The Yearning Bush

As we explored various sites near the Harper Dry Lake Bed, cirrus clouds drifted overhead, giving evidence of the ubiquitous presence of moisture in the atmosphere. On the ground, desert saltbush live off the trace remnants of water left from monsoon rains and periodic showers. The vegetation also provides a tangible, visible link between the foreground and the far-reaching distance of the horizon, articulating the desert topography. Also prominent in the local landscape are the two 80-megawatt solar power plants located at the edge of the lakebed. These expansive complexes harvest the Mojave's most prevalent resource, the sun, while existing as a testament to this region's burgeoning need for energy. Although the limitations of harvesting moisture from the air in one of the world's most arid regions inhibits most practical applications, the three elements of latent moisture, desert vegetation and solar power offered me an opportunity to explore both my interest in process and the issues facing this region. My hope was to create a self-sustaining mechanism for harvesting the moisture present in the atmosphere.

The resulting project, titled The Yearning Bush (see Section Frontis-piece), is composed of a bush made of hollow copper tubing that I used to serve as the evaporator for a small refrigerator compressor. The refrigerator compressor is attached to a battery, which is charged by a 115-volt solar panel. The Yearning Bush will be placed on the MOISTURE site overlooking the solar plants and Harper Dry Lake. Visually the bush will link with the surrounding saltbush, making a connection to the scale of the desert site while also referencing the ability of desert vegetation to make use of the little water present. In using the sun's energy to power the compressor and thus freeze the bush, I am attempting to convert the region's most abundant resource, i.e. sunlight, into the region's most scarce resource in the form of water.

During the day the solar panel will charge the battery, which will then power the refrigerator compressor. In order to maximize the amount of frost accumulating on the bush, a timer will activate the compressor in the hours before sunrise, when the temperature is at its lowest and the winds are calm. When the compressor shuts off, the resulting frost will melt and the droplets will water the ground below. Each day the solar panel will charge the battery to provide power for the following morning's harvest. In a process similar to that of reefs forming in the ocean by growing on shipwrecks, the bush will act as a catalyst for growth and habitation, forming a microclimate of consistent moisture.

While most water-harvesting efforts focus on capturing rain runoff, The Yearning Bush makes dew with the latent moisture in the air (Fig. 1). As energy and water needs present the most pressing issues to this region's environment, I have attempted to bring the two issues together: a solar panel to produce electricity where there was none, creating water where there was only vapor.

Fig. 1.

Adam Belt, detail of The Yearning Bush, copper tubing, refrigerator compressor, solar panel and battery, 2003.

© Adam Belt