Archive:
July,
2008
Thank you so
much to everyone who helped out with the Bernd Behr Film presentation
on June 28th!
Brennan
Conway
Charissa Niles
Chris Veit
Douglas Amour
Mores
McWreath
Marissa Mandler
Alexandra Wetzel
The wonderful folks at the Palms (don't visit Wonder Valley without
stopping in)
Dean Chamberlain
Chad Brown
Plus a huge thank you to Cornelius Schnauber for his presentation
at the Palms of an illustrated tour of the homes and haunts once
inhabited and frequented by European exiles in 1930s Los Angeles.
And to all of you... who braved the distance and the heat and
resourcefully found your through the dark desert night by using
the guiding light of your cell phones, and to Peggy and Alexia
who got stuck in the sand while bringing ice to chill warm beer,
to Robert Stone who left the party and went back to rescue the
car stuck in on the side of the road after the event, and most
of all we would like to thank Bernd Behr who was completely wonderful
to work with - who after over a year of planning and fund raising
slogged it out in the heat heat and the sand along with the rest
of us to make this project a reality.
HDTS
summertime presentation: June 28th 2008
"House Without a Door" a film by Bernd Behr
(Scroll down for the schedule of events
and driving directions)
*Important
- if you plan to eat dinner at the Palms please RSVP
here!
On June 28th, 2008 High Desert Test Sites is pleased to collaborate
with the Center
for Land Use Interpretation to present a film by
London based artist Bernd Behr titled “House
Without a Door”. The weekend will include
a Saturday afternoon panel discussion, followed by dinner at the
Palms in Wonder Valley and then an evening screening
of the film on the most remote Test Site on Iron Age Road. (Low
impact camping will be allowed on the site, and we may try to
organize some sort of brunch the following morning) For more information
keep checking our web site, or sign up for the mailing list below!
About the film: Produced during a CLUI residency
in Wendover,
Utah, Bernd Behr's "House Without a Door"
explores the relationship between film and architecture, linking
a US military test structure with references to 1920s German expressionist
film.
In 1943 the US military commissioned émigré architect
Erich Mendelsohn and Hollywood studio RKO to design and build
a replica Berlin housing estate in the Utah desert to test incendiary
bombs eventually deployed in the air raids on Dresden and Berlin.
Behr's interest lies in the performative nature of the building,
embodied in its cultural/geographical displacement and its function
of repeatedly performing its own destruction.
Borrowing its title from the early expressionist film House Without
a Door (1914), which has no surviving print, Behr's work fictionalizes
the now inaccessible interior of this building through a set of
references to 1920s German expressionist films, including Faust
(F.W. Murnau, 1926) and Dr. Mabuse (F. Lang, 1922). These references
reflect Mendelsohn's own relation to expressionist theatre, Weimar
filmmakers and the proximity of the test site to an actual village
in Utah called 'Faust'.
House Without a Door will be shown as a large-scale outdoor screening
with a specially commissioned soundtrack by Marcus Fjellström.
It is supported by Center for Land Use Interpretation, University
of Gloucestershire, England, and through a Film London Artists'
Film and Video Award. The work has previously been exhibited at
the Chisenhale Gallery, London, 2006, and e-raum, Cologne, 2007.
This joint HDTS/CLUI presentation has been supported by British
Council and deciBel.
Bernd Behr was born in Germany in 1976 and lives and works in
London.
He was short listed for the Beck's Futures Prize at ICA, London
in 2003 and is
a recipient of a deciBel Award, 2006."
November 24th, 2007
If
you would like to stay abreast of HDTS updates, events and projects
send an email tomailinglist@highdeserttestsites.com
Schedule:
*Important
- if you plan to eat dinner at the Palms please RSVP
here! Food can get scarce when a crowd shows up,
and we want to make sure we have enough on hand for everyone.
Tell us who you are and how many will be in your party.
The management thanks you!
Saturday afternoon presentations at the Palms:
4:00 Bernd Behr: Expressionist Military Film Sets
Test Site
London-based artist Bernd Behr introduces his project "House
Without a Door" with an illustrated talk tracing an associative
history of film architecture linked to a replica Berlin housing
tract built in 1943 on a U.S. military test site.
5:00 Cornelius Schnauber: Homes and Haunts of Exile Hollywood
Los Angeles-based novelist, playwright, and director of the Max
Kade Institute at USC, Cornelius Schnauber presents an illustrated
tour of the houses and buildings once inhabited and frequented
by European exiles in 1930s Los Angeles.
Saturday evening at the Palms:
6:00 Dinner (RSVP: rsvp@highdeserttestsites.com)
6:30-7:30 Live music by Dean Chamberlain
Saturday
night screening at Iron Age Road:
Bernd Behr, "House Without a Door"
8:30 Film Screening
10:00 After party (at the site) with music by Chad Brown
Special thanks to Chris Veit and Douglas Armour for facilitating
PR and logistics, Jenny Nichols for her amazing hand silk screened
posters, and to the Palms for their unflagging hospitality.
