Sogobi

James Benning's California Trilogy consists of three cinematic surveys of different regions of the eponymous US state, all of them topographical image-sound studies of the interweaving of landscape, culture, history, and politics. Each film is divided into 35 shots, which each last 2.5 minutes.

SOGOBI: Benning spent a year in the Californian wilderness. For the third part of his trilogy, he shot in Yosemite Park, Death Valley and other places, filming scorched landscapes, roaring rivers, gigantic redwood trees, Shoshonean petroglyphs (SOGOBI is the Shoshonean word for "earth") and also documenting humanity's intrusion on nature. "I spent a year in the middle of nowhere and perhaps this is the closest I’ve come to portraying a true sense of place. It is quiet. It is noisy. It is hot. It is cold. It is windy. It is still. It is wet. It is dry. It is everywhere. It is nowhere. It is California. It is wilderness." (James Benning)