1.1 Acre Flat Screen

1.1 Acre Flat Screen is a 45-minute video about a year-long effort to improve a lot of 1.1 acres of desert land in Utah, which we purchased on September 4th 2002 on eBay. The video starts with ways of finding a lot in the desert, using satellite images, topographical maps, a compass and string. It displays ideas and plans on how to improve the land’s value and documents our preparations to face the unforgiving desert.

In August 2003 we finally went back to the lot and stayed there in order to stop one of the trains that runs nearby. Train stops have often been the first sign of an infrastructural improvement in an area and are also an option to make a living in the desert.”

--eteam (Franziska Lamprecht and Hajoe Moderegger)

“There's nothing more conceptual than actually getting something done. eteam, Franziska Lamprecht and Hajoe Moderegger, two German artists living in the United States, have turned practicality into an aesthetic absurdum by pursuing odd tasks to their outlandish conclusions. eteam's finest moment of home improvement can be found in the wonky work 1.1 Acre Flat Screen. This is a precise, detailed, and riotous account of their purchase of a small tract of dusty acreage through an eBay auction. eteam tracks their acquisition to a sagebrush-laden void in southwestern Utah whose indistinguishable expanse makes it the perfect foil for fantasizing. As if upon the more familiar flat screen of their computer, the artists begin to project a domesticated mirage atop their slab of high desert. “Surrounded by big dreams,” they offer, “the lot was perfect as it was.”  Happy times for Conceptual Art; a grave defeat for Home Depot.”

--Steve Seid, Pacific Film Archive