Directions:
To
the general area:
Go to the "directions" page for driving directions to
29 Palms Hwy.
To the Palms:
Drive east on the 29 Palms Hwy to the heart of 29 Palms. Turn
LEFT on Adobe Road, and then RIGHT on on Amboy Road. The Palms
bar and restaurant will be about 13 miles on the RIGHT side of
the road.
To
Iron Age Road:
From the Palms continue on Amboy Road (driving East)
until road inclines and starts to curve left . Very soon on the
right you will see the sign for Iron Age Road (we will figure
out some sort of marker) - turn RIGHT. Drive a few more miles
on dirt road until you see cars. Park and look for the film.
*It
will be dark and you will think that you are lost so drive carefully.
November,
2007
Site
Report: It seems that vandals have
been stealing major sections of the Geo Chain installed by Scott
Wayne Indiana in 2006.
Scott
just drove down from Portland Oregon about two week ago to add
400 feed to the chain, which are now already mysteriously missing.
If you want to do a nice deed for Scott come visit the Geo Chain
and add some links. (send photos and a report of added chain to
Scott at symplvision@gmail.com.)
For directions and more information click here:
Geo
Chain:
Installed in June of 2006, this project invites participation
from others to contribute to a growing chain that aspires to travel
around the world. Aside from the political overtones of a new
globalization and the idea of a round-the-world trek, the GEO
CHAIN is a symbol for the last of the dreamers. The very act of
traveling to the chain and adding to it is at once pragmatic toward
the stated goal yet simultaneously absurd with regards to the
overwhelming distance yet to be covered. The length of the chain
does not matter as long as the idea stays alive. Therefore, the
quixotic participants, who travel across the desert and add their
links, effectively engage in a sweeping hopeful gesture, and momentarily
contemplate the grand stillness of the living idea as it calmly
waits to enter the giant expanse of the open landscape ahead.
October
29, 2007
Christy
Gast (HDTS Alum) is curating a year long project for a local TV
station in Moab, Utah. MAC 21 is a small cable station that broadcasts
in a single secluded valley community, and the owner has graciously
agreed air an artist's video every week in 2008. The videos will
be inserted into normal programming, and thus will air once every
hour or so for one week each.
Most of the station's broadcast range is uninhabited wilderness.
The station is viewed by locals in Moab, as well as tourists passing
through, as it's the community information channel in all of the
hotel rooms. Thus, hotel rooms will be an exhibition site outside
of the art fair context.
The deadline is February - If you would like to participate send
your videos and DVD, CV, and artist statement to:
Videos
should be less than five minutes long that have broadly to do
with tourism, nature, or TV. Keep in mind that the station must
follow FCC regulations (http://www.fcc.gov/eb/oip/).
The broadcast will be linked with a website containing a schedule,
video stills, artist statements, and contact info.
Christy Gast
1415 E Gadsden St.
Pensacola, FL 32501
October 10, 2007
Join
our web based community group commoitted to preserving quality
of life in The Morongo Basin. There are lots of changes going
on in our area these days- this is a great way to stay informed
and to initiate dialog related your own questions about living
in the high desert.
To
subscribe to the discussion group click here.
(just send in the email without changing the subject line) If
you want to explore the discussions without joining click here.
September 22, 2007
The
High Desert Test Sites event will now be organized once every
other year. The tentative date for our next event is spring 09.
In the meantime we will to start to focus on artists, architects,
visionaries and other desert kooks who are out here“doing
it” in the high desert.
Check back soon for a new web based component of this project…
May 18, 2007
HDTS 07 would not have been possible without the amazing help
that we received this weekend!
Among
(but not limited to) those we would like to thank are:
The
Pilgrims: who
came out all the way from Boston for a long week working in the
sun (and dark) to help pull it off.
Wade
Aaron
(who's engineering skills repeatedly saved the day- he fixed Andrea's
swamp cooler, and saved us hours of trying to figure out how the
HQ tent went together)
Krista
Caballero
(on day one she couldn't give up trying to ride the unicycle,
inspiring others to fearlessly attempt one wheeling.... on day
two she could barely walk)
Vasia
Markides (our
resident First Aid expert. Though we had tons of band-aids, iodine,
and gauze, the unicycle shop never saw a drop of blood... the
only injury was her own splinter!)
Thomas
Stevenson (who
miraculously fixed the scratchy sound of the Polish Western Film
on Saturday night by pouring beer on the ground wire)
Barbara
Gallucci For sending us the Pilgrims
Jay
Lizo - the HDTS HQ Headmaster - we need
you forever!
Steve Walters For being super fun,
well mannered and helping at all things.
Akemi
Martin: For all of her help this year at the HQ
Nicki
Belle and Ian Chang After a rollicking day at HQ, they
followed the unicycle truck back to LA in their soybean oil powered
Mercedes and got the shop moved into the backyard.
Ralph Gorrill at the Joshua Tree Music Store
(and the Acoustic
Music Festival!) for his generosity and support
Ethan
and Chris at Coyote Corner- for use of their lot and
letting us turn the fire pit into a swimming hole!
