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[Andrea Zittel: High Desert Test Sites]

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[REPORTER] For thirty years, Curtis Springer
operated his Zzyzx Mineral Springs,

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selling health, religion, and the Springer
specialty,

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Antediluvian herb tea.

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But then, the troubles with the government
over who owned the land

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finally caught up with him in 1974,

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and he was evicted.

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[Boulevard of Dreams]

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[ROB FULTON] Oh, I never did explain Zzyzx,
did I?

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Curtis invented it to be phonetically or alphabetically
the last word--

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nothing more than that.

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But then he incorporated that in his advertising,

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both in literature and on radio.

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He'd say things like,

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"Come to Zzyzx Mineral Springs, the last word
in health."

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[ANCHORMAN] Well, according to the bureau
of land management,

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legally, Hell has frozen over,

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and Springer will never get Zzyzx back.

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[CSU Desert Studies Center]

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[AURORA TANG] Zzyzx is currently this desert
studies center,

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which is about three hours from both Joshua
Tree and L.A.

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So, it's just far enough out to be a trip.

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One of the reasons to do High Desert Test
Sites programming here

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was to continue to keep that sense of exploration

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and that feeling of discovery and learning.

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[Aurora Tang, Managing Director, High Desert
Test Sites]

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And also, it keeps things interesting for
both Andrea and I.

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[FULTON] We've salvaged some of the old resort
signs and everything.

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I brought this out of mothballs today so you
could see it.

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This would have been posted here at the building.

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To kind of underscore the religious underpinnings
of his ministry here--

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and his foundation and his mission here--

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he developed the pool in the shape of a cross.

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And then, if you wanted to sun yourself on
the slabs out here,

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these pipes sticking up would provide cool
water

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to flood the surface and cool it down.

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[ANDREA ZITTEL] So, it's always a little hard
to explain

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what High Desert Test Sites is,

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[Andrea Zittel, Co-Founder, High Desert Test
Sites]

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because we're, sort of, deliberately not trying
to make an institution.

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But it's a non-profit entity that...

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It's a support entity for work that sort of
lives in the world at large.

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So this weekend, High Desert Test Sites is
being curated by Aurora Tang.

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It's all about water in the sense that

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being in the desert is only possible because
of water.

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And so water takes on a special...

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I mean, I would probably call it like a "life
force".

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We have a mix of different artists that we
work with,

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and some are local--

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like, people that we discover out here

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who we think are like really amazing and inspirational,

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and we sort of want to bring more attention
to them.

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[ALYSE EMDUR] The desert, I think, is a place
of escaping civilization.

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My film really looks at this attempt to escape
the aging bodies of retirees

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[Alyse Emdur, Artist]

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in the healing mineral spring in Florida.

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They travel there every year

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in hopes that the water will alleviate illness

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and restore health.

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[ZITTEL] We do a lot of different things,

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but the sort of trademark things are these
big events that we create.

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[MATT COOLIDGE] Well, hello everybody.

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My name is Matt Coolidge.

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I'll be talking about lakes of the Mojave!

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[ZITTEL] Like, we have an audience here

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that's not necessarily an art audience,

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but people who are really interested

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and willing to support art that inserts itself

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directly into the world.

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I don't know...

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I like working with Aurora so much,

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and we talk, like, at length

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about what it is and what it isn't,

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and what it should be,

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and what there's a necessity for,

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and how art functions.

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[SANT KHALSA] I thought,

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"It's absurd that people are going to water
stores to buy water"

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"when their tap water is perfectly safe."

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[Sant Khalsa, Artist]

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But, realize, that they didn't think that
their water was safe.

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The primary consumer of this water was immigrant
populations

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who had come from countries where their tap
water wasn't safe.

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I realized they had some really interesting
names,

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and that's actually what drew me to them.

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The process of photographing the water stores

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was really more about the idea of taking this
pilgrimage,

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looking for, in a sense, the sacred springs.

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[TANG] Sometimes we'll send people off to
these remote sites

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to look for projects,

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and they won't find it, with our little primitive
driving maps.

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But the thing is,

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they're never usually that upset about it,

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because they found something else equally
amazing

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that they might not otherwise have found.

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[ZITTEL] We bought a hundred acres of land
to use

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that we let artists do projects on.

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And we wanted to find parcels where

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you wouldn't ever necessarily see two artworks
at the same time.

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We've always tried to help artists find situations

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to make their work,

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where it can retain that, kind of, quality
of unknowableness.

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If you're, sort of, out somewhere,

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and you see some weird, amazing, inexplicable
object,

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you can wonder about it for days.

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It's been this constant discussion about how
to remain a support entity

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without becoming another institution that's
commissioning people to do works.

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And that's a very very fine line to walk.

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[FULTON] So, I believe, in about fifteen minutes,

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there is a lecture scheduled in the main hall
down there.

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You might want to go up and use the restroom,
if needed,

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and, thank you very much for attending!

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[APPLAUSE]