The work California City (2010-2012) is part of a larger research into capitalist/market driven systems and their implementation as an urban experiment. The work zooms in on a City of the Future, California City (USA), and unfolds intermingling realities on a sociologist’s ideological dream and his intentional construction of a real estate bubble. A cartographic work casts light on a parallel reality stressing California City’s contemporary landownership. On the one hand the map shows an empty desolate community, on the other hand a flourishing landscape of tax income.

In the early 1950’s, Nathan K. Mendelsohn, a Czech born sociologist, envisioned a plan to develop a catchment area for the human overflow from Los Angeles and San Francisco. He bought 330 km2 of land in order to experiment with community planning and development theories. Construction of Mendelsohn’s dream began, with laying out a massive grid with 52,000 plots, highways, cul-de-sacs, street signs and power- and waterlines. A Central Park, a lake, a golf course were constructed and model housing was erected.

California City was incorporated in 1965 and eventually became the 3rd largest city in area in California, and the 34th largest in the USA. Today, amidst Edwards Air Force Base, two car testing centers, a Space Shuttle airstrip, an open pit mine and a high security prison, California City reflects the City of the Future as a failure as well as a new pioneers Utopia.