Susan Dingley at Pioneertown
Motel - for being utterly calm and unflappable, and
helping with all pioneertown related.
Ray
Woods-for his electrical powers - go Ray Woods!
Terri Williams - for generously allowing us to use her
amazing spread on Mane Street for the film projection on Saturday
night.
Jack
Pierson - the host with the mostest
Laura,
Mary and James at the
Palms- for hosting the best place to eat drink and
make friends on the west end of the basin.
Robin
and Linda at Pappy
and Harriet's - for saying ok to everything no matter
how many times the plan changed.
Randy Plumbo and Shari Elf at the Art Queen - you rock!
Bonnie
and Stacy at the Crossroads for graciously supporting
our weekend of madness
And
most of all to the organizers and artists. Because HDTS has zero
funding and is completely non-commercial every part of the event
is facilitated for by the organizers and artists themselves.
Andy
Stillpass for bringing us "Summer Love" by
Piotr Uklanski (After this weekend we have decided that Andy should
be a subject of the next Werner Hertzog film)
Shaun
Regen - for putting us on the global art map with our
beautiful invites, and hosting a moment of glamour and refreshment
on Sunday morning.
John
Connelly - who makes the longest trip of us all (from
NYC) and always brings us artists who we love.
David
Dodge for our superb graphics and catalog.
Lisa Anne Auerbach - for your enthusiasm
and power.
Ali Subotnick and the Wrong Gallery
- for the Wrong Gallery Flagpole and excellent David Shrigley
Flag.
Eungie
Joo - for introducing us to Rodney McMillian who probably
now thinks that we are all nuts.
And
the artists:
David Shrigley
Rodney McMillian
Liz Larner
Julia Scher
Piotr Uklanski
John Bock
Ann Magnuson
Lisa Anne Auerbach
Jack Pierson
The Wagon Station Customizers:
Carolyn Castano
Aaron Noble
Chris James
Chuck Moffit
Jennifer Nocon
Connie Walsh and Chris Young
Giovanni Jance
Jonas Hauptman
Andrea Zittel and David Dodge
Guy Green
Veronica Fernandez and Peter Blackburn
Amy
and Wendy Yao's Swapmeet participants:
Alice
Konitz, Katrin Pesch & Michael Rashkow
Mountain School of Arts
Patrick Jackson & Matt Borusso
Little Chan
Jasime Little
Chris Lipomi
Amy Yao & Wendy Yao
Sara Clendening
Ooga Booga
Also
there is a new PDF of the catalog for HDTS 07 on the catalog page,
as well as instructions for ordering a hard copy.
Photos
of HDTS 07 will be coming soon - if you have some that you would
like to share send them here.
HDTS
07 will be held on May 12th and 13th, 2007
The
countdown has begun! Here are the things that you will need to
remember:
PICK
UP YOUR MAPS NEXT TO COYOTE CORNER ON PARK BLV. IN DOWNTOWN JOSHUA
TREE (THE DIRECTIONS PAGE TELLS YOU HOW TO GET TO THE HIGH DESERT
FROM JUST ABOUT ANYWHERE)
THINGS
TO BRING: WATER, BIG FLOPPY HATS, LOTS OF SUNBLOCK, SNACKS, A
TRASH BAG AND A FOLDING CHAIR (FOR WATCHING THE FILM OR HANGING
OUT BEHIND THE PALMS)
*Also
there are a handful of rooms reserved by Regen Projects available
at the 29 Palms Inn for this upcoming weekend. If anybody needs
a room to contact Fatima at the gallery by phone (310) 276 5424
or email office@regenprojects.com.
In addition to the driving tour there will
be four meeting points/times throughout the weekend: Maps will
be available on May 12th and 13th from 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM at the
HDTS HQ, directly south of Coyote Corner on Park Drive in downtown
Joshua Tree:
Saturday
the 12th 11:00 AM - We will start handing out driving
maps at the HDTS HQ next to Coyote Corner in downtown Joshua Tree.
Don't forget to check out Lisa Anne Auerbach's unicycle rental
shop right next door!
Saturday
evening at 6:00 PM - Head up to Pioneeertown
for dinner at Pappy
and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace for Piotr Uklanski's Polish
Western Film: "Summer
Love".
*The
film will be shown in the center of historic Pioneertown
(which used to be a movie set for old westerns) so bring chairs!
(the street is dusty)
At
the end of the evening the HDTS group will migrate down the hill
to the Joshua Tree Saloon for a spectacular and indescribable
performance by Ann
Magnuson.
