DJ Meisner

As the climate of the world becomes increasingly volatile, many artists find themselves questioning the practicality of their practice. Author Beth Pickens, in her book Your Art Will Save Your Life, addresses this issue head on by saying “Anytime you feel overwhelmed by humanity’s impact on people, animals, and the planet… I want you to think about the art, performances, music, books, and films that have made you want to be alive,”.

Some of my pictures are not a dictation of the way I feel about the world, but more how I wish I felt about the world. They romanticize the environment, ignore its history of mass extinctions and exploitation; things that I can’t help but reference in other pieces of my work. The age of information has plagued me and others my age with such a defeatist way of thinking that it can be hard to not want to throw up your hands and give up.

Art historian and theorist T.J. Demos discusses issues with environmental art in his book Decolonizing Nature where he says “eco-art exhibitions are simply unviable from an environmental perspective,” (38). Let's look at the recent photographic show Coal+Ice held at Fort Mason Center in September 2018, which was sponsored by Wells Fargo and the David Rockefeller Fund. Eco-art exhibitions, especially this one, usually end up being “concerned more with managing the public’s perception of environmental health than with regulating industrial damage to natural systems”. This is present both in the displayed art, which was exploitative to say the least, and the list of sponsors. Demos acknowledges that disbanding all unsustainable art practices is “unrealistic”, and goes on to provide a space for my artwork saying “we need at the very least to consider exactly what justifies the continuation of unsustainable art exhibitions…” (38).

I use recycled materials when I can, use digital over film when I can, and specifically choose points of interest that justify the use of my car. My impact still troubles me.

Recently I visited the Ape Cave in Mt. St. Helens. It is a 3 mile long lava tube that climbs up the mountain, with chambers ranging in size from an auditorium to a coffin. There are two entrances to the cave, and one keyhole that you cannot exit from. Other than that, there is no light in the cave, which stays around a brisk mid 50s temperature with wind. I went alone at 7 in the morning. When I'd turn my flashlight off, I was unable to tell whether or not my eyes were open due to the darkness. 

It is not an easy hike. There are many piles of rocks to be climbed, ropes to be scaled, slopes to slide along. Though strenuous, I still dream of the cave frequently.

I took many photos. As I suspected, none of them were adequate enough in recording the experience of this natural phenomena. None could depict scale, depth, color, or lack of light correctly.

It feels arresting, not being able to capture something, to preserve it. I have little hope in my brain's ability to retain memories like this, in a way that doesn't become altered every time I think about it. I didn't take a video from the cave, nor did I take a souvenir. None of these mediums come close for me to true representation, photography is just my most practical resource.

Why take pictures, then? What is it that a photo does that justifies its material use?

It's a minimizing question, I know. But I cannot help but wonder why I continue to take photographs of things that cannot be captured, represented, or recreated in an image. Fool me once, right?

Larry Sultan, in his 1992 book Pictures from Home, describes his motivation behind taking pictures of his parents as "wanting to take photography literally. I want my parents to live forever." It's assumed he meant an existential forever, one where they outlived him. The logic here is as follows: if I want something to live forever, I will take a picture of it. Am I taking pictures of things that I don't think will outlive me? Or that will in fact outlive me, but I'm just being cautious? 

Sometimes is has to do with my memory, and my (dis)trust in my ability to remember something. It the becomes an admission of guilt to take a picture. One could interpret me taking a picture of them as "oh am I not important enough for you to remember me?" That is, can I not remember this on my own? Do I need this picture?

My grandparents married, had my mom and uncle, and then violently divorced, never to be civil towards each other again. The first image is one I found in my mom's box of old photos. It is a water damaged picture from my grandparents's wedding day. The second image is my grandpa torn out of the first. This one was found at his house in Puerto Rico. The third image is of a picture of my grandpa, siblings and I. The glass of the frame is broken, but it still is hung up in the hallway of my grandma's apartment.

Returning to Sultan’s logic, what does it mean to delete an image? Pictures primarily used to take up physical space in the form of prints, now it is in data. Did my grandparents keep those photos of each other because if the print is trashed, it cannot be recovered (assuming the negative is thrown away as well)? Do people not delete digital pictures, even if they dislike them, because of the minimal space they take up? This question works better in the context of social media and how people curate their profiles.

This is a picture of a cell tower (gray cylinder at the top of the pole) being maintenanced by two men in plain clothes. They arrived in a unmarked white pickup truck with no license plates. This happened on the corner of Main and Folsom street in downtown San Francisco.

My interest in cell towers stems from my best friend Emily, who wrote her thesis about surveillance technology and how it intertwines with civilian life. The significance of cell towers is as follows: cell towers can triangulate the location of cell phones using their internal SIM card, even if the phone is turned off. Drone strikes, wiretapping, and extraordinary renditions are all performed using this data. 

Even more surprising, just five blocks away is an AT&T building that was the subject of a scandal in 2006 where AT&T technician Mark Klein released images from his time working in said building. These Images depicted Room 641A, where the National Security Agency had been collecting hoards of communication data, both cellular and internet, as part of the PATRIOT Act. 

What does any of this have to do with Point Reyes?

When Mark Klein was moved to the west coast by AT&T, he was put in charge of two areas: Pleasanton and Point Reyes. This information was accessed via redacted court documents that were leaked in a data dump and posted on Cryptome. The AT&T and the NSA have been known to work together for many years now.

There is a building of interest to me in Bolinas, the southernmost point of Pt. Reyes.

I first visited this building in early 2019. It was abandoned only around 100ft away from the cliff. Climbing in through a window, I discovered a group of Barn Swallows flying all throughout the building, entering through broken windows on the second floor. This building has a collection of old telegram and communication equipment scattered around. 

On my walk back from this building, I noticed a weird assortment of trimmed logs and telephone lines around the area. 

Upon further research, I discovered that the building was the last telegram station to be built on the west coast, completing the entire circuit across the continental U.S.. It was purchased by RCA for a period of time, and then was purchased by AT&T and converted to a long-line station. At one point in time, the area surrounding the building was scattered with 300ft tall steel masts holding equipment for sending and receiving messages.

Less than half a mile from the abandoned building is a Coast Guard base that acts as a Communication Master Station; yet another piece of information obtained from a data dump. This means that it is in charge of all communications going out from the greater area, making it a prime location for NSA surveillance.

Via the NSA online archives, I found declassified documents cataloging the installation of deep sea communication cables between this area and Oahu, Hawaii. Deep sea cables like these have been adapted and installed since then to transmit internet traffic. These access points are of extreme interest to the NSA; many of them are listening posts where masses of information are collected (see Trevor Paglen's work)

Again, what does any of this have to do with my interest in Point Reyes? Sure, there is a precedent for surveillance there but so what?

It is fun that my interest in surveillance and Point Reyes has joined, but I am more interested in yet another entity finding something very important about this place. Military interests in the environment are troubling, but have provided me with so much information and inspiration. Many of the bunkers I visit along the coast were not WW2 bunkers but in fact were for WW1. In between the wars, they were decommissioned and began to rot into what they look like now, until they were refurbished and reused for WW2. Afterwards, they were decommissioned again into what they are now; historical tourist attractions among nature. 

In this context, it scares me to think about Point Reyes being temporarily "unused" land. The current state of U.S. warfare involves a lot of mechanical puppetry: surveillance equipment in far off corners of the country, unmanned drones, cyber attacks. I know this is a false dichotomy, that they way war works now risks less American lives and it kills so many other but allows me to have fun in a park, yet it is something I find difficult to think about.

What I take away from this is truly how overwhelmingly interconnected my interests and experiences are to the rest of the world.