I recently completed a photo project inspired by the current Patrick Nagatani exhibition at the Albuquerque Museum. The approach for the project was quite different from how I usually shoot, as I conceptualized the series of images beforehand, then used props and specific locations to create each photograph. I presented images last night during a musical performance staged by Chatter at the Albuquerque Museum. A 16-page booklet was distributed to attendees of the concert by FluTeBot, a "time-traveling musician for the 24th Century." My photos and a video I edited were projected during the concert. Below are the notes and images from the publication. It was a nice way to challenge myself creatively, and to collaborate with an extraordinary musician. Brava, FluTeBot.

NOTES

The photographs in this dossier are submitted as evidence in a series of extraterrestrial musical incidents that occurred in New Mexico. This information was recently declassified by unnamed government officials.

According to numerous confidential sources, various items related to a space-traveling, woodwind-playing life form were discovered, scattered around numerous locations in central New Mexico. Each item was painstakingly recovered by researchers, and a complex picture began to emerge. Though various flute parts were initially discovered, subsequent search and excavation efforts yielded additional evidence of a musical alien presence in the region. Recovered items included what appeared to be protective garb, often emitting traces of radioactivity, as well as residue of interplanetary elements (including those not found on Earth).

Researchers were astounded to have also picked up numerous musical signals traveling towardsEarth, including distinct “flute sounding” passages captured via the “Very Small Array” satellite complex (located on Lomas Blvd. in Downtown Albuquerque). Further interpretations concluded that these were actual messages from an entity researchers have dubbed “FluTeBot.”

Translations of additional messages revealed that FluTeBot was, in actuality, a time-traveling musician from the 24th Century. She originally traveled through a time warp to New Mexico decades ago, drawn here by the bright lights emitted from the nuclear testing at Trinity Site. Seeking an atmosphere similar to her home planet of Syrinx, the alien was in dire need of an oxygen source that could be brought back to her home planet. While exploring Earth, FluTeBot was abruptly called home to Syrinx, due to an impending environmental disaster, a result of uncontrolled pollution. FluTeBot has recently returned to Earth to gather her hastily abandoned items. Chatter has negotiated with her for a one-time performance, as a thank you to the people of New Mexico for retrieving her scattered items and for their generous return.

If you are a photographer in New Mexico, chances are you are familiar with the work of Patrick Nagatani. When I first moved to Albuquerque back in 1993, he was among the first local photographers that I had heard about. His book "Nuclear Enchantment" was a confounding, enigmatic, yet spot on introduction to my new home. I can think of few other bodies of work that better exemplify the contradictory forces that shape life here in the New Mexico. A confluence of cultures, a place where the future is constantly at odds with its past, a place of incredible beauty, of devastating poverty, all sitting upon land that is at once sacred and forever atomically tainted.

Nagatani passed away last year, dying of cancer, a common malady of course, but even more so in this state where the first atomic bomb was tested. Coincidence? Who's to say. In the months that have followed his death, there has been a thorough reassessment of Nagatani's career, and currently there are no less than three different exhibits of his work, two in Albuquerque, and one up in Santa Fe. I recently visited the Albuquerque Museum to view an exhibit of the series "Excavations" and I must say, I was so impressed that it has made me re-think my own previous ideas about his work. This exhibit transcends strict parameters of a "photo" exhibit. If anything, it is a finely executed piece of conceptual art.

The body of work revolves around a purported discovery of buried cars at sites "in areas with significant archaeological or historical remains - Chaco Canyon, Herculaneum, Stonehenge - or with monuments to our own technological age - The Very Large Array, Kitt Peak National Observatory." Nagatani and his alter ego, an enigmatic Japanese archaeologist named "Ryoichi" teamed up to undertake the excavations, and to document it in full. Nagatani's photographs are paired with an array of diary entries, images of found objects from the sites, and cartographic documents that cover each location. A suspicious (or astute) viewer might very well deduce that the entire project is a well executed hoax (** spoiler ** it is.) That is beside the point, however. The breadth of the work is impressive, the attention to even the minutest of details is staggering. Upon reading that Nagatani began his career as a model builder in Hollywood, the exhibit takes on an even more impressive dimension. Realizing that he created the model tableaus in the photographs made me appreciate the craft even more.

Mummified Porsche, From the area of the Tomb of Horemheb, Saqqara, Egypt (by Patrick Nagatani)1986/1996

Local readers, this is a "must see" exhibit at the Albuquerque Museum. Perhaps your visit will be as memorable as mine. I was lucky enough to be in the gallery within an earshot of a group of visitors who honestly believed the entire body of work was not a piece of creative fiction. Ultimately the highest praise for a work of such fine deception. R.I.P. Patrick Nagatani.