Sunday
the 13th at noontime - Head out to the
Palms Restaurant on Amboy Road in Wonder Valley for lunch
and a swap meet organized by Amy and Wendy Yao. There will be
booths by: Alice Konitz, Katrin Pesch & Michael Rashkow, Mountain
School of Arts, Patrick Jackson & Matt Borusso, Little Chan,
Chris Lipomi, Amy Yao & Wendy Yao, Sara Clendening
Editions,
Etc by: Pentti Monkkonen, Piero Golia, David Benjamin Sherry,
Justin Beal - Mike E. Smith, Petrova Giberson, Shannon Ebner &
Erika Vogt, Michele Abeles, Violet Hopkins, Derek Larson, Marie
Jager, Avigail Moss, John Bianchi, Laura Kleger, Tyson Reeder,
Reka Reisinger, Donald Morgan
+ a variety of Books, CDs, etc from Ooga Booga, Los Angeles
http://www.artswapmeet.blogspot.com
Sunday
afternoon at about 4:00 PM The Art Queen in down town
Joshua Tree will be hosting their a wind-down opening and party
for their rock star show.
*Also
check out the High Desert Acoustic Music Festival organized by
Ralph at the Joshua Tree Music Store! The event happens all weekend,
at the same location as our HDTS HQ. Plus Ralph has been great
about sharing the space and maybe helping us with our insurance
- thanks Ralph!
Friday
4:00-10:00 PM
Saturday 10:00AM - 1:00 PM
Sunday 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Tickets are on sale at the Music Store - for more info call 760-366-5660
* We are looking for responsible, sturdy, fun volunteers
to manage the HDTS headquarters and to help various artists with
their projects throughout the weekend . If you are willing to
help please email Maude at office@zittel.org.
SOUND CAMP: May 5-6, 2007
Organized by RoutesAndMethods:
an open venue for the communication and exchange of ideas (the
people who brought you Cold Storage)
And hosted by High Desert Test Sites at their
most remote location.
*please note: Sound Camp is located at a remote location down
a series of unmarked dirt roads. Due to this you will need to
register for the weekend in advance so that we can caravan the
final 30-40 minutes.
Join us for a weekend exploring sound in the high desert
above Pioneertown, USA. The group will meet at a coffee shop in
Yucca Valley on Saturday May 5, 2007 at 11am. You will need to
bring sleeping gear, a bowl and utensils. Also, each person needs
to bring five gallons of water. All food will be provided for
the weekend. All are welcome to attend, but space is very limited,
so you MUST register. We will be organizing carpools, as the number
of cars driven to the site needs to be limited to about a dozen
with approximately 50 people attending. Plan to stay through Sunday
afternoon.
Registration will open on April 9, 2007 at 8pm. If you would like
to send us an email to express your interest and receive a reminder
email please email mp@RoutesAndMethods.org.
General
Details and Logistics:
The goal is to explore sound in this large open space. There will
be approximately 50-60 people in attendance for the weekend. Meals
are going to be prepared and eaten with the group . The camp is
centered around a series of boulder mounds and joshua trees with
a natural amphitheater living room with an adjoining stone kitchen.
There are many sites to set up your tents or to simply lay down
your sleeping roll.
Food: All the food is going to be eaten
family style and made from crops grown by Southern California
farmers. Due to the broad ranging dietary needs of people we are
going to eat non-processed vegetarian. If you have any special
diets/allergies do not hesitate to tell us (we can cater to any
specific need). All food will be provided...
Instruments: We are going to have three semi-structured
activity times over the course of the weekend. None of this time
will require any specific or special instruments nor musical expertise.
The only acoustic requirement is a willingness to fail acoustically.
What then do I need to bring?
Sleeping: Many nights at this time of year are warm enough
to not need a tent, but it would be a good idea to be prepared
to bring one in case a cold spell comes through. Bring a sleeping
bag.
Eating: Since we will be eating
large meals together we ask every person to bring their own favorite
bowl, cutlery, drinking cup, and cloth napkin or hand towel.
Drinking: Each person needs to bring five (5) gallons
of water (preferably in a single reusable container). This water
will be used for drinking, food preparing, cooking, and washing.
Also, please bring your own beverages (beer, etc…).
Weather Protection: We will be outdoors from
the time we leave the coffee shop Saturday morning until we leave
camp Sunday afternoon. Please bring big hats, strong sunscreen,
and we highly advise lightweight, loose fitting, long sleeve shirts
and pants. The weekend is designed to take advantage of the natural
path of shade provided by the bolders and the open air covered
tent similar to one you would see at a farmer’s market,
but please anticipate the harshness of living in a desert for
two days. Also, please note that night time in the high desert
can get cold, so bring something warm just in case.
Registration: The weekend is open to anyone;
no musical experience is needed. We anticipate a wide age group
from two year olds to seventy year olds. Expect musicians, farmers,
doctors, dancers, medics, laborers, writers, bankers, and any
other sound camping enthusiasts you know.
Even we get lost driving to the location, so we will need to go
in one large caravan. Due to the space limitations for parking
we need to limit the cars driven into the site to about a dozen.
We hope to pack 4-5 people into each car for the final drive to
the site. We are happy to help figure out carpooling from Los
Angeles (where we expect at least 50% attending to be coming from)
and then to also coordinate carpooling for the caravan from Yucca
Valley through Pioneertown and up the dirt roads.
We highly encourage you to email us if you are interested in attending.
