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Q: What did you do with the hole that was caused by excavating [for the Jetty]?

RS: Well, there was no hole, there was no quarrying, because on the shore there's just big heaps of broken rocks, and they're very loose. It was like a collapsed strata, so all I had to do was just dig into these piles that were already there. So no quarrying was necessary. Then after I took what I wanted I just spread the rest back in there and blocked, just covered over what was there. So there was no quarrying necessary.

Q: What do you feel about the destruction of the given environment?

RS: I don't feel that there is any destruction of the given environment.

Q: Tampering, then.

RS: It's not tampering; it's a natural thing to do. You have two sides to nature. You have nature when it's tranquil and then you have nature when it rages. A lot of people tend to have a Disneyland idea of nature, that somehow it's all pastoral and it isn't. There are storms and there are other forces. The closer you get to that the more you develop the sense that there is a balance between what you would call tampering and things as they are but nature has a way of tampering with its seemingly solid ground. Actually, I'm making a film in Holland now; I just finished a piece in a quarry in Holland, and generally I do pick places that nobody can do anything with, or that are so desolate that there's not much one can do.

Q: [Should it have been left as it is?]

RS: Maybe Chicago should have been left as it is.

[Light applause from audience]

Q: What we've done with Chicago is [dump]. [More inaudible commentary from audience about tampering in Utah, the natural landscape, and the Jetty. If you hadn't done that in Utah, then the Jetty wouldn't be there in that state. Is that true?]

RS: Well, that's true, but I mean I wouldn't be living in a house, either. I think it becomes a matter of becoming closer to the natural areas and working more with it. To me, I'm functioning as a geological agent. It's just an aspect of one's natural condition. It's a kind of Calvinistic view of nature that tends to separate man from nature, and [in that view] man is fundamentally evil and nature's good or vice versa. Those are problems; they are problems. I think really it's a matter of how does one function, or how does one exist. When you do get close to nature, I think it's revealed. When you're living in a building, and I don't like a lack of respect or sensitivity to those area. In other words I'm completely interested in that range of natural understanding. The thing is to get as close to it as possible.