The Silver Returns (2001)

Overview

A chemical Western in 16mm whose primitive processes reveal a profound instability of language within desert landscapes. Made through the hand processing and primitive contact printing of outdated laboratory print stock, The Silver Returns examines the phenomena of “letter mountains” that proliferate the old mining towns of the American Southwest. Much of the silver mined here, became the image-bearing material of photographic film. The silver returns to find the instability of the film’s emulsion mirroring the desert’s toxic environmental remains.