Rock and Cliff ：The Geological Surface of Horn Town

Yu Guo • 2019

This video essay “Rock and Cliff” investigates the creation of Horn Town, a new model village and center of large-scale tourism development, as well as local residents’ life displaced from the Three Gorges Dam. Horn Town is located in Wulong, a rural district near the Three Gorges Dam administered by the Chongqing municipality (a city of 30 million people). The film is narrated in the style of pseudo-educational documentary and local Chongqing dialect. Using geological and topographical perspectives, it studies different types of 'rocks' found in the area, from mythological stones to a cliff, from ruins of the original settlement to a stone sculpture of a dubious “Land Art Biennial”. It addresses issues of land acquisition, top-down governance approach and spatial politics.