the middle of the way

elementary, means somthing that has to do wiht elements. this can be absolutly anything at all. a hot day with a cool eavning means fog. compositions create wilfully or subcontiosly ideas to be interpurrted by others. a few weeks ago tess took me to her sisters house, in the desert. this is not "in the desert" as in jerusalem is in the desert, but really in the the desert, as deep in the desert as you cna go with out starting to come back towards civilisation. Kmehin is about 100 kilometers south west from beer sheva, the desert city. it is about 1 kilometer away from the egyptian border, wich happens to have a fence along a short part of the border line, and none in other places. israeli roads allow to travel along side the border all the way up to ashkelon on the meditaranian. this is were the sudanese refugees cross over to israel, through a small 20 kilometer hole in the border fence, they are dropped off 100 kilometers out in the desert on the egyptian side and just walk across. just is a relative word, though i would guess that for those who walked from sudan to egypt another 100 kilometers in the sand at night, isent all that much. not to mention they are black and accustomed to desert conditions. after they cross they are often captured and put in the shelters only rececntly constructed in near by nizana agrucultural experimental habitat. this scenery leads to the great strange feeling i had when i was there. the main israeli water pipe does not reach this far into the desert, and rain fall is scarce therefor most of the water is desalinated ground water. the underground water reserves in this area are generaly located much deeper then other parts of the world, and are mostly prone to raedon gas emitions under ground. this makes the water somewhat radioactive. through the desalination prossece, the byproduct left is highly radio active while the water is generaly drinkable (hey its the desert what would do if you had the choice between no water and lighly contaminated water). the radioactive waste is placed in large open air pools in the area. along side wiht the ramat hovav chemichal plant this is a pretty bad peice of earth to be in. the settelment it self is incredible to see. an oasis, with small green walkways and little sement driveways, leading to small ranchstyle houses flat on the sandy soil. each house has a small grass patch. the heat is incredibly intense with super dry wind blowing up to 40 centegrate degrees. the first day we were there all i could think of is the australian outback, with all the dirty little kids running around half naked playing wiht guns and splashing water. this was the first time i thought i should be a shane lavalet type thing through the connection to the australian photographer tracy moffat. she had in the early 80s a facination with the outback, as most australins did, clearly influenced by the australian made action smasher MAD MAX 2 the road warrior, that travels through a distopian futeristic outback, that isent far removed form what it actualy looks like even today. all there is there is heat, dryness of a desert, dirty poeple and a huge feeling of lost nothingness, that was once a great idea of someone. kmehin houses are neat and clean but there is a distinct feeling that it is a dream after all. the father of the house mowing the lawn as the kids cool down in an makeshift pool,

while a huge sand storm rushes through was verry much surreal. one actualy need to be in a real life sand storm that lasts from morning to night fall and the next morning to fully comprehend what it means to live in the desert.

tracy moffat, however deserves little discution since she has produced little work of word. but then again modern day artists (not to say post - postmodernist) dont have to creat anthing new when they can ride the waves of ecnolegment for ever.