To allow for word to spread and to add some degree of open access
we are going to officially put registration tickets on sale Monday,
April 9, 2007 at 8pm. Pre-emailing will NOT garauntee a space,
but it will put you on a reminder email list.
Registration will be a two step procedure. After 8pm on April
9 you can send a registration request with your name and the number
in your group. At that point we will send you a confirmation email
with a link to Paypal where you will make your payment of $25
per person. This registration fee covers the logistics of the
weekend’s food. Only after you have successfully registered
via Paypal are you officially signed up.
Pleae email mp@RoutesAndMethods.org
if you have any questions and to add yourself to the reminder
list.
January
31st, 2007
Turkeytown
Biodiesel and Randy Palumbo:
Turkey
Town Bio-Diesel (TTBD) provides diesl fuel at cost, to promote
alternative fuel in the Morongo Basin.
In 2006, Randy Palumbo opened Turkeytown
Biodiesel – the tanking station behind the Art Queen
(in Downtown Joshua Tree). The way it works is simple, you join
Turkeytown Biodiesel on the honors system. You get a key, pump
your own gas, and deposit money in the TT account when you get
around to it. The fuel is sold at cost plus a very small markup
to help recoup what wound up being over $5,000 in equipment and
fabrication costs, and the small overhead of running it.
Biodiesel has significantly less emissions (some say up to 75%)
and is made from either restaurant waste oil, virgin legume or
other oild (usually soybeans and sometimes poultry fat). Randy
Palumbo has been into alternative fuels since the 1970s. As a
kid he made weird science projects out of solar cells, and batteries
out of potatoes and lemons. He made one out of his little brother,
holding copper and zinc strips, but the voltage it generated was
pretty slim.
“I tried to start a biodiesel station in NYC for years,
and no one will bring the fuel even today, and my friends who
do it small scale, get followed by the secret service. A guy I
know who
has been planning a big thing for years was in the NYT last week
(Tri-State Biodiesel), and they have millions of dollars and government
approvals, but you cannot buy fuel from them yet for various practical
reasons. So I realized I could make a much bigger difference in
JT, by cobbling a little pump together. There is also something
about the scale in JT that makes things just seem possible and
worthwhile like the Turkeytown project.”
How Randy Came to the High Desert so that he could Start The Art
Queen and then Turkeytown Biodiesel:
Randy
Polumbo is an artist, restaurateur, and founder of 3-D Laboratory
in NYC. Three years ago Randy, though a life-altering twist of
fate, was awarded the PASTA
residency (Park Stewardship Through the Arts) which provides a
cabin in Lost Horse Valley in Joshua Tree National Park to a visual
artist or writer for 4 weeks in the spring. While sequestered
his cabin in the park Randy, always the innovator, taught himself
to cast metal and glass for the first time, running tiny equipment
off solar power and a small generator and he also mastered the
art of tanning
chicken leather from expired poultry at Stater Brothers.
Although isolated in the park for days at a time – Randy
met an astonishing number of people on his first trip. His encounters
included Debora Iyall and Ann Magnuson. Debora introduced him
to Don and Gretchen. He met Diane Best buying big buckets of her
snap peas at the Rattler and then Jessica from Gram Rabbit when
she made sandwiches there. He met Shari Elf (his nowtime girlfriend)
in line getting a salad at the Rattler. He made a few more friends
at the Beatnik, which is where he camped out every couple of days
to catch up on work, and met some crazy hacker kids who hung out
at the 29 Palms Radio Shack. Tama Bebb at Old Town Mercantile,
helped him find junk glass to melt, and mailed his work and tools
back and forth, including a kiln and some pretty big stuff. He
met Robin and Linda at Pappy and Harriet’s just after they
bought the place, through a friend who lived next to them in Soho
less than a year prior when they were still in NYC.
The PASTA project is in the habit of having the same artists back.
So Randy did this for two years. His work habit up at Lost Horse
became his standard residency plan. “Once I was setup,
I hardly slept at all, and worked 16-20 hours a day, except when
there was a provision run. I went for a hike or drive/hike every
couple of days, but never for more than an hour or two. I got
badly lost a few times, and also wanted to get back to the studio.
I was immediately enchanted by the bright moonlight, and went
for a lot of moonlight walks. It still always gets me how crisp
a shadow one can cast in Joshua Tree much of the year."
On his second trip to Joshua Tree Randy bought a place in Burns
Canyon. He went to see the land on kind of a lark, but it was
so beautiful, he bought it on the spot. “So then I had
a project, and I started coming out every couple months to dig
holes, grade for shipping containers, wire solar panels together,
and I was hooked.” At the same time he was getting
to know Shari Elf, an artist who’s background is just about
as mysterious as Randy’s.
