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An avid New Yorker of about thirty years, I must admit I’ve rarely considered my impact on the environment, or the bigger questions related to the way we encroach on the land we call home. I rarely see nature outside of Central Park, and its absence from my daily life has pushed it further from my thoughts than perhaps it should have. But this has changed profoundly over the past couple of years as I have connected with an annual art event entitled High Desert Test Sites (HDTS). Organized by Andrea Zittel, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Andy Stillpass, and Regen Projects, HDTS is a purely non-commercial gathering of the art-inspired. A small group of artists is selected to create art installations in various locations across the Joshua Tree / 29 Palms area of California. A larger community gathers to view these works, hang out at various events, and contemplate why the hell they’re out in the middle of the desert.

HDTS has no overt environmental message. Rather, it brings together a small community for the purpose of observation, asking participants only that they be attuned to the art and the environment around them. Talk inevitably turns to the encroaching developers who are creeping up Route 62 from the pit of Palm Springs. Nearby Yucca Valley will soon sport a gigantic Home Depot. Humidity levels are already rising with the advent of golf courses in the desert. Andrea Zittel slyly suggests that I may want to buy a piece of land here – a large enough community can become both a physical and political buffer to the lure of cash that is eating away at the desert and polluting the beautiful night sky with artificial light. Investigating land usage, I learn that I would need to locate my own water and run power lines to the main trunk that runs through the area. This is a commitment… in the desert, unlike the city, things I usually consider commodities require thought, planning. We cannot live there without feeling our impact, without altering the space we occupy.

This May was my second HDTS, and already, my learning was apparent. I rented a hybrid vehicle this year, consuming about a tank and a half less gas than in last year’s Chevy SUV. And rather than staying at the Motel 6, I rented a small cabin near the entrance to the National Park. Here, I had the choice between air conditioning or swamp cooler. Here, I had to consider where my garbage would go. Here, I had to consider whether each flush was really necessary. Here, I could sit on the porch, looking at the majestic mountains around me, and consider what I really needed, rather than what I wanted. The awareness was quite jolting - and inspiring at the same time.

HDTS founder Andrea Zittel’s work has long been concerned with efficient ways of living and better methods of design aimed at better integrating one’s life and one’s environment. Originally born of necessity in her 200 sq. ft. Williamsburg studio, this approach has taken on new meaning in the desert, where she has a sizable piece of land, a small house, and a separate studio. The land is dotted with her Wagon Stations, small freestanding structures which have been customized by a number of artists to provide a place of refuge from the world around them – examining the role of personal space in today’s increasingly homogenous built environment. Alongside is a large field of steel trays, the Regenerating Field, in which she is drying variously formulated paper pulps to create a new type of building material. Using only the paper products of her daily life – newspaper, old mail, catalogs – Zittel plans to use the hardened substances to construct furniture, walls, and larger structures – the forms in which we live.

Beyond Casa Zittel, this year’s event featured some thought-provoking pieces in the remote area around Pioneertown. The Wrong Gallery erected a flagpole featuring a white flag bearing the words, “Please don’t kill us.” Flapping in the vast expanse of the desert, the work was as much a plea from the numerous Joshua trees in the vicinity as it was a wry message aimed at the nearby Marine base in 29 Palms. Nearby, Liz Larner had grafted a foreign plant onto the trunk of a dead Joshua tree. The work seemed both a comment on the introduction of foreign species into native ecologies and an optimistic sign of renewal in an area recently blighted by severe wildfires. It also required quite a sharp eye just to locate the trunk in the sea of tress around it. A few hundred yards further away from the dirt road, a huge orange arrow lay headfirst in the ground, reassuring me that, “You are here.”

This reminder is exactly why I keep going back to HDTS – this direct recognition of the link between self and environment.

Although there are other events and works at HDTS (witness performance artist Anne Magnuson jumping on my back during a performance at the Joshua Saloon), the major lessons for me are learned simply by being in the desert and observing my impact on the environment around me. It has engendered both a sense of caring and a somewhat scary tinge of power – a strong contrast to the disempowerment of being packed into Manhattan. An artist friend in Stellenbosch, South Africa recently shared with me the observation that mankind’s drive to tame our surrounding is merely the reflection of our sense of impotence. HDTS is a subtle yet strong call to action, and an invigorating reminder of the power of choice in how we live.