Wendover report From the Center’s complex on the edge
of the salt flats
Now on view at CLUI Exhibit Hall 1 is an
exhibit by Wendover Resident John Brinton Hogan.
CLUI photo
Wendover Residence Program
The 2006 season was another busy one at the CLUI Wendover Complex,
with over 100 participants staying and working out of the
Center’s exhibit, production, and support facilities. New Residents
this season included: Uta Kogelsburger, Lisa Blatt, Nicole
Jean Hill, Brian Conley, Martin Hogue, Katherine Bash, Oscar
Tuazon, David Clayton and Stephanie Koenig. Others who returned
to work on new or ongoing projects include Bill Wiley, Simparch,
Deborah Stratman, Rob Ray, John Brinton Hogan, Lucy Raven,
Achim Mohne, Bill Fox, Mark Klett, and Richard Saxton. Eteam
made another visit, passing through the airfield with a chartered
flight from New York to Wendover, on their way to the nascent,
grass roots “International Airport” in Montello, at the next
town west of Wendover. The Land Arts and the American West
class stopped by for around a week in September, and helped
with fencing in a larger yard, in addition to doing their
site-based work around the area.
The new CLUI viewing tower joins the family
of towers in the area, which include Deborah Stratman’s radio
sampling tower, the original WWII airport tower, and the prop
tower left over from filming Conair, at Southbase.
CLUI photo
The Viewing Tower
The annual work party, held in July, was a great success, culminating
in the erection of an old target scoring tower at the CLUI
residence and workshop, which provides views of the region.
“In such a flat place, 40 feet in elevation makes a big difference,”
said Matthew Coolidge, Wendover Operations Manager, “As you
ascend the tower the landscape changes from a line to a plane.”
The tower was originally an observation tower for the military
training ranges on the north side of the highway. It was moved
to the Kaiser Potash works in the 1950’s, to watch operations
in the spread out evaporation ponds south of the highway. By
the 1970’s its use diminished to simply supporting a TV antenna
for the potash bunkhouse, which is no longer in use by the plant.
It was donated to the CLUI by the owner of the potash plant,
and finally moved to its new location this summer.
The tower installing expertise of Deborah Stratman, and the
cement pouring experience of John Brinton Hogan were instrumental
in getting this to happen. Thanks too to the Mayor of Wendover,
Don Shelton, of Shelton Redimix, who poured more than seven yards
of concrete for the new foundation, and to Greg Foy and Mike
Spellman of Intrepid Potash for their support.
Municipal Workshop’s GPS touring bike gets
a disorientation on the Bonneville flats.
CLUI photo
Salt Flat GPS Expo
The GPS Expo 2006 was held on the Bonneville Salt Flats this
summer, and an interesting cluster of people showed up. It started
with an anonymous posting on a yahoo group, listing a time
and a place. The time, Saturday July 29th, was right at the
peak of summer on the flats. The place was simply listed
as geographical coordinates. “40 degrees 47.701 min N, 113 degrees
48.737 min W.” The posting went on to say, “An informal unmediated
gathering of guided meandering research and development using
GPS, location awareness, and saltboards.”
It seemed like a good thing, so a number of people from Wendover
went out to the flats, to engage in the GPS events. The site
turned out to be pretty far out there, about a third of the way
to Floating Island, in an area beyond the apex of the rest stop
berm. The flats were a bit damp, caking the vehicles in salt,
but hard enough to travel on, by any means. Actually perfect
conditions for salt skiing, a sport that is pretty much unsafe
at any speed. Just ask Rich Pell of the Institute for Applied
Autonomy, who broke all previous nonexistent speed records. He
also brought out the Autotour, the GPS-powered touring vehicle
that normally lives in the garage at the CLUI Unit, and is designed
for providing guided tours of the airbase. The car was definitely
beyond its accustomed terrain on the flats, but it performed
well, outfitted with a GPS triggered sampling contraption and
loudspeaker by Jesse Stiles, an audioperformance artist from
New York (and former South Base cosmonaut), who happened to be
in the neighborhood. Stiles veered and dopplered the sounds while
careening around the expanse.
Goings on in the nearby distance ranged from the curious to
the absurd. Debby and Larry Kline, artists from Southern California,
had established a 40 acre square, marked with a line on the ground,
which they claimed as theirs by way of an uncontested landgrab.
They came prepared with a flag for the new territory, and defended
it with a skeletal M1 Tank, which rolled around on the chassis
of an electric wheelchair. The BLM official who manages the federally-owned
flats was seen approaching them for a discussion. What sort of
bargain was struck remains unknown, but he left without drawing
his sidearm. He probably had other things on his mind, such as
enforcing the one mile exclusionary arc around the Pirates of
the Caribbean III set, shimmering in the distance.
Paula Poole and Brett Stalbaum, former CLUI Wendover Program
participants were also in the region, working on a GPS project
that involved walking to the center of each of 36 square kilometers
on the flats in a 6 by 6 grid, and taking samples, which were
then mixed into tiles, and placed on view in a CLUI exhibit space
with additional material.
Other activities observed around these coordinates included
a public survey station set by Mary Anderson, up at the Bonneville
Salt Flats rest stop on the interstate, and video projects being
worked on by Christina McPhee, Huong Ly and Sarah McClelland.
