South Base, Wendover Airfield


Temporary installation of a solar-powered audio system in South Base. The site is a waste pile near the original buildings used in the construction of "Little Boy" and "Fat Man". Click the image for an expanded version.

Germ-Line Mutation



One full sequencing of the broadest components. The idea is scanning the Southwest, its regional inhabitants seen as they collide with surmounting economic and technological forces. Cultural identity folds in the collision as religious and secular traditions become permeated by foreign matter. The insertion of vast technological directives results in germ-line mutations. These newly formed biological components carry the genetic coding of the parent organism along with new, heteromorphic data. As a carriage system the individual acts as the armature for entropic forces, rupturing the lines of existing social parameters. In the case of the recorded participants these initiatives remained highly determinant. Familial relationships were most impacted by the forces surrounding uranium mining; secondary mutations progressed through this domain. Initially, lexical morphology was most expected, wherein the evolution of word forms was triggered by radical shifts in the environment. Despite the suffocation and isolation of the region there was also corresponding emergence of community and native bilingualism. This overlap of emergent languages to accommodate old suggests an equally fragmenting push on the individual as new forms strive to exist within the native model. While a polarity between social initiatives and root language may eventually find constructive outlet, there is nonetheless an elemental shift occurring. As the shift proliferates its circular dispersal widens, connecting more individuals with an oppositional stratum. Its manipulated territory lies in contrast to the traditional, homogenizing tendencies found in cultural performance. In place of communal participation, emergent forms are so altering as to rend social fabric.

Wendover (New Backyard)



Wendover, Enola Gay Hanger Seen from CLUI Residence Building (Tower View)

In the expanded version of the photograph you can see a perimeter fence that surrounds the residence building yard, something which is a new addition as I was told by Steven and Jen. They met me the night of my arrival at the Salt Flats Cafe as my official liaisons to the center. At night you could feel the emptiness surrounding the cafe east of town about a mile. I imagined the truck stop sitting on the edge of the white expanse. We stayed a few nights together at the Residence Support Unit while they prepared to continue on their way back to Minneapolis. The following day I took these pictures from a tower, located in the yard of my building, watching as the massive cold front passed through. It was interesting to hear that previously you could walk directly to the hanger.

The runway, photographed middle above, is still active, bringing in gamblers from other states for whirlwind weekends amidst the nowhere space of Wendover. The small-time casinos on the Nevada side are just a half-mile or so from the base. Beyond the air strip itself lies more original architecture, notably the workshop for "Little Boy" and a simulated tower used in the filming of Con Air. I'm particularly interested in the "igloos", faintly visible on the horizon looking south beyond the runway. Each functioned originally as a munitions cache but are now leased out individually. Their height only reaches two stories or so, but what's impressive is the soil bladed over their tops. They appear like fairly natural although disproportioned hills. On South Base there is an area between the eight rows of "igloos" that, while facing east, occupies the periphery of your sight in a repeating interval running towards the flats.

Plateau to the Great Basin






Audio- 11 Minutes Narrative (Cold War Eulogy)

Circular base with coal

Army corps photos well water study

Black Mesa Chapter House

Shed Enclosure with printed interweaving (2d KTNN)

T-shirt and wall display series (Model Navajo and nuclear reactor)
Project Description:

This project began with my interest in uranium mining on the Navajo Nation. Uranium was extracted from the region in support of nuclear weaponry for the Cold War. Unknowingly playing a lead role, Navajos have inherited three decades of environmental devastation. After conducting oral history interviews and photographically documenting the area I created a website for the compiled materials:
http://www.turbinesongs.net/. While traveling throughout the area, however, I became interested in the diffuse and wandering broadcasts from tribal radio. They seemed to echo the surreal impact mining has left behind in its wake. I recorded excerpts of the radio programs and later edited them together in the form of an audio collage. Working with solar energy I hope to project the reconfigured audio through an outdoor installation. The proposed location for this installation is Wendover, Utah. The Center for Land Use Interpretation is sponsoring a residency there to explore the project’s configuration. The area contains a decommissioned military base along with a number of facilities related to mining and nuclear production. By introducing the audio collage to the space of Wendover the project will engage technology and social investigation through a hybrid landscape. Please activate the quick-time application below to hear a condensed version of the audio.

Sculpture Design Proposal


Audio Tower Schematic


click image for enlarged version