Hinterland: A Voyage into
Exurban Southern California
Southern California's Hinterland is the "exurban"
area that lies beyond the mountains that ring the urban megalopoli.
It is a region that accommodates extremes: proving grounds, heavy
industry, waste sites, and recreational sacrifice zones. It tolerates
a kind of freedom that expands the margins of society, and is
often refuge for truly radical visionaries and rebels, who create
inspirational monuments of individual endeavor. This desert landscape
is indeed, in the words of land managers,"a land of many
uses", and it is also one that engenders a full spectrum
of perceptions...
These sites, along with
96 others, were featured in the Hinterland exhibit at Los Angeles
Contemporary Exhibitions, May 29 to July 6, 1997, at 6522 Hollywood
Boulevard, Los Angeles:
Felicity: The Center of the
World
Inside the pyramid in the town of Felicity is a time capsule and
a plaque indicating the exact center of the world. Though it could
be said that the surface of a spherical planet has an infinite
number of "centers", this is the only Center of the
World officially recognized as such by the Imperial County Board
of Supervisors. The town, located on the Interstate west of Yuma,
was founded in 1985 by Jacques-Andre Istel, a French financier,
who in addition to being an authority on the philosophy of centers,
is also known as one of the fathers of recreational parachuting.
Solar Two Experimental Solar
Facility
An experimental solar facility operated by the Department of Energy,
Solar Two is unique in this country as the only major solar power-generating
plant with a central collecting tower. The central receiver is
a 200 foot tall tower onto which nearly 2,000 reflectors focus
the sun's energy, heating up a nitrate brine which produces steam
and then electricity. Each of the reflectors is positioned automatically
with a heliostat to track the moving sun.
Rice Army Airfield
A large concrete pad, littered with shell casings and blasted
debris, is nearly all that remains of the World War Two training
base at the remote desert town of Rice. The rest of the town has
been abandoned, and vandalized into nonexistence by passers-by,
mostly weekend warriors on the road between LA and the popular
recreation areas of Lake Havasu. Rice is also the location of
a recent cargo train wreck.
Desert Center
Hundreds of tall date palm trees have been planted in unusual
patterns at the Interstate town of Desert Center. The project
was started a few years ago by the owner of the town, Stanley
Ragsdale, who trucked the trees from a date farm near Indio, 50
miles away. Many of the 70 foot tall trees, which were originally
grown by King Gilette, inventor of the safety razor, are now dying
due to irrigation problems.
