radio aporee presents flickering wastelands IV: another round of the 48-Stunden-(Berlin-)Neukölln Kunst und Kulturfestival at Udo’s place, so I prep this 30-minute video piece of flickering wastelands from the Wendover residency, et al. Ambient sounds included.

Leaving when done with breakfast and cleaning and packing. A couple rituals yet — gathering some sage and some yellow Weber sandstone powder. A beautiful sojourn. The place is so rich, so un-circumscribable, no matter how many dances of words one would make around it. Best is the ability to press into the body the power of be-ing and the power of life. And Light. And the gravity of the earth. Fundamentals to the heart. The drift of cloud and shift of wider weather patterns, leaving Light on upturned face, changing all the time.

Maybe put out a call next spring to have others join. Then again, maybe not…

What changes flow into the ongoing process of life during solo retreats to power-full places? I think a lot about all the others who I know, and do wish that there were folks who would be able to join me in these places. Some folks I would like to have join me and others, I know, wouldn’t appreciate it. Everything would be different, especially the bushwhacks and the rambles; the cooking and eating, sharing meals, and just hanging out together would recall so many prior times, and the deep and satisfying fun that was had by all.

The hikes: while most attention has to go to the movement itself, as there are considerable risks to walking solo in such places, mind may drift from immediate situation and the larger questions of what has become, what does become of life. It’s more of a noisy mess, but it is easier under these circumstances to do the yogic step away and allow the chitta vritti, the thought-noise, to simply happen, knowing that being in the moment is far more important and has deeper implications than any projections onto future (and very much theoretical) situations or into re-living historical situations. The pull of the un-fettered mind into both those spaces is strong, and the best tonic for that is the risk of solo bushwhacking where there is a steep penalty for not paying attention. I do catch myself every so often, verbally, aloud, slow-down slow-down slow-down, after I make a mis-step or blunder. The most common is when traversing some slick-rock face and stepping on a small pebble. That’s all it takes, send you 10 feet or 100 feet to the next ledge down, or to the canyon floor. Doesn’t make much difference how far, an injury would be immediate life-threatening even if it was a minor sprain — if immobilized, you would have to deal with at least one night out, maybe more, with hypothermia, then dehydration being the most problematic, then the problem of becoming predator food, the problem of attracting help could be very difficult, if in a slot canyon or off the normal known trails. I carry a loud whistle, and do leave small notes in my car which would direct search parties to general areas, but the terrain is vast, and there is much topography that would make searching difficult. I think they would wait a day at least before even checking the car anyway. Unless you told someone specifically that you would be in touch. There is no phone access, and so on, uff. Well, the point is, focus and caution have to be taken very seriously when soloing. I would do things rather differently if with one other or a small group. There is immediately a sizeable extra safety factor. Not that it would suddenly make risk disappear, but an innocuous stumble on the rocks wouldn’t immediately become a life-and-death situation.

What about these time-lapse movies? What are they about? I don’t know what to make of them, but have spent numerous hours making them — 2 minutes per hour is the rate that I’ve been using — a frame every 3 or 4 seconds to make a PAL 24 fps film. I guess I’ll make a dvd or maybe a single work, but have to think of the sound-track for them, that’s difficult.

Anyway, head out, south through Rangely, down the Book Cliffs, through Loma and meet Collin and Marisa at the airport office of their business, the Colorado Flight Center, get pizza and beer, and drive up the hill to Glade Park to have dinner with Bob, their next door neighbor.

An Outward Bound group rafts in, and are lectured to in the Trex seating arranged for “camp fire talks” here in the campground. I find it really bizarre, when there a thousand ‘natural’ places to sit for a dialogue, they make a bee-line to the plastic composite seats. I guess they got lectured on the tamarisk mitigation work around Echo Park, I didn’t ask, as I was too busy prepping for the day. They later went into the woods between the campground and the river and were doing something. Wonder if they saw the carnage I wrought on the tamarisk behind site #7!

Batten everything down, and cycle out to look at the posted topo map, for a bit more orienteering info. Run into an older couple, chat with them a bit, they rafted in privately, and were looking for petroglyphs — the others in their group wandered up Lower Pool Creek Canyon to the ‘official’ petroglyph stop. I show them the really nice ones up the cliff face right there from the info stand with binocs. They are impressed. They are from Cedaredge, of all places, and are retired geoscience folks.

Cycle on up to one of the lower ranch fields, stash the bike behind some huge sage bushes, and head out.

First a long hike up Trail Draw, just to see what that intersection of the Red Rock and Mitten Park faults really looks like. Not enough time to actually go into the base of the intersection another mile or so along south-westward, that will wait for another visit. Find a nice cave in the up-turned Weber sandstone, a bit of a stretch to climb up and into it, but it makes a good lunch stop.

At one point, after climbing to another cave and coming down from the steeply faulted area, I arrived at a place. Looking down — a notable instance as I have been primarily looking up and around, especially when the trees are big enough to have substantial branches above eye level, branches that can harbor a 50-pound juvenile cougar practicing ambush predation — looking down, I see one chip, then two, then many more, they are very fine, very thin, of high quality chalcedony and jasper, then I see many more chips and worked stones. I hunt around the area, looking intently, and wondering at the quality and concentration, suddenly appearing like this, in a pretty random place, no caves nearby, no particular visual vantage. Anyway, nice objects in a particular place. Clearly made by someone who had significant and focused skill in the process.

