Jetty was entirely out of the water with dried salt flats extending for hundreds of feet beyond it to the beginning of the water. The crystaline salt reflected the sunlight and made the ground glitter with a blinding white light. It was a very different experience than when water surrounds or covers the Jetty.

See all of our images from the Jetty at our Picasa site.

DIRECTIONS TO SPIRAL JETTY: Access to Spiral Jetty is available through the Golden Spike National Historic Site. The Division of Natural Resources has posted signs at each turn/fork to indicate directions to the Jetty.

1. Go to Golden Spike National Historic Site (GSNHS), 30 miles west of Brigham City, Utah. The Spiral Jetty is 15.5 dirt road miles southwest of Golden Spike's visitor center.

To get there (from Salt Lake City) take I-15 north approximately 65 miles to the Corinne exit (exit 365), just west of Brigham City, Utah. Exit and proceed through Corinne, paying close attention to the signs, and drive another 17.7 miles west, still on Highway 83, turn left and follow signs, another 7.7 miles up the east side of Promontory Pass to Golden Spike National Historic Site.

2. From the visitor center, drive 5.6 miles west on the main gravel road.

3. Five point six miles should bring you to an intersection. From this vantage point you can see the lake. Looking southwest, you can see the low foothills that make up Rozel Point, 9.9 miles distant.

4. At this intersection the road forks. One road continues west, the other goes south. Take the south (left) fork. Both forks are Box Elder County Class D (maintained) roads.

5. Immediately you cross a cattle guard. Call this cattle guard #1. Including this one, you should cross four cattle guards before you reach Rozel Point and the Spiral Jetty.

6. Drive 1.3 miles south. Here you should see a corral on the west side of the road. Here too, the road again forks. One fork continues south along the west side of the Promontory Mountains. This road leads to a locked gate. The other fork goes southwest toward the bottom of the valley and Rozel Point. Turn right onto the southwest fork, just north of the corral. This is also a Box Elder County Class D road.

7. After you turn south west, go 1.7 miles to cattle guard #2. Here, besides the cattle guard, you should find a fence but no gate.

8. Continue southeast 1.2 miles to cattle guard #3, a fence, and gate.

9. Another .50 miles should bring you to a fence but no cattle guard and no gate.

10. Continue 2.3 miles south-southwest to a combination fence, cattle guard #4, iron-pipe gate - and a sign declaring the property behind the fence to be that of the "Rafter S. Ranch". Here too, is a "No Trespassing" sign.

11. At this gate the Class D road designation ends. If you choose to continue south for another 2.3 miles, and around the east side of Rozel Point, you should see the Lake and a jetty (not the Spiral Jetty) left by oil drilling exploration in the 1920s through the 1980s. As you continue southwest beyond the site of the oil jetty, turn from the southwest to the west (right) onto a two-track trail that contours above the oil-drilling debris below. Only high clearance vehicles should advance beyond this turn. Travel slowly--the road is narrow, brush might scratch your vehicle, and the rocks, if not properly negotiated, could high center your vehicle. Don't hesitate to park and walk. The Jetty is just around the corner.

12. Drive or walk 6/10th of a mile west-northwest around Rozel Point and look toward the Lake. The Spiral Jetty should be in sight. The lake level varies several feet from year-to-year and from season to season, so the Spiral Jetty is not always visible above the water line.

Wandering

Chelsea and I have embarked on a 3,000 mile road trip through the west. Our destinations include the Spiral Jetty (Smithson), Sun Tunnels (Holt), Double Negative (Heizer), and Santa Fe. Over the next several days we will be posting photos and descriptions of each stop. Updates will follow, check back often.

The Science Club: The Boy's Room, Now, Forever, Then, part 1

Erika Wanenmacher, a New Mexico based multi-media sculptor, reveals a provocative exhibition entitled “The Science Club: The Boy’s Room, Now, Forever, Then, part 1.” A Santa Fe resident, Wanenmacher has long been intrigued by the atomic history of the American West, particularly the nuclear saga of neighboring Los Alamos laboratories.

Rapt by a mixture of fascination and horror, Wanenmacher reacts to the appalling history of “human radiation experiments” executed by scientists in Los Alamos between the forties through nineteen seventies, the most shocking of which involve government doctors dosing their own children with radio-isotopic iodine.

In this elaborate installation, which took nearly ten years to compile, Wanenmacher explores how nature, culture, science and technology merge in America’s atomic legacy. These themes intersect as Wanenmacher juxtaposes a child’s bedroom—decked with sixties-era furniture, toys, comic books, magazines, and subversive paint-by-number bomb décor—with an office arrangement consisting of period equipment, fallout distribution maps, and field apparatus appropriated from government surplus facilities. A seemingly haunted atmosphere is fashioned as this invented domestic space is coupled with authentic artifacts from the offices and laboratories of Los Alamos.

Surreptitious details embellish the nostalgic components of the bedroom; delicately quilted atomic figures adorn the bedspread, an X-ray of damaged bone becomes a lampshade, and a comic of Atomic Superboy suggest how deeply embedded atomic culture is to our experience and condition. The fully black and white exhibition is interrupted by one moment of color, a tiny glass of fluorescent yellow-green liquid sitting on a T.V. stand before a monitor running a classic cartoon short.

Wanenmacher seeks to both expose this dark history and pay homage to the victims of these crimes and experiments, reminding us of the possibilities and perils that stem from technology’s pursuit of progress. Yet, the piece is also a spell cast for the future, to bring light from the dark and contemplate our own standing at this critical moment in history. If we “bring to public consciousness” the consequences of the past, we can “change consciousness at will,” Wanenmacher suggests.

