August 2003 - a project of M.E. Strom & Ann Carlson

Larry Shea: Video/Technical Design

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 train’s windows the audience witnessed large-scale 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.

Eight of the brightest (at the time) digital video projectors were used for this ambitious project. 3 were mounted on custom manual turntables in freight cars on the train, allowing large projections to sweep over the changing landscape. Five projectors were placed on scaffolds in the landscape. The largest projection covered a 350 foot wide rockface at the peak of the Bozeman Pass.