Decide to curtail this part of the walk to a relatively short reconnoiter of Trail Draw and subsequently head into Upper Pool Creek Canyon at least as far as the fault line and the spring. But it’s too beautiful to stop, and although I have some serious predation vibes happening in the same place as three years ago on the Solstice, they finally dissipate as I go much further into the canyon than before. It’s extremely rugged at times. The wash above the spring shows recent and heavy flash-flood evidence, about five or ten feet up on each side, and there is plenty of drying red mud and wet pools. This was from Tuesday night’s flood. Would have been cool/harrowing to be up here at that time! I make it to an area below the really huge spire (+500 feet!) on the south side of the canyon, and see to the north side, a long and wide semi-circular bench, several of them higher up, but with debris fans that looked climbable. Make it to one, have a second snack, and then realize that I can get to a higher and much larger bench which has a good overhang. I make it up there, it runs along the canyon about 100 yards, and after exploring one end, I make it to the extreme other end to find a classic corn granary from Fremont times — mud-daubbed with cobbles, a wooden stick roof with mud on it. It’s mostly collapsed on itself, but the structure is clear, and there are even cobs of corn sitting on one side and the finger-prints of the maker in the sealing clay. Amazing to see this up here.

That caps the hike, and so I decide to slowly head back, with the final two miles a coast down the canyon on the bike — it’s been eight hours on the trail. Excellent weather, no bugs, no mountain lions or bears, too early for snakes. Only beetles, lizards and raptors and other birds.

Edges. Borders. Approaching the edge, approaching my edge, pushing you to your edge, going over the edge, edgy, close to the edge, walking a fine line: swerving onto the shoulder, drunk-bumps thumping and gravel flying, then across the shoulder into the guard rail, through that, launched into space, over the edge.

The edge is approached gingerly, or is stumbled upon without prior awareness. The edge gazed upon with either macro- or micro-scopic intention. Doesn’t make that much difference. To see the edge is to see the transformation of energy from one transitional state to another.

All roads lead to Rome. Because that’s the way it always has been.

try a couple more timelapse shots, but they are unsatisfactory with all the technical drawbacks. Stability, resolution, quality, etc. Nothing to be done about it without a 10K investment, or more.

Instead, after the driving rain all night, start a fire in the morning, still raining, but gradually it tapers off, though it is very cloudy. The guy who came in late yesterday in a Ford Explorer with a Rocket Box on top left at some point in the morning. Gah. No place to go! He’ll end up in a ditch somewhere.

I decide to do the traverse from the Pool Creek road over to Sand Canyon since the lower mouth of the canyon is not accessible because the Yampa River spring run-off level. On the way, I decide to drive up to the Bench fork to see where this guy drove — I am stunned to see that he took the branch up to the Harper’s Corner road, with the 18% grade. No way, after a night of rain, and, as I see when I get out of Pool Creek Canyon, snow down to about 6000 feet, so the last two miles of the road would be absolutely impossible. Just the drive to the fork is bad with the red clay sticking in the treads on the tires making them useless aside from the fact this is a relatively level road, so, no problem. I see his tracks, and even the difference of a few hours (time for the road to dry some), he was having more trouble that I was. I could see the difference of a few hours of drying time. I can only hope that there is no additional rain before Friday when I have to head out, south to Glade Park. I imagine that he is stuck somewhere on the road, though, hopefully not blocking traffic! (Of which there will be none, because after that weather, they for sure closed the top of the road for people coming in.)

The traverse the wide and clear bench to Sand Canyon is subtle but effective. Several kills, and between those and the barrel cactii colonies and the Indian Paint Brush (Castilleja linariifolia) flowers, plenty of that counterpoint coloration that is so outrageous in the West. The silver-green-blue of the sage, then these absolute vortices of color with the flowering plants, stimulating in the soft and wet Light. Found another 14-point rack, gah, these animals are big! Wouldn’t want to encounter a mad one! End up on the canyon rim, just across from where Sebastien, Jeff, Chris, Wendy, and I hike to from the old camping place, years ago, there are some extant shots of folks sprawled on a small bench of sandstone, resting, and eating M&M’s. I recall looking across the canyon at that point, thinking how it looked, how it impressed form into eye. Today, climbing down that formerly observed face was steep and tricky. All the while, wondering about cougars. A series of nice overhang/caves at the top under the limestone cap rock, so, continued the series of cave panoramas, hope to have three decent works to perhaps make into large-scale print works.

The psycho-geographic process in this situation, this environment, this weather, is strictly controlled by the contingencies of the total situation. There is little choice, per se, but rather the application of experience, or lack thereof, to the movement through, across, into, and of the essence of the place. Movement is dictated by will throughout the body, but it also immediately comes up against the contingencies of place. Unlike the Sonoran Desert, the actual number of spiny plants is not near as great, but the small size means easily overlooked, heavy boots are a necessity. And care becomes more about the stability of the foot-fall rather than what the foot might intersect. Some time is spent exploring several small side-canyons where there is plenty to absorb.

