Marginal Atlas of Geology is an ongoing project that tries to establish

connections between geological processes and derived processes of

late capitalism in Northern Mexico. It consists in photographs, videos,
.gifs, texts, websites and archives. The rst part, called Field Work,
focuses on the relationship between geology and the concept of work
as displacement. The second part will focus on the relationship
between geology and economic activities, specically mining and his
budding relationship with organized crime .
Field work consists of a trip I made through Baja California peninsu-
la, Mexico. In geological terms , this peninsula is part of the Mexican
subduction zone . The subduction occurs when an oceanic plate goes
under a continental plate . This phenomenon, which lasts millions of
years, generates large recurrent earthquakes and mountain ranges
throughout the continent.
Based on the idea of eld work performed by geologists as an activity
in situ, I worked on the edition of a personal archive from Sonoran
geologist Carlos Gonzlez. This archive consists of photographs that
he made during a travel on the same peninsula in the 60's to collect
stratigraphic data. Years later, the collected data was lost, so it now
only exists the photographic material. To geologists , the eld work is
considered absent if there is no data collected to support it. Although
the photographic archive provides valuable visual data such as the
surface of the strata or the extent of mountain blocks, these are not
signicant when developing geologic concepts. Thus, the eld is
considered non-realized. My travel consisted of recreating the same
travel, while projecting the photographic archive in the same area
were he collected the now lost stratigraphic data.
Because there is no electricity in those areas to make the projections,
I built a small cart that runs a projector through solar cells. Thus, solar
energy captured during the day, made it possible to project images
over various surfaces . My eld work consisted of long walks moving
the solar device and projecting the images on different surfaces, such
as sand dunes, rocks or trees. Also, I projected photographs and
videos I made during this trip.
>url:
http://miguelfernandez.mx/marginal_atlas_of_geology.html