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Copy+Paste: In Search of the Miraculous

This essay is the first in an ongoing series titled Copy+Paste that will feature excerpts of artist’s projects that exist in blog form.

Editor’s Note: Right now, artist Lindsey White is somewhere in Georgia, exactly halfway through an epic three month cross country road trip with her dog Lolly. This trip is actually a long planned project titled “In Search of the Miraculous,” after a triptych of the same name by conceptual Dutch/Californian artist Bas Jan Ader who, in 1975, disappeared at sea while attempting the second performance, a solitary sail east across the Atlantic Ocean. Through this journey, she wishes to pay homage to his act of “daring determination,” and inspire her own playful intuitive artistic process.

Unlike Bas Jan Ader, after a long weaving loop across the country Lindsey hopes to return to her current base in San Francisco safe and sound . The Oklahoma native is an interdisciplinary artist who works primarily in photography, video and sculpture. She describes her work as exploring the “magic of everyday life,” which she will undoubtedly find on this romantic adventure. The following is an excerpt taken from her blog, miraculoussearch.tumblr.com, that Lindsey has been keeping from the road as an integral part of the project.
-Sarrita Hunn

The following is an excerpt is from Las Vegas, March 17th, 2011.

At first, Las Vegas wasn’t part of the plan, but then I got an email from a fellow photographer, Mark McKnight inviting me to visit. I hadn’t met Mark prior to this, but I knew of his work and heard he was a phenomenal person.
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I rolled into town and met Mark and his roommate, Craig Doty (also a photographer).
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Mark got me, Craig, and our friend, Whitney on a guest list for a “B-Boy Dance-off” at a club called ‘Mix’ inside of the Mandalay Bay casino.
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All the drinks were free… if they involved Skyy vodka.

Ridiculous.

This is how my brain felt. Death Valley one minute, Las Vegas the next!

Double Negative
So, we set out to find a notorious land work in Overton, NV at the Mormon Mesa. You may know of this gigantic trench that is 1,500 feet long, 50 feet deep and 30 feet wide called Double Negative by Michael Heizer.

This is Whitney looking cheerful at the beginning of our journey. Whitney Hubbs is also a photographer. Four photographers hanging out, looking for what a local man said was, “just a dirt hole in the ground.”

Closest thing we found! Okay, we had a map. We followed it. But we failed finding it. Negative.

Next night at The Venetian.
This time Craig has a friend working at a terrible club where we can all get in free, etc.

I found this weird magician hypnotizing a plate of nachos.

Double Negative Part Deux
This crew doesn’t give up. We became a tight knit bunch in just 2 days!
We hit up the local Overton Museum for directions but…

There was an art sale, so the museum was closed and they were out of maps.
We asked around, but no one had actually been to Double Negative. (what!?)

The cashier at the gas station where I purchased this delicious treat, said that he flew over Double Negative in a plane, but didn’t know how to locate it on foot.

This is the second closest thing we found to Double Negative. Unfortunately, we failed not once, but twice. Negative. Negative.
There’s a quote on Michael Heizer’s website that I feel I truly understand now: “There is nothing there, yet it is still a sculpture.”
Maybe, next time…
It’s okay it was only one of the top things I wanted to see! Ha!
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Images courtesy of the artist.
Categories
EssaysLas Vegas
Tagged
bas jan adercraig dotylindsey whitemadalay bay casinomark mcknightmichael heizermormon mesaoverton museumwhitney hubbs

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Temporary continent.

Temporary continent. maps the unstable tributaries of contributions, reflections, and media arising from Mississippi. An Anthropocene River and its research procession. The project is a collaboration between two experimental publishing collectives, continent. and Temporary Art Review, both concerned with the amplification, modulation, and circulation of community voices on both sides of the Atlantic, and beyond.

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