Face of the Earth draws the spectator into a mythical universe whose stage is the face of the artist shown in a horizontal perspective. Vito Acconci is lying down. The camera focuses in close-up on his face from above, so that the neck and chin appear in the foreground.
The body as a place is conceived here in the physical and metaphorical sense. The movement of the artist's hands and fingers over his face transfigures it into a landscape of plains and mountains. A cowboy's story, hummed melodies and the trotting of a horse take us into the legendary American Far West. The sound effect is produced by tapping his fingers on his head and clicking his tongue.
The monologue introduces emotion and questions about cultural and individual identity: "off my head", "where did I come from", "just riding […] a new desert […] where should I go ? […]" His fingers' movements across his face change, with the narrative intensity, into caresses and weary, worried rubbing. The journey through time is contracted, a life flows by with the lassitude of the repetition of the facts, fears, dreams, exhaustions, encouragements and motivations ("another town, another woman, another woman […]" ). The contours of this landscape, indicated by a movement of the hand, becomes a metaphor of the rhythms of experience. In this labyrinth, a vital reason is evoked which is neither money nor culture, but the continuity of life and its outcome: "Just keep going", "I become a part […] of the rock, of the trees […] I know what everything been" .
The American cultural universe and the face also coexist in the installation Body Building in the Great Northwest (1975). The North American landscape is presented by projecting a film (on the ground) and projecting slides of major American brands such as Coca-Cola. On a tilted monitor, a video of Vito Acconci's face is playing. The landscape and the face are spatially dissociated to set up a critical relationship introduced by the direction of the artist's gaze and by his monologue questioning the spectators about their own perception, their position and their relationships within this recreated world.
Whether through the legend or through American social reality, Face of the Earth and the installation Body Building in the Great Northwest are reminiscent of the critical work by American artists in the years 1965-70 concerning socio-cultural, historical or imaginary facts (among others, the American flags by Jasper Johns).

Thérèse Beyler