Sleep difficult, not sure why, whether simple discomfort, though the back of the truck seems very comfortable in the immediate impression, warm, soft enough, but body cannot find a comfortable position, side to side, somehow, problems. Could be that yoga hasn’t been happening in the last days. Hiking is a challenge for the body as well.

Drive up to the head of Sand Canyon, intent on doing a hike, but what looks like bad weather coming in, a heavy front across the whole west, sends me back after a short recon along the Bench Road. It seems doable as an alternative escape route, if this end is the worst, though, in wet conditions, forget it. And it totals thirty miles to Elk Springs, not just the three miles I did on recon. Almost all of it is in the red and yellow clay-sandstone alluvium, and this is precisely this same stuff which sits at the top of the Echo Park Road — from the 2000-foot displacement on the Mitten Park Fault, so, no real solution in heavy and widespread rain. However, this doesn’t seem the case — the rain is sporadic, fast-moving, and interspersed with bright sunshine and the roads are basically still dry after two days of ‘winter storm,’ so fretting about it is a waste of energy. Either I get out on Friday or I don’t and have to wait a few days. Plenty of water, fuel, and food, so that is no problem. The only locked-in point is the flight next Wednesday evening to Portland. But I’d still hate to miss the yurt-raising in Glade Park at Collin and Marisa’s this weekend!

Getting places, visiting friends. This is something I do that others don’t seem to do quite as much. With or without kids, people go on vacation to some elsewhere which is not local. But why this nagging impression that without me making repeat and sustained contacts, that Others have little interest in doing so. Of course, they have a life too, but so do I (I think): what trumps one over the other in considerations of time to maintain contact? It’s my job, perhaps. Is this a general un-sustainability of contemporary social conditions — at least as it sustains social relation beyond the immediate in-your-face people engaged with? Distance, obviously, can increase from there and is measured by the face-time, life-time, and life-energy spent. We do not do well spreading our attentions widely, except for those who crave (are craven) to have the attention of many. There are humans who can capture the attention of millions of individuals. This is only through mediation, however. With increasing numbers roughly equivalent to increasing mediation. Bang for Buck.

Does it matter, this wide-scaled exploration of the apparatus, the anatomy of power relations in the social system I am embedded within? Is it again merely something done to fill the time of being here. And will have little or no use in the long run except as a legacy substitute for being here? Ach, it is all looking towards that eventuality, as far as I can see. And what is that? Whilst reading on a early 20th Century historical treatise on Augustus (Octavius), a paean to the Caesar, successor to Julius Caesar, and master of the Roman Empire for many decades. The understanding must be embedded in a living praxis.

Suit-up later despite the weather for a relatively short but very intense hike to check out the small bench area above the soft red hills that are immediately above Lower Pool Creek Canyon. Dimension is distorted. Small- and smooth- looking becomes large and rugged (as usual). Slow pace, looking for access up the bench face. Strange smell, noted. Noted again about ten minutes later. And five minutes after that, the first fresh, very fresh paw-print the width of my hand. Thank god no overhanging trees of any height or size up here. With the near presence of a sizable carnivore confirmed, looking becomes a multi-dimensional immediacy. But then the sunLight breaks through after a squall, and I race through the juniper around to the west side of the bench trying to find a strategic vantage for some photos without foreground trees. Can’t get to it quick enough to capture sunLight glistening on wet uplifted fault faces of Harper’s Corner. Looks damn nice, though. Didn’t become someone’s dinner at the expense of a couple good photos either.

Back to the east rim, to plot a way back down, I spy a strange sight 200 yards below in the fading Light. A tremendous elk rack still attached to whitened skull apparently hanging in a juniper tree. No easy way down the bench there, I have to back-track to find an accessible egress. Finally make it to the rack. Amazing, 14-point, other bones strewn around. Blood still on some of it, so, not too old. A scattering of the rest of the stripped skeleton on the ground in the area.

Then a few minutes later, stumble on some large chunks of petrified wood which I trace to a deposit in a loosely consolidated conglomerate sandstone layer. Strange that the wood would remain intact in such an environment. The pieces are internally fractured, but exhibit good detail in the re-mineralization of the wood structures.

Finally back to the bike for the two miles downhill back to Echo Park. More severe weather rips through the entire night. The road is definitely closed. No humans in sight.

Start to try making time-lapse sequences from the immediate surroundings. Lousy and/or old equipment, a quasi-functioning power system, and the results show it. Add a portable generator, a better tripod, longer cabling, a 3-CCD camera with chip memory (ah to be free of tape!), and a laptop with a battery that lasts longer than the start-up sequence. I’m ready to cash in some of my retirement piddle to cover it. Maybe $10K I could get away with all of it, including a decent audio recorder? That, along with a better 4WD truck and I’d be part of the pseudo-elite for once. hah. So, anyway, now, marooned in Echo Park by the intense weather, (I was warned, fair enough, but I told the ranger that I wasn’t planning to come out until Friday next at least, anyway, so things should dry up by then, and that I had enough supplies for at least two weeks if not more). Stormy already today, late morning, humidity pulled the clouds up, and while attempting some decent time-lapses, it gets worse. What else is new? Maybe I end up sitting in the car just writing. There are rain filaments across to the north.

