Geyser Land was a site specific installation conceived by video artist Mary Ellen Strom and performance artist/choreographer Ann Carlson. The Myrna Loy Center/Helena Presents produced this work in August 2003. Geyser Land took place along the railroad tracks between Livingston and Bozeman, Montana. The audience experienced this hour-long work while being transported in a railroad passenger car. Out of the trains windows the audience witnessed video projections on rock faces of mountains, commercial buildings and industrial sites. Live performers re-created archival photos in the tradition of tableau vivant outside, amidst and embedded into the projections. Geyser Land sought to be a conceptual tourist
attraction; it was an actual train ride, a work of living sculpture, a
multi-dimensional art work that investigated the multiple ways a western
mythology was constructed over one hundred years ago that laid the groundwork
for the region's colonization and development. |