Randy has always had ideas for solar/composting vintage trailer
parks, or ideas for building this or that. And he liked the mint
green building compound now known as Art Queen. “I called
a broker about some huge expanse of scorched earth in North Joshua
Tree last year. He told me about it, and it sounded awful, so
I passed. He asked what else I was looking for, and I asked him
to let me know if the complex was ever for sale. He said it was
not, but he had something similar to email me a setup on. So he
sends me the setup, and it is for the complex.” There
was some drama and complicated negotiation, but in the end everything
worked out. Randy found Chris Veit through Jack Pierson who fixed
up the place. Soon Chris Viet had also adopted the Art Queen cause
and convinced Randy to give Christine Carraher (Jackadandy)
the first show. Last summer Randy’s place in Pipes Canyon
burned down so he made a small studio out of an empty studio apartment
at the complex, and Shari has one too. Now they work together
there very comfortably, which seems like a lot of fun.
“A lot of what I like about the desert aside from the
hardscrabble elegance of the landscape and denizens is the creativity
and gumption demonstrated by its citizens. I love the weird houses
people make out of 3 trailers stuck together, or an old yurt stuck
to a bus. While it is not perfect, it is a supportive environment
for creative work, and unlike NYC, does not saddle people with
spending 80% of their time earning money to pay the rent. The
homemade-ness, the relentlessly slow but more humane pace, these
are good antidotes to my day job building perfect things for people
with very high expectations in the city. The weird folk art, the
fact that almost everyone who likes it out there finds something
creative to do, the bizarre road culture, the rigs people drive
around in, are all inspiring.”
What Does Randy Do in New York when he isn’t in
the high desert?
Randy Makes Art. Check it out at :
www.polumbo.com
He
has a café called DODO in the South Street Seaport neighborhood.
It is at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, right on the water.
DODO get all of it’s produce from local organic sources,
and artisans and make mostly healthy vegan food. They also have
raw food specials, and actual real burgers, though they are organic.
Even most of the baked goods are made there. (His sister Rachel
bakes the cookies fresh all the time.) They have started to have
music and art events there too. You can see more at http://www.dodo-cafe.com/
3-D Laboratory is Randy’s construction company of 20+ years.
They build remarkable and amazing one-of-a-kind places including
everything from an art nouveau mansion uptown to stark minimal
projects for Richard Gluckman’s office downtown. You can
see more at www.3-DLaboratory.com
May
6th and 7th, 2006
(View
the publication edited by Lisa Anne Auerbach here.)
More
HDTS5 on the Web:
Photos
by Arwen
Photos
by UuDam
Artforum.com
Thom
Merrick
Margarita Oasis
(photo by David Dodge)
Miguel
(photo by David Dodge)
Ranchito
Mirage
next
to Chris Viet's Cabin
Chuck Moffit and Ingram Ober
(Photo by Laura Ståhlberg)
One Wilshire" by AUDC
(Photo by Laura Ståhlberg)
Good Desert Hats
HDTS HQ -Saturday morning
Tiprin
Follet
Jay
Lizo
UuDam Nguyen, "Thinking Rock" (with Hannah, Tom, Carolyn,
and Ry)
Kristen and Ada at Chuck Moffit and Ingram Ober's Installation.
(photo by Chris James)
FloraWeigmann's
Dance Performance at the Salt Flats.
(Photo by Gordon Zittel)
Katie Grinnan's Inverse Parade
(Photo by David Dodge)
October
28th, 2006
Primitivo
Suarez and Ginger Wolfe
Location: "Behind the Bail Bonds"
for directions to HDTS click here
High Desert Test Sites is pleased to present our
latest solo project, Open To Beyond: Structures without Given
Confines, by the Los Angeles based husband-and-wife team Primitivo
Suarez and Ginger Wolfe.
Suarez
is known for his large formal experiments with building materials
which entangle viewers and Wolfe has created a meditative body
of work celebrated for her methods of critique and research. The
resulting large-scale installations are ‘a series of allegories’
on the emotional, cultural, and academic weight of a given structure.
During
the artists’ exploration of the desert, the pair became
interested in repositioning two existing structures in order to
investigate function, context, and material. The first installation
is based on a cabin they studied in Wonder Valley. They rebuilt
the cabin on the test site in reverse, or in other words, they
gave back what it was without. Doors and windows hover in the
open landscape, collapsing ideas of exterior and interior, and
of the vulnerability or security they would traditionally imply.
The second installation is the frame of a large billboard, which
has been reconstructed. Seemingly without purpose, with its orientation
altered, the skeleton structure poetically instigates a questioning
of material culture
Primitivo
Suarez is trained as an architect and an artist. He received his
MFA from UCLA in 2000 and has shown his work at Ace Galleries
in Los Angeles and New York, Blum & Poe Gallery, The Luckman
Gallery of Fine Arts, 1R Gallery, and Barrow & Juarez. In
2002, he was a recipient of the Emilio Sanchez Award for Visual
Arts from the Cintas Foundation, which is a grant awarded to Cuban-American
artists and refugees. Ginger Wolfe studied at The School of the
Art Institute of Chicago and at Goldsmiths College in London.
She began working as an assistant to conceptual artist Sol LeWitt,
and went on to become a Founding Editor of InterReview, which
is a journal synonymous with experimentations in conceptual art.