Cutting tamarisk growth behind camping site (#7) to feed the fire. Keeps mind busy, with flinging sharp blade biting into hard wood. No help around in case of an accident. This sharpens the wits.

Stormy all through the night, thinking rain, flooding, flash-flooding, getting stuck at the top of the road out, having to back down that 18 percent grade, having to take the bench road out, 35 unknown miles of semi-jeep trail. The maintenance guys cruise through camp yesterday, have a short chat with them. One says he’s taken the Bench Road in his wife’s van. And the weather is to be here all week, so it’s not the small squalls that are happening in between sunshine, but the accumulated wetness and snow in that red bentonite clay at the top of the drive that will be treacherous, not to mention the precipitous drop-offs! Yikes.

Do a short but very steep eight mile cycle ride up past the ranch to the fork in the road below the upper stretch of Sand Canyon. I so surprise a large raptor — a juvenile Red-tail who is sitting on a low branch in a grove of cottonwoods along Pool Creek — that he doesn’t move, except for watching me cycle by, up hill, a mere ten feet away. He watches with very dilated pupils, black, wide for the prey he was likely waiting for, mice in the twilit encroachment. Death from above for some sacrificial victim, perhaps themselves learning to survive. Death from above with little chance for escape.

Towards midnight, stand in the center of the open grassy space of the canyon, in the cloudy star Light, watching supplicating palms reflect the Light from eye corner. doing stretching and some tai chi in the extremely dark but luminous space. The eye so sensitive after adjusting. Though there is also the awareness that for the puma, this is still quite bright, with pupils the size of a quarter. Attracting all the Light there is into tuned neural system to activate all carnivorous be-ing.

But in the drama of weather, it is difficult to concentrate on writing. Maybe that is part of the problem — the inability to write in the midst of things. Instead this need to draw away from it all. To have a solid and secluded space to withdraw to in order to process the constant influx. Increasingly I understand the archive to become a legacy issue — that the archive is what I am after I’m gone. Nothing more than that. The trace of a resonant passage through this place, this time, this incarnation, this life. Its level of order expresses how long it will persist. Although the substrate that it is written upon will also determine its longevity. In massive stone, not in electromagnetic dipole configurations on disks. Although perhaps the particular substrate is not so important in either way. The monumentality of materialized legacy is no guarantor. And a (simple) text will survive long if it carries energies that stir resonance in more than a few people. There is no strategy for promoting the precise character of a work — except to see that it comes from a space closer and closer to the impressions of life itself.

So, what are the themes of the thesis work today? The process of amplification, the process of social ordering versus inevitable thermodynamically described counter-processes, the road as a real/metaphoric model for both personal presence and social order. As I sit at the end of the road here, Echo Park. I think that is the attraction of this place, it is, literally, the end of the road. There are two cul-de-sacs, one at the campground one in front of the Ranger’s cabin, and even if desired, there is really nowhere to drive after that. Even the walking is obstructed much of the year by the rivers, although one year I recall making quite a hike across the Yampa and into the north-eastern side of the confluence. Prepared, it would be great to go further into those territories, but one would have to rig a floating transport device to get a supply of equipment across the river and into a further base camp. I somehow doubt that I will have that chance in this life.

But the end of the road, for all that entails, the point where transport methods have to devolve, step-by-step, until they are reduced to footfalls, but even then there is a limit. Here in this country, the fall of the foot is determined by the strength of the body, and the knowledge of the terrain. This knowledge has to include a means for sustenance, water primarily, but, after that, food. There is plenty of undrinkable water, and plenty of difficult-to-capture food. Then what?

Without either a strong back-country knowledge (especially food sources), and some minimal equipment (rifle, knife, fire-starter of some sort, (metal) water container for boiling water, water-proof clothing) it would be tough indeed.

Two days here in Echo Park already. Three nights, one night alone, Friday and Saturday there were a couple of people in, then tonight, Sunday, no one around at all. A bit creepy, especially with the mountain lion kill I just discovered over in the middle of the walk-in camping site. Saw that on the way back from Mitten Park this afternoon. Been thinking of the cougars the whole time I’ve been here. Seeing evidences of kills scattered widely across the entire space. Wondering what the total range in for a single cat? I just don’t want to meet one. Having fantasy imaginations, and on the way back from Mitten Park had composed an Ode to the Puma, not able to memorize it sufficiently to record it, but recite it loudly on the way back.

The trail is choked with small purple flowers where it starts from Echo Park. Then there are the vague petroglyphs, then one set of rafters float by, small against Steamboat Rock. Looking at things great and small, it’s all relative to the eye, and the unfolding context.

Eight years ago, I leave a stone from Iceland in a cavity of the standing carcass of a burned pi�on, the stone is now gone. Where?

hike up Pat’s Draw and around the fault area, up a steep talus slope below the high scarps of Harper’s Corner, as far possible, and even some slow trundling down some very unstable and steep terrains. Seeing more 12-16-point elk racks, more mountain lion kills, and the weather is warm.

Have an incredibly erotic dream with Jennifer D., back from the Culture Capitals 2000 project in Prague. Will have to email her. Otherwise watery squint-eyed watching of rotating the stellar field.

