Buoy (2008)

The golden, barren landscape of Death Valley, California, recorded by Cho from a moving car, provides the luminous and mysterious texture of Buoy. As the title suggests, this work reflects on the polar extremes of this desert, which was once the floor of a vast sea, now traversed by sight-seeing tourists. In contrast to the horizontal landscape, which floats ceaselessly past Cho's camera, vertical "strata" pattern the imagery, creating an axis between natural landscape and Cho's composition. Cho accumulated his Death Valley footage over several years; the vertical patterning further represents the collapse of this footage into what appears to be a continuous drive through the desert.