Ephemeral Nonsites of Lake Bonneville and the Great Salt Lake
Polaroid Emulsion Lifts, Xylene Transfers, Graph Paper
Max Rosenzweig - 2015
This series of images incorporates integrated diagrammatic and cartographic representations of space with counterpointing, two-dimensional, photographical perspectives. These artistic works investigate the Great Salt Lake, a slivered apparition of water to the west, an ethereal, saline landscape. The lake is a fluctuating micro-climate of water, salt, mud, rocks, crystals and wildlife.
“In terms of abstraction, there seems to be one urge, and that is toward the development of a purely mental construct that is then transferred into a physical object. And the notion that surrounds the Nonsite has to do with the dialect that exists between interior and exterior space. So that the open limits of the site enter the closed limits of the Nonsite, and there’s no attempt to foster an idea of freedom within the confines of a room.” - Robert Smithson, 1971
These emulsion lifts are created by submerging the film in water after the exposure. Water bleeds into the film and the emulsion separates itself from the chemical backing and protective plastic window of the film. The emulsion floats in the water separated entirely from its protective casings, waiting to be absorbed onto another surface.
The Great Salt Lake is the remnant of Lake Bonneville; an immense, ice age era inland sea that rose dramatically from a small saline lake 30,000 years ago. Conspicuous reminders of Lake Bonneville remain in the ancient terraces etched into the landscape along the lake’s former shorelines. These terraces were eroded by wave action and are now relatively flat areas that follow a contoured line. After the ice age, the Earth's climate became drier and Lake Bonneville gradually receded to form the Great Salt Lake. Utah’s Great Salt Lake owes its salinity to possessing no outlet, while tributary rivers are constantly bringing in small amounts of salt dissolved within their fresh water flow, none is able to drift out. Once in the lake much of the water evaporates leaving behind only salt.
Polaroid film is a form of analog instant photographic film that allows for an almost immediate development of an image. The negative consists of three emulsion layers sensitive to the primary colors (red, green, and blue) each with a layer of developing dye beneath it of the complementary colors (cyan, magenta, and yellow). Once light exposes the film, the reagent material, which is pooled within the border of the plastic film sheet to keep it separate from the light sensitive layers, passes through a set of rollers that squeeze the reagent material into the sheet, causing chemical reactions in the film’s layers. Emulsion layers which were exposed to their respective color block the complementary dye below it, reproducing the original color.