This morning, a raptor circles a hundred meters away with its mate hidden in the trees along Pool Creek, making a creeeewing sound. It’s the same noise it made when I wandered over to the creek earlier in the morning. All the birds are noisy — it makes a multi-dimensional flow which lies on the ear with pleasing insistence. No need to move the head, as the sources are in motion and occasionally in sight.

No one else down here today. I could feel it on the way down, the road just opened late in the day, although it didn’t seem in bad shape at all. They’ve been improving it with trucked-in gravel for a majority of the fifteen miles over the last decade. There were a few spots where folks had driven through when it was wet, and this was something of a mess — a hint of how horrible it can get after a storm.

Been thinking about the bush-whack agenda for the next ten days or so — with some trepidation regarding the carnivores, the mountain lions (Puma concolor — pumas, cougars, catamounts) specifically. The experience several years back in Upper Pool Creek Canyon comes to mind, and is not one that I would want to repeat. So it goes.

(Canada) geese (Branta canadensis) calls are echoing around, coming from upstream at the confluence and downstream from the opposite shore under Steamship Rock. Last night I kept thinking it was people on rafts talking, but it’s no human heard for the last 15 hours.

How to connect this place with the Wendover experience. The sporadic expressions of military order — literally expression — generated from the huge globe-spanning techno-social system, compared to this place.

Para-state organizations (sanctioned by law or social(elite) mandate) can operate at a less intrusive level than purely geo(political) entities — they don’t tend to attract near the enmity of a military presence, yet they have the same affect of tapping into the life-energies of a population and gathering that energy back into the geo-political entity that sanctions their existence.

Coke in China: gets the Chinese people to drink, to spend life-time/life-energy on Coke’s strictly controlled energy source. This process supplies the Chinese government with convertible/abstracted energy (money) in the form of direct and indirect taxes on the process — on Coca-Cola, on the salaries of the workers, on raw material import tariffs, etc. It also clearly supplies Coca-Cola with the same. Coke draws human energy into a system which guarantees the flow of that convertible/abstracted instrument.

Hunting, gathering, human-driven agriculture all demonstrate this on a granular level where it is relatively easy to see the connections and full pathways of energy flow. But as the techno-social system gets more complex, the connections are more widely displaced. Then with the addition of abstracted systems of exchange, the system becomes very complex and it is difficult to tease out the interconnections of even a simple example. However, even deep in the abstracted system, individuals are using their life-energies/life-time in maintaining the widest-scale pathways of the globe-spanning techno-social system. We are all implicated! And, indeed, observing this clearly on any scale — from ‘natural systems’ to any scale of social system — it is easy to extrapolate the limits and consequences of what is only to be considered a sustainable system at a cosmological scale. At localized and extracted systems levels, such as “human life on earth,” it may not be sustainable, is not sustainable. But the extraction process is purely abstract, and considering things from a holistic/unified point-of-view, it is sustainable. The universe will go on. Sounds like a contradiction.

So, how to reconcile all this to different scales, locales, etc?

Transit of Utah. From west to east, along a winding trajectory from desert to forest to desert, oil drilling, wind power, gas stations, Mormon farms, gold mines, high-security military bases, municipal alarm towers scattered across the landscape — for warning the population surrounding the bases where testing of bio- and chemical-warfare devices is ongoing — warning them of impending disaster. Continuing on the isolated Pony Express Trail, then descending into populated areas. Calling ahead to Dinosaur to see about road conditions. Plenty of snow on the Uintahs, plenty! At the last minute after checking out the Green River campground on the Utah side, I get word that the Echo Park road is open. So, gas up, including the extra tank, and head in from Jensen. Excellent weather, and finally arriving, no one else around, very good. Get the pick of the few camp spaces, #5, 7, and 9 are the best for shade, seclusion, and access to firewood — though shade is not the issue at this time of year, more important would be the access to morning sunshine to warm up — but since there’s no one else around, I can use the #6 picnic table in full sun in the morning for breakfast. So, I take #7 and offload/set-up quickly: already charged at being here once again…

Some final words on the residency period:

Energy of Situation

Rather than the production of new configurations of the energized world as a tool for individual continuance and relevance to the wider social system, I chose to concentrate on a fundamental closer to the bone, as it were, the production of new configurations of the energized world as a tool for individual continuance and relevance to the wider social system. What we do changes the cosmos, always, everywhere, (because everywhere’s are not separated nor distinct).

Traditional art production is (merely) the (re)configuration of certain flows in the near (and far) surround of the producer. My approach generally falls under this model but approaches the reconfiguration process from an entirely different path. Entering a ‘residency’ is (merely) moving from one (life)situation into another: we are constantly doing this in life, transitioning from one semi-stable configuration to another, with periods of more-or-less instability in between. If one leaves traditional temporal and spatial metrics behind, this process may be seen simply as the modulation of a constancy of flowing condition. The particular conditions and configurations of a situation dictate the potential range of reconfigurations possible, given the energy input of the individual and the embodied life-energy/life-time that is available. The configuration is merely a cumulative apprehended set of flows occurring with a reductive purview (and is always relative to the observer!) There is the ‘locally external’ factor of the accessibility of external energy sources for reconfiguring, but if one approaches the situation as a more autonomous and self-contained instance, the range of possibility is limited just as life-time and life-energy is limited. It is along this approach that I undertook this residency. (I will here omit a wider discussion of the framework of my personal model of the cosmos as there isn’t the room here to undertake it even in brief).