Erika Wanenmacher has been widely exhibited throughout the US. Her two most recent one-person exhibitions were featured in New York at the Claire Oliver Gallery and in New Mexico at Linda Durham Contemporary Art. Another notable exhibition, "Grimoire" was featured at SITE Santa Fe in 2001, curated by Louis Grachos. A 20-year survey of Wanemacher works was shown at the Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe in 1996. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, Museum of Albuquerque and the Fisher Landau Center, New York.

Misty's Disappearance

Misty's Disappearance, by Eve Andree Laramee
/seconds #8 Edited by Peter Lewis

Here's a link to a project I have in the online journal "slashseconds" #8. The issue, "Vanishing Point: The Vicious and Virtuous Circle" focuses on works inspired by the 1971 film Vanishing Point, directed by Richard Sarafian, a quintessential road film. To view the project online:
Misty's Disappearance, by Eve Andree Laramee
My project, Misty's Disappearance, is a photo-text piece that is in response the true story of a woman who stole the last running Dodge Challenger used in the film, and drove off into the Mojave Desert. My fictionalization retells the story from her perspective, giving it a different ending than in reality. Each page is clickable, so you can read the text in an enlarged format.

I wish to thank Richard C. Sarafian, director, and Dennis J. Parrish, art director and prop master, for kindly sharing their experiences and memories by telephone on June 30, 2008. They spoke candidly about the making of the film, and the incident when the last running Dodge Challenger was stolen by a woman who drove off with it into the desert. I learned of this event by way of Sarafian’s audio commentary on the 2003 UK DVD release where he states: “Finally we had only one car left, and what happened, there was a lady, or we’ll call her a hooker, that the crew thought they sort of saved from a local hook joint, and she was traveling with the crew, and the word came back that Misty took off with our only car. The state police tracked her down in a helicopter, we were late that morning to work, but we got the car back. And we often talk about Misty. I don’t know where she is now.” In the telephone conversation with Sarafian, he said that after Misty spent the evening with several men on the crew, possibly at the Mitzpah Hotel in Tonapah, she stole the keys from one of them, and was eventually tracked down by helicopter at the California Border. Parrish has a slightly different account of the event: he does not remember the woman’s name but is certain that Misty is incorrect. He did confirm that a woman by another name, who was well known to the crew, did in fact steal the last running Challenger, and was apprehended by the California Highway Patrol in the Reno/Lake Tahoe area two or three days later. Parish too said he did not know where Misty was now, or if she is still alive. He said, Sarafian “took it all in stride finding the event hilarious,” and that any other director would be furious and screaming, but he accepted it as part of the extended story. They both described the weeks during which the film was shot as a series of magical surreal, moments in time, and remarked on the metaphysical and spiritual subtext of the film and how this quality significantly sets it apart from other road films of the era.

My project is a fictionalization of Misty/Desirée’s point of view of the car theft. Rather than interpreting her story as a crime, or a reversal of loss, or worse a disaster, I seek to create a fictional terrain: geographic, psychological and cognitive, in which the reader/viewer imagines the days of her disappearance. The intention is to provide “Misty” with an escape into an alternative history and an alternative future, had her luck or circumstances been different. I delight in the fact that Sarafian saw her actions as a “perfectly surreal event” in relation to the film. My project opens up a space for Misty’s release: she makes her get away, was not apprehended, the crew cheers her on, there are no surveillance helicopters, no California Highway Patrolmen, only her own psychological complexities to deal with. She makes it to the waters of the Gulf of California, that slip of sea between Baja and mainland Mexico to begin her new life. Ever onward, Misty/Desirée. Plus ultra, more beyond.

DESERT OF DREAMS

Wendover Air Force Base, War Reserve Strategic Storage
DESERT OF DREAMS
by Tom Vanderbilt

The American desert, land of lost civilizations, wayward prophets, and air-conditioned fantasy,has long been the country's last New Frontier, where dreams might be played out with a minimum of interference—if only, as in the scene in Joan Didion's "Play It as It Lays," we can keep sweeping the drifting sand back to the perimeter of the yard. It is a vast tabula rasa, where one's mark can be seen for miles—whether it be the earthworks of endowed artists, the ancient trails of primeval visitors, or the pockmarked craters of an aerial bombing range.

In this regard, the desert was the perfect home for the Cold War, not simply for its sheer size and emptiness, but because the desert, in America, has come to signify the future. The Cold War was at heart a conflict projected toward the future: the race to see who would first reach space, whose Air Force would first reach 10,000 bombers, who would explode the first 25 megaton warhead.

Despite its overwhelming aura of fatalism and apocalypse, it also concealed a perverse undercurrent of optimism, a belief that the science and technology that was being funded by the so-called "imaginary war" would someday mean a better life for all—if it did not kill us first.

It is no surprise that the place where people most often go to reinvent themselves in a country of reinvention is the desert city of Las Vegas. It is, after all, a city that has witnessed many futures—the Mormons, the Mafia, the Manhattan Project—and would not exist at the scale it does without the massive technological life-support systems upon which it rests its confidence in unimpeded future growth. The city exists as a collective delusion that it is not a desert, and such an illusory environment is fertile ground for those seeking to nurture their own illusions.

The desert has attracted all manner of dreamers, from millenarian cultists to visionary artists to the advanced weapons scientists of the United States Air Force. They have all made their mark, tested something or another on America's proving ground. Like bleached bones or bullet-ridden "No Trespassing" signs, these dreams lie in the desert sand, faded and chipped but intact, legible...
Continued