From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
Backwards Through the Scrub
This film concerns the NSW landscape and the glitch's geographical impossibility. For other Australian landscape adaptations, see Australian adaptations of Beach Surgery.
Backwards Through the Scrub is an experimental documentary tracing the landscape of Half Two in reverse geographical order, moving from the red desert interior of New South Wales back toward the Newcastle coast. Shot on 16mm, the work treats the scrub landscape as text—a palimpsest encoding the glitch's geographical impossibility.
The film follows decommissioned data-harvester routes, abandoning them midway; cuts between forward and backward temporal sequences; and isolates the red dust as a persistent visual motif. No dialogue appears. The soundtrack consists solely of recordings of the Kármán line frequencies at the igloo site.
Critical response divided sharply: some viewers read the film as a meditation on recurrence and refusal; others argued it represented a failed attempt to resolve the glitch through geography alone. The title's apparent inversion (through, not into) remains contentious in fandom discourse. Archival status uncertain.[citation needed]