A catalogue of the research surrounding these installations, including
documentation from site-visits, texts, and selections from hundreds
of photographs is forth-coming from The Press of Image and Theory
in 2007.
*The artists
wish to thank The Foundation for Contemporary Art for financial
support of this project.
June
17th, 2006
Scott
Wayne Indiana installed "Geo Chain (crossing boundaries)"
at HDTS Site: Behind the Bail Bonds
Scott
Wayne Indiana traveled to HDTS country from Portland Oregon to
install "Geo Chain" - a project of epic ambition. Scott's
goal is a continuum of connected sections of chain which will
one day encircle the globe - or at least as far as he can get
people to take it in his lifetime (and beyond). The project is
a conceptual seed that will grow as more and more people participate
in the pilgrimage.
He
has outlined the first stage of the "journey" as the
California/Arizona border which he thinks is achievable within
the next 10 years.
The first section of Geo Chain
If
you are making the trip out to the high desert we ask you to get
involved! All you have to do is to bring along a section of chain
to add to the Geo Chain. Be sure that the there is a way to connect
it such as a threaded connector, or a pair of pliers to open and
close the links.
Directions
to the site
Scott
is looking for a local volunteer to help maintain the chain and
to help better secure the Geo
Chain to it's anchoring post If you are able to get involved
email him at symplvision@gmail.com
More
information on Scott Wayne Indiana can be found at at www.39forks
.com
HDTS
4 went down over the weekend of October 23/24th 2004! View the
projects here....
10/25/04
Visitors
who turned out this weekend for HDTS4 found themselves caught
up in a whirlwind of intersecting activities and cultures from
dirt bikes to swap meets to cold desert campsites to hot tub hoe
downs...
Spelman
Downer sent us these images that he took out at the Coyote dry-lake...
Thank you Spelman! (click on the image for full
size)
10/17/04
Stop
the WAL*ing of our desert!
Over the weekend of October 23/24th the site of the proposed
Super Wal-Mart (south/east corner of Avalon and Hwy 62) will be
the locatin of a special project by the Sytty Group. While you
are at the HDTS HQ don't forget to sign the guest book reserved
for comments on the Super Wal-Mart development.
You
can access a discussion group for community issues by clicking
here.
10/15/04
Announcing
THE FALLOUT SITE a HDTS project at Rimrock
Ranch curated by Martha Otero:
Chris Beas
Mike Bouchet
Steven Kopp
Chris Lipomi
Aaron Garber-Maikovska & Eric Pereira
Gean Moreno
Lisi Raskin
John Espinoza
10/13/04
Don't
Forget:
Strange
Animal opens at LACE
on Friday night 7-9 PM
6522 Hollywood Blvd. Los Angeles tel 323-957-1777
10/12/03
Countdown to HDTS4! Get out your sunscreen and sunhats and star
charts and sweaters. And don't forget to, as always, bring plenty
of water.
Last weekend a couple of city slicker artists got stuck in the
sand way out at Site 7. Turning tragedy into an educational experience
is always advised in this type of situation. Repeated attempts
at removing the vehicle from the desert resulted in frustration
and environmental degradation. The sun began sinking in the sky.
It could have been a long cold night. Then, out of nowhere, the
Gas Man came rambling down the dirt road. And he was a hero. Gas
Men usually are pretty great and this guy was no exception. A
real problem solver. The lesson of the day: if you get stuck in
the sand, letting some air out of the tires will help set you
free. Just remember to fill them back up once you get back to
civilization.
10/11/04
Feral
Childe urgently seeks . . . FIVE contestants for
our Dingo Derby on the 24th. All contestants receive a Feral Childe
Numbered Jersey (for keeps). REGISTER NOW! by emailing us A.S.A.P.
at mail@feralchilde.com.
Please include some truthful information about your height and
weight and eye color.
FIVE volunteers for our Dingo Derby Dance Corps on the 24th. No
experience necessary. We will provide training and benefits. REGISTER
NOW! by emailing us A.S.A.P. at mail@feralchilde.com.
Please include some truthful information about your height and
weight and eye color.
Hurry, spaces are limited. An opportunity not to be missed.
10/11/04
Call for volunteers:
Bettina
Hubby is asking for people willing to wear and wander for a few
hours. She’s bringing capes made from men’s suit materials,
hotel towels and women’s lingerie and simply asks people
to wear them over dark clothing toward and into dusk on Oct. the
23rd. The more people who are seen caped against this serene desert
backdrop the more surreal and enjoyable the vision will be. Plus,
it’s known to get chilly at night, so they could help ward
off the elements. Email her directly if you are willing and able:
bettinahubby@sbcglobal.net
9/29/04
SUPERDANISH
Press
release:"In response to the exhibition
"Superdanish - Newfangled Danish culture" at the Habour
Front Centre in Toronto Superflex will present a mural. The mural
is a copy of "Iraqi
freedom" located in in Twentynine Palms, California USA.
