Juan Carlos Beltrán · 2026

The Second Desert

Generative film · 01:13

Generative film · 01:13Work index
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About the work

I grew up in Sinaloa, northern Mexico, where the tomato fields stop and the desert begins. Where I'm from, the absurd and the damned play alongside the beautiful. In 2022 I started working with generative tools, and the algorithm did to me what the city has done to people from the land: it took me somewhere with no landmarks.

Juan Carlos Beltrán · 2026

This is about the crossing. A young vaquero leaves the land at dusk. He passes chrome towers, a table of figures in white, a horse beside a shopping cart, a red motel sign. The city he reaches is no longer stone: corridors that don't end, a desert that is white. It ends with the horse in still water and a man walking into the light.

Every frame was generated from written prompts, then sequenced, graded and cut as one 73-second piece. The desert in this film isn't a place. It's what that felt like. More room than I knew existed. A shorter list of what matters.

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