Seeking Iconicity: What Am I Looking at Here?
"Breceda's Serpent" by artist Ricardo Breceda
By Linda Faas
D
ocutah, the Dixie University documentary film festival, has provided engaging entertainment for its viewers over the past ten years. Its topics reveal new ideas and points of view that one might not otherwise discover. Ideally, a film spurs curiosity. That is how the film “Iconicity,” by Leo Zahn, motivated four Mesquite residents to visit southern California’s remote desert area on the shores of the Salton Sea. They wanted to see this mecca of quirky art enclaves. There is a lot to see and ponder. The Salton Sea was central to a cluster of remote military bases 70 years ago. At Marine Camp Dunlap, men trained for numerous military exercises, including bombing target practice flights over the Chocolate Mountains. The barren,
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| VIEW ON MAGAZINE |March/April 2021
windswept desert was certainly out of California culture’s mainstream. Camp Dunlap was demolished around 1950, leaving just concrete slab foundations and an abundance of discarded flotsam deemed useless by those who checked out. It turns out there are lots of folks looking for a remote corner of the desert where they don’t worry about paying rent or keeping up with the Joneses. It didn’t take long for word to get out that a Slab City address was free of charge for those who would live off the grid. With no worry about scratching to make a living to pay for rent, power, and running water, some emigrants turned to more creative pastimes. Some came specifically for that purpose.
