Sun Metal Shadow Signs
two-channel digital video projection, 14:30 loop
made in collaboration with Elizabeth Knafo
A remote camp of treasure seekers in the Mojave Desert devote themselves to the pursuit of a legendary underground river of gold. They survey the land for Spanish treasure signs and pour over film footage, affadavits, topographical renderings, amateur drawings, land and mineral claims. The desert terrain is worked over with cameras and with shovels. The gold, as yet unfound, remains an elusive material and calls forth the determination and delusion of yearning predecessors and future speculators. Artifacts of the legend are severed from their claimants, forming a succession of discontinuous wonders that elude use as evidence.