This video was part of the duo exhibition "hit pay dirt" at basis e.V. in Frankfurt am Main from 21.07.23 - 27.08.23. in cooperation with the Jewish Museum Frankfurt. It was shown as a 3-channel video installation.
"The navigation software Google Maps is an essential tool for Lena Bils as part of her artistic work. Before, during and after her stay in Broken Hill, it enabled her to plan her journey and conduct research. In her three-channel video installation, the sheer boundlessness of the Australian outback into which the artist travelled becomes visible. The colours and textures of the typically reddish soil are occasionally interrupted by individual roads, tracks, or pipelines. In the photographs, Broken Hill, the largest city within a radius of 300 km, seems to have been placed randomly in the landscape. The satellite images clearly demonstrate the enormous effort required to build and maintain the city’s infrastructure, as most of the resources for daily life are sourced from other regions. Drinking water, for example, is mainly supplied by a 270 km long pipeline from the Murray River. Electricity is generated by a huge solar farm as well as one of Australia’s largest wind farms near the ghost town of Silverton, north of Broken Hill. It is mining, of all things, that takes a step back in the satellite images, as most of the mines are underground and thus hardly visible from above."
