Fishing Is Not Done On Tuesdays

Around the solar eclipse of March 20, 2015, Marxt and Smiljanic arrange their own turned and extraneous material into a small catalog of cosmic visions: Eclipse hunters put themselves and their vision devices in position; A space-weather fairy analyzes the recent solar storms; A radar early warning station also waits for signals from above, while the thick fog blocks the view forward.

Shadowland

The hypnotic wasteland of Southern California is infused with the free-spirited nature of Easy Rider, the alienation and uprootedness of Michelangelo Antonioni, and the deep transcendence of Werner Herzog. It speaks to us through fragments of dialogues from iconic films, and yet it remains elusive and dissolves into abstract shapes, rhythms, and compositions. The landscape as a captivating and intangible, all-encompassing and insubstantial yet full emptiness becomes the means for the transgressive experience of two temporalities – the “real” time of people and the time of natural processes.  “How much further do we have to go? I don't know. Not much further. That's what you said this morning. I sometimes say it all day. Really? You say it all day? We don't have much longer. We'll be there soon.” (L. Marxt)

Victoria

The Imperial Valley represents one of California's most important regions of industrial agriculture. The system's run-off flows through pipes, pumps and canals leading to the Salton Sea, an artificial lake that is approaching ecological as well as economic disaster. Initially appearing as nothing more than spectacular documents of agricultural monocultures, the shots become increasingly abstract. Is this an actual or artificially simulated landscape? This ambiguity is precisely the point: The Imperial Valley is becoming the "Uncanny Valley", a place that is not yet or no longer natural and thereby appears eerie. Although manmade, it is not a place for people anymore, neither ontologically nor in reality. The post-apocalypse is not a matter of the future, we are already in the thick of it. (Claudia Slanar)

Imperial Valley (Cultivated Run-Off)

Landscape and cinema form an amalgam here, being both interior spaces of thought and feeling and projected images of an outside.

Ralf's Colors

Corporate agricultural production interests have been able to successfully cultivate and exploit this geological part of the Sonora desert.

Valley Pride

Where the sandy beach of the Salton Sea, the biggest lake in California, begins to crunch harder, it does not even consist of sand any more: Millions of dead fish, plants and insects pile up on the shore to form a highly toxic substance. This is how Derek explains it, a member of a Cahuilla tribe that managed to escape an attempted genocide in the 19th century to the Salton Sea and now sees itself as a protective force for the once flourishing but increasingly deserted area and its outcasts.