The Twentynine Palms mural includes signature images from the
US/Iraqi conflict, such as the toppling of the statue of Saddam
Hussein in Baghdad, alongside portraits of American soldiers.
In this copy American troops are replaced with Danish military
personal and weaponry."
9/26/04
Pruess
Press, located in Chinatown LA, will be producing the publication
for this years event. The format is going to be that of a newsletter
(they regularly publish their own newsletter called the Rambler).
For the publication They are soliciting any relevant material
- from restaurant reviews, weird desert stories, local lore, tips
and advice for the High Desert travelers or even tales of experiences
that happened to you during a previous test site events... Email
your material to Joel at: joeymesler@hotmail.com
(And we guarantee that the newsletter will be more diligently
proof read than this web site!)
9/24/04
In
connection with HDTS4, Los
Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions will present "Strange
Animal," an exhibition organized by Giovanni Jance, featuring
past and present participants of the High Desert Test Sites. In
the experimental and social spirit of HDTS, each participant must
somehow interact or intervene in the presentation of another participant.
This manner of working provides a catalyst for people to gather
in what amounts to an arbitrary place to discuss each other’s
work, in the process of putting it together. HDTS, then,
becomes not as much "place" specific as much as it is
"social event" specific.
9/23/04
The
Palms, who will once again host for the HDTS Saturday night
dinner, have generously invited people to camp out on their land
if they need a place to stay that that night. Also, for those
of you with a season pass to the desert, check out their music
festival on October 1st and 2nd!
10/28/03
HDTS3 was a hit over the weekend. Tons of brave Angelenos donned
dust mask and drove through the wildfires that consumed much of
the SoCal hillsides between LA and the desert.
In the desert, the air was, as usual, clear and beautiful. Temperatures
soared, but art lovers galore made it to the sites on view, taking
in the wide range of projects. And everyone made it to the Palms
for a wild evening shindig.
10/20/03
HDTS is THIS weekend! See the FLIER!
Pick up your map at The Projects, 7319 Acoma Trail in Yucca Valley
on Saturday, October 25.
To get to the Projects from the big city (LA), take the 10 freeway
east to Highway 62. Take 62 to Yucca Valley. Turn right on Acoma
Trail (look for The Jelly Donut). The Projects is on your left
a few storefronts from Hwy 62.
The Projects will be open from 10-6 on Saturday. If you arrive
when it's NOT open, there will be a map posted on the window.
Saturday night, we will be back at the Palms in Wonder Valley
for food, drink, and videos. If you don't make it anywhere else,
do join us there.
10/12/03
REPORT FROM SITE 7
What happens to test sites artists who don't clean up after their
projects? They pay fifty bucks and go to jail. (We wish!) But
fortunately there are other people who bail us out and volunteer
to dothe job that no one wants.
Today that job was cleaning up the last remains of the Tiger Pit
(from HDTS2) at site 7. Giovanni Jance and Jennifer Nocon both
drove out from LA to break wood, pick up cans and bottles and
shovel sand in the hot dusty sun - and at the end of the day we
all compared blisters to see who had the best battle wounds. Giovanni
didn't have any blisters, but he showed us another part of his
anatomy which he busted while digging.
10/7/03
DISSOLVE NIGHT is Friday, October 31st at Copper Mountain College.
Artists are invited to present slide shows using digital or traditional
projection equipment. Come one, come all! For more info, click
here...
10/5/03
Only 20 more shopping days until HDTS3! Please be sure to buy
plenty of water for your trip to the desert.
It's mighty dry. Also put sunscreen and snacks on your shopping
list, as there are no guarantees of anything when you are a stranger
in a strange land.
This weekend, we visited Shannon Ebner at the local shooting range,
where she was, of course, shooting. Her photographs are part of
the next incarnation of HDTS.
No outing to Yucca Valley would be complete without a stop at
Desert Christ for a little laughter at the expense of the lord.
9/30/03 We are gearing up for the next event, which will take
place on October 25, 2003.
The next installation promises to be a real hum-dinger, with artists
coming from miles around to put their mark on the desert, or to
let the desert put its mark on them!
If you're coming out to LA for HDTS3 (or if you're here all the
time anyhow) also check out Sundown Salon at the Schindler House,
put on by HDTS supporter Fritz Haeg.
http://www.fritzhaeg.com/salon/events/09schindler.html
8/23/03
Thank you everyone for submitting such mind-bending and
wonderful proposals for HDTS3! Everyone we heard from will be
contacted in the next few weeks and then the fun can begin once
again.
7/9/03
The next HDTS event will take place on October
25, 2003. Artists who want to make their projects a part of HDTS3
should send in a proposal by August 1, 2003. Proposals must be
submitted as hard copies and should include: a general statement
about the work, a bio, and a drawing or visual guide as to what
the piece will look like.
HDTS cannot financially support individual artist projects, though
HDTS will send out invitations, publish a publication, and provide
a venue. The financial and logistical responsibility of realizing
projects is entirely on the artist. Artists should be prepared
to make several visits to the area over the next few months and
to deal with clean up and or maintenance following the Fall event.
