"In the desert a dream dries up". A headline in the newspaper was the reason to visit the modernistic city of Aktau at the Caspian Sea. Aktau, formerly Schewtschenko, is a Soviet planned city, built in the 60’s to exploit the uranium deposits in the steppe. Now that Kazakhstan is independent the city is being transformed by a European-Asian version of capitalism.

The artist travels all through Europe to find out about the cultural background and connections of this planned city. The result is a multifold science fiction picture novel about the modern age as a European phantasm and potential.
The book contains to a large extent full-page photographs from the city, drawings on the planning, the implementation and the erosion of modernist structures, and texts from interviews with architects, art historians, project managers and inhabitants from Aktau and European cities such as Sofia, Tapiola, St. Petersburg and Hoyerswerda. In the appendix connections are further explained and the objects, videos and drawings alongside the photographic work are briefly introduced.

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