Every social structure (or formation) requires (attentive) energy to maintain its intrinsic (or necessary, mandated, desired) order. Without a more-or-less constant influx of energy, any system will tend to greater disorder. CLUI and its constituent formal organizational expressions (residencies, exhibitions, public manifestations, participants) require a certain level of energy inflow to maintain viability at a level acceptable to both the participants and the wider socio-cultural milieu that they wish to participate in.

As a direct expression of my own long-term praxis of facilitating creative situations, I decided to approach the residency as a (direct?) service to the (overt) sustainability of the organization. By putting my life-energy/life-time into aspects of the material infrastructure, I could guarantee, in some dimension, the continuance of the social structure, albeit in a form reflecting my own judgements (based on where I injected my energy into the situation). In basic form, this process is about raising the order of particular aspects of the system. The question of which aspects of course is critical. If I do not understand the goals of the organized structure (to propagate itself, to demise in (X)(t), to re-form itself), the input of life-energy may or may not affect those goals in a positive way. Indeed, the input of energy might even thwart those outcomes. This is where robust and sustained dialogue among the participants is absolutely necessary to identify those points where energy influx is crucial and most efficient.

The question of entropy and order extends directly to all techno-social systems: fundamental thermodynamics applies across the full range of cosmological phenomena. Any technological system (so defined as a sub-set of all possible systems) requires energy input from outside its defined edges to maintain the ordered set of relations and flows that are necessary for it to exist as a (unitary) system. This applies to all systems up to and including what we have collectively labeled the military-industrial complex.

To whit, I undertook the following processes (and more): scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen floors, hands-and-knees, for several hours; wiped down most of the walls, especially the bathroom; reorganized and cleaned all shelves in the storage closet (refolding all linens, sorting dirty ones, putting extras (falling on the floor) into the trailer; sorting and checking all cleaning supplies); scrubbing the shower, sink, toilet; vacuuming entire floor, walls, ceiling, window frames, vents, etc with the shop-vac; wiping down all furniture; organizing and cleaning desk drawers; rearranged the furniture for maximal productivity; checked all electrical equipment, rearranging for ease-of-use; arranged library materials; sorted, (re)labeled file material; zip-lock-bagged cables in cable drawer; thoroughly cleaned the south-facing (and most north-facing) windows inside-and-out; replaced all window screening; cleaned all window frames on the interior; sorted and cleaned all kitchen-ware; cleaned the refrigerator and stove-top; cleaned microwave and all kitchen shelves; re-mounted the fire-extinguisher in a more available location; removed, scrubbed, and replaced the window blinds; raked the immediate back-yard (south); cut weeds and raked immediate front (north) yard; shop-vac’ed the trailer interior; leveled the wooden walkway to the trailer; swept the patios, collected all clothes-pins and put them on the clothes-line; arranged collected rocks on deck; cleaned telescope, fixed mounting; worked (unsuccessfully on web-cam); screw-nailed external trim in numerous places; scrubbed the exterior of the front door, repaired the interior window frame of the door; tightened bolts wherever possible; spray painted desk and several chairs (removing rust first); raked and leveled area between fence and pedal-car garage; picked up all major flotsam and jetsam accumulated in yard; organized and cleaned all media equipment; etc, etc, etc… (didn’t clean under the fridge or stove, though, nor did I tack down the rest of the linoleum … something for the future or so)

In the workshop: organized the pegboard with appropriate tools; vacuumed the entire space; organized the scrap lumber, scrap piping and metal; gathered all 4×8-foot sheets of drywall and plywood; gathered all screws/nails in one area, partially organized them; re-shelved all electrical, plumbing, other materials; organized all materials stored in rafters; gathered and sorted all tools in desk unit; cycled all rechargeable battery drives for tools; etc, etc, etc…

What affect this energy injection will have on the continuance of the organization is indeterminate: moot, relative, and subjective. It will affect the organization in some way, as will it affect the trajectories of those who come after me.

Early Confucian writings point to the “organization of things in organic categories” as a fundamental in dealing with the cosmos as a primary phenomena surrounding and enveloping life. Organizing is an intensely idiosyncratic process which, at the same time, is deeply linked to techno-social structures and their impression on participating individuals. One normative principle is like-with-like combined with some aspects of use and functionality. Moving from home to home with a frequency that is far greater than the norm, I note the similarity and differences in organizational strategy and behavior among a wide variety of individuals. My primary criteria for organizing is grounded in the functional philosophy of (engineering) optimization. This is the same process which drives wide swathes of the techno-social — the concentration of stuff to be formed and projected, deployed, into the technologically more complex future.

Of course, there is the fundamental question of long-term sustainability — in the sense that public attention drawn to the organization in its educational role (or role creating novel configurations of information/wisdom, and energized matter), this attention may then can be converted to abstracted fiscal instrument which is subsequently converted to maintenance versus direct application of the artists-in-residence in maintenance labor. It depends on whether one chooses a localized maintenance cycle or a more involved (and perhaps less efficient conversion cycle).

