The Target
The Target | approx. 90:00 min | 2021
Act 1 Loading Pit, (work in progress) 10 min
‘The Target’ documents the search for a nuclear dummy bomb at the bottom of the Salton Sea in an act of performative tracing. Act 2 The Target (work in progress), 10 min The focus shifts towards a wooden platform in the midst of the lifeless Salton Sea. Dramatizing the implication of this site of warfare, the gaze itself becomes the focus of attention. A female narrator identifies it as the target platform built in 1944 for the atomic bomb tests. The target continues to drop away from the viewer as the image’s frame begins to shrink and recede until fully disappearing. Previously unclassified historical footage of the Salton Sea test droppings shifts the viewers’ attention to the dummy bombs. From a B-29’s bomb bay perspective, the camera depicts their disappearance in the target’s direction. The replicas deployed had the exact same shape and weight as the atomic bombs Little Boy and Fat Man dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Act xxx talking about the history of the Salton Sea Imperial Irrigation (A.T.) (work in progress), 20 min As the search continues, it becomes more intense. Marxt undertakes a DIY quest with a purpose-built float mapping the surface of the sea bottom. A sci-fi like journey, showcasing video generated from side-scan sonar footage, aiming to detect a dummy bomb. After resurfacing from the muddy waters, we follow Marxt to an unexpectedly revealed land target, where he continues his quest, dressed in military combat gear, carrying an oversized metal detector, and digging into the desert floor. Resituating our perception of nuclear atomization and anthropogenic inhabitation, The Target navigates through shifting timescales, abducting the viewer to a dehumanized timeless dimension which is deranging and uncertain, just as the full scope of the nuclear isotope decay. First work about the Salton Sea Imperial Valley (cultivated run-off), 2018, 14 min _______________________________________________________________ Loading Pit Manual Ver2-LA-583
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