The Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI), as described on its website, is s a research organization interested in understanding the nature and extent of human interaction with the earth's surface. It recently published some of its findings in Overlook: Exploring the Internal Fringes of America, which offers clues as to how to approach a subject as enormous as the North American continent. "Since the United States is just too big to get your mind around the whole thing," reads the Introduction, "you have to look at it in pieces. One way of doing that is to take a basic, representative state like Ohio, and see what's there. That is chapter one."

CLUI publishes the results of its studies as exhibitions, which often take the form of on-site interpretive panels and guided bus tours of those areas. It also offers residency programs at its installation at Wendover Field, in Utah. This is where it's programs and methods become incredibly engaging, in a serious and thoroughly off-the-grid way.

Images of Wendover Field from the CLUI archive, left: Volatile Gas Containment Vessel Test Area. Right: Southbase View.

The application page on the website begins with the disclaimer that "this is not the romantic West." Wendover Field, formerly home to a massive U.S. Air Force installation for training B-29 pilots, is the place where the Enola Gray crew were trained prior to the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Decommissioned in 1969, the land reverted to the town's ownership in 1977. Located near the Boneville Salt Flats, inside the Great Basin desert region, Wendover lies 120 miles west of Salt Lake City. CLUI maintains a regional office and the residency program there, with exhibitions installed among the ruins of the former military base.

Applicants are informed that the facilities are rustic, though in a modern way, and the area has harsh and unpredictable qualities that do not suit all temperaments: "possible intrusive events in the area include aerial military activity, dust storms, drag racing, movie productions, etc.," the website reads. "Although the ethereal, desolate salt flats suggest isolation," it continues, "one should not expect to find an idyllic retreat away from civilization. The residence site is at the edge of a small but booming gaming town. On the Nevada side are several active casino/hotel complexes, a golf course, and new prefabricated homes for 6,000 inhabitants. The Utah side is poor, and is littered with weathered buildings, trailers, and debris from the old Airbase."

People working in all disciplines and of every level of experience, and people working in teams, are considered on merit for residencies that are offered between April and November. Recent fellows include photographers Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe; Joni Sternbach; and Mark Ruwedel; and author Ginger Strand (Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power and Lies).

The Center for Land Use Interpretation also publishes a newsletter called The Lay of the Land. Please visit the website for information about the newsletter and the residency program.

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