Now, in concert with this level of physical ordering action, I tapped into, literally, many of the myriad manifestations of the military-industrial flows that were converging and passing-through Wendover. I drew energies off in the form of images and sounds to be re-constituted in the web domain for public sampling. At some level, my deep familiarity with both the existence of these techno-social formations and the sampling of the same brought up some elements of tedium in the process — and a concern that in the mere documentation, recording of the techno-social configurations for display on a chief element of the master’s house itself (here), I was not only not contributing to the demise of such a system, but worse, was contributing to its continuance. No answers to that, the only pathway is the critical engagement and continuance of dialogues surrounding the ongoing situation in the widest sense.

And a final comment: The level of dust and dirt could be seen as a metric of encroaching macro/microscopic disorder. ‘Wind’over, as a locus of chaotic social and natural flows, exists in an increasingly entropic regime. Inexorable decline of order is the order of the day today, everyday, in the state of mind, state of be-ing that is Wendover. When the energy out-go exceeds the in-flow, Wendover will gradually return to the ground state of high-desert solitude. Perhaps Lake Bonneville will once again fill up, or the stresses of the extensional tectonics will cause a full spreading center to develop, and Wendover will be only a down-dropped graben flanked by plenty of volcanic activity.

Simple. Complex. Order. Disorder. Attention, focus, concentration.

Finally depart, making last-minute passes across all the place. Ship-shape, single-wide shape. Good enough for the next artist coming through. Head out by around noon, tired of waiting on the road to Echo Park to open after these repeated waves of late spring storms rolling through. Head south to follow the southern boundary of the Dugway site, through Gold Hill, in that frontier mode, rough, and the mountains have all been dug up, mined out. Some tough looking abodes, apparently there are a few people who live there year-round, it’s gotta be tough. Join the Pony Express Route at Callao, head east to the Wildlife area, windy more or less, mostly more. Callao is really a frontier outpost. About 8-10 ranch families. No store, no gas, no nuthin,’ just the ranches clustered around some arable land at the foot of the spectacular Deep Creek Mountains (which are higher than the Wasatch in Eastern Utah! The Pony Express Route is an even more strange communications artifact, but one that resonated long in the US imagination, though it lasted only a couple years in actuality — made obsolete by the telegraph cable. But the idea of riding across this landscape in 12-mile spurts (a healthy horse has to stop after that distance when running full-tilt), well, it’s something.

Over night at the Dugway Geode Mines, pick around a bit in the gathering twiLight, but am pretty tired after the drive. Quiet night, though there are threatening clouds rolling through from time-to-time. It’s always tough to pick a place out there to camp at there are no accessible trees, nor even vegetation above the knees, hardly the ankles! Always have the feeling of being exposed.

A KC-135 Stratotanker spends the morning and evening making touch-and-go-landings. In between I suppose he’s busy re-fueling the F/A-18′s that are prowling the air all day. Immediately prior to spotting him on the first round, a series of very large concussive explosions shake everything — either very close sonic booms or bombing on the range.

An early evening cycle ride to the east, around the industrial area, then south along the perimeter of the airport runways and the speed track, all the way to the distant bunker and taxiway where the loading pit for the Enola Gay’s special cargo stands. The bomb was so heavy and large, they had to make a eight-foot-deep rectangular pit with a hydraulic lifting mechanism to drop the bomb into, roll the plane over it, then lift the bomb into the plane’s bomb bay.

Pick this night to sleep in the CLUI southbase unit as I had to return some equipment down there. It’s the first night possible to do it after the occupying troops retreat to where-ever they came from. The wind is howling all night long, threatening to take the whole Quonset to … Kansas. Bad nights sleep, still blowing in the morning, and most the day, gusting up to 50+ mph, ach. Dust, and noise. Would have been nice to hang around here for some days and enjoy the further isolation (and distance towards darkness, away from the casino glare!).

I chance to spot the raven squeezing through a small gap where the square-ended galvanized panel meets the arching roof. Bully fer ‘im! Then, later, I see them resume their shuttle flights to and from the hangar, going through that one gap and possibly another at the other end somewhere. Smart birds.

Re-construction is continuing on the Enola Gay Hangar almost constantly. All the new windows are finally in, the wing areas seem to be in order with their new galvanized sheeting. A couple days ago, the last gaps in the sheeting on this end and the far roof have been put in place. So, what of the ravens and their constant efforts to build a nest (and hatch chicks perhaps?) somewhere inside? They are now gone. I felt a little ill when I saw that the construction crew was going at the remaining gaps in the sheeting, knowing it would cause a huge disturbance in the lives of the ravens. Okay, to be sure, they would likely not have been nesting here in the flats if the building had not been constructed here to begin with — humans had already caused a significant distortion in the flows of this place — life does that, always. I noticed for a couple days the ravens sitting on the roof, but no more of the flying back and forth by the window of the residency. This is a huge loss, and I wonder if anyone else has thought about this as an affect of the restoration process?

The platoon practices having their fixed machine-gun and observation emplacement attacked from a line of tamarisk bushes about 100 meters north towards the rail line and the interstate. Overhead, fighters prowl and engage. The heavy machine gun shakes the windows. The assault rifles sound like small fire-crackers in comparison.

More fire-exercises from the platoons who have taken up residence across the street. They have set up two camouflaged observation/guard posts and are firing from these positions towards the rail-road tracks, their comrades playing insurgents, firing pretend mortars from 200 meters away. The mis-en-scene is completed with colored smoke screens and a sniper who sets up in the tumbleweed.

In the evening I end up at the Wendover Night Club, what could be called a seedy joint in the corner of The Plaza strip mall that includes, what else, a stripper club complete with an Italian-looking bouncer sitting on a stool at the door, cigarette hanging from his mouth; there’s a Chinese restaurant, a smoke shop, and a computer gaming store.

I end up going to the Night Club because last week, one evening, I could hear some loud what I would term proto-Mariachi music playing within earshot of the residency. I put off going to check it out, but finally out of curiosity I drove in the direction of the music. End up four blocks away in one of the old airbase buildings. I pull up to see a group of swarthy-looking Latino guys hanging out. The music has stopped. I don’t know what they were thinking when I came up, gringo in shorts with white Crocs on, at any rate, turns out they are a band, Caxcanes Musical, most of the members are from the Mexican state of Zacatecas (the Caxcan are an indigenous group: Los caxcanes, lidereados por Tenamaxtle, peleaban bajo el lema ¡Ashcanquema tehual nehual! ‘¡Hasta tu muerte o la mía!’. Y el lema se cumplió, tanto en el triunfo como en la derrota. Ante la desproporcionada respuesta de los invasores, los guerreros prefirieron morir lanzándose al vacío.) I chat with them for a bit and though I’m sure they are thinking el gringo loco, they seem pleased at my enthusiasm and invite me to catch them at the Club in the Plaza.

I’m clearly the only gringo at the Club — at least I can order in Spanish! And I get there on time, as I don’t want to miss the show. On time from the time the guy gave me when I get to the empty Club at nine pm. He says the music starts at ten pm. He didn’t tell me there are three warm-up bands — or groups, not to be confused with bands. I hang out nursing a Coors. At any rate, I survived the first group, Tambura los Primos — audio is extant, then my memory card filled up on the H4 and I couldn’t figure out how to properly erase files to clear up space for the other groups. The whole scene was quite cool — clearly a rural audience, the guys with their really pointy shit-kickers and Stetsons, dancing with their gals in a stilted waltz move with the arms and hands never quite intertwined. Reminded me of country-folk in Finnish Lapland doing the tango on Midsummer’s night parties. Anyway, a fun evening, and I think they will play again on Cinco de Mayo which actually be on the second of May before I split for nether regions.

Apocalyptic. Huge wind storm, driving wind upwards from the playa to the black clouds collected over the ranges. Wind. Then, much later in the evening, the air becomes heavy on the lungs, and a fine powdered dust hangs in the more still air, like a fog, but dust, powdered mountains, air-borne terrain. It is dark, lightning and thunder shuffles in the background, unseen, muffled behind the curtain of dislocated earth hanging in the air. Eyes sting, nose waters, pressure heavy on the lungs, body recalls the Great Sydney Dust Storm of ’09, sleep is disturbed so the reading of Augustus continues, more on that later.

Many other events and actions go un-commented-upon, so far. And there are more sounds to upload, along with numerous time-lapse sequences. These seem most apropos to the time here. Watching the weather — back to the “window weather’ concept.

Back down to Blue Lake for another definitive workout doing the full length of the lake twice. The far end is shallow and covered with a fine mud with nodules of organic material, almost like crypto-biotic soil, and extending the hand into the mud, it’s warm, though I can’t tell whether that is an affect of the heat-flow driving the upwelling action that has generated the spring, or merely sun-warmed sediment. The water temperature is perfect, right around 82F, with the air temp at 50F, a great combination for working out.

There is a shallow play of fear when getting into the water — snakes? big fish? underwater dangers? Loch Ness monsters? It’s deep and not absolutely clear as it normally is because of the heavy wind and dust. The depth is indicated, though, through the deepness of the blue. In the middle it feelsdeep: gravitational fluctuation operating on the body. While overhead, the F/A-18′s fight gravity and each other.

Then a short photo trip to do a portrait of Wendover Will and some images of the casino landscaping. Plenty of material there! But somehow I am tired of simply illustrating western society in wasteful and dis-connected abandon. I’ve seen too much of it, and there simply is too much out there!

The choppers take off in formation at 09:00 to the west, towards the Toano Range. No decent audio of that as the H4-Zoom is completely worthless recording anything in the wind, a constant feature of life here in Wendover (Wind-over). Really a drag, so that no decent outdoor recordings can be made, period. I just can’t justify the USD 75.00 wind sock, although if the effort is being made to do all this recording to begin with, what’s the point having lousy equipment? Of course, there’s always a higher-end regarding tools. And access to various steps on that sliding scale of quality is largely determined by affiliation to various levels of participation in the techno-social system. Consumer, pro-sumer, employee of a national broadcasting service. And the level of use of archive material depends strongly on the relative quality of the equipment used in the recording process. ach. It comes back to the issue of controlling natural energy flows through technology. The more energy I can exert (read: deploying more expensive systems), the more order I can apply to the system. More signal, less noise.