Persistence of Visions of Death

Looping HD video and collage

2010

In Progress:

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Airplanes, elephants, and plankton—three beautiful “machines.” Weights + Measures compares proverbial apples and oranges, in order to probe a system of relative values. Take any two of the three creatures in the system: in water, airplanes sink while elephants swim. Elephants and airplanes both release methane, and both have been instruments of transport and war. Airplanes produce carbon dioxide (CO2), while plankton consumes it. As the largest land mammal, elephants are at the top of the terrestrial food chain, and  microscopic plankton is at the bottom; yet without phytoplankton, the oceans would starve. Each ‘machine’ brings into focus several facets of a complex ecosystem, which includes the economics of short-term imperatives and long-view evolutionary time; the microscopic and the monumental; and human interventions of biological technology.

The Friend Feeders is an animated diptych, and part of a suite of projects for the UK entitled Friends + Enemies. Larger-than-life, each panel depicts a person who appears to be supporting a host of animals: the man on the left supports native species in Northern England; the woman on the right, an ethnic version of Mother Nature, is fodder for invasive species. The animation cycles through four seasons in Northern England, including summer and nocturnal visitors and year-round denizens. The work makes our favoritism literal, giving our own bodies up as food to support the species in question.

Friction Sticky Rough (2003) pairs video monitors displaying computer generated three-dimensional forms with musical structures based on the interaction of sound particles. The resulting installation creates parallels between a type of sound composition called “nonstandard synthesis” and scientific principles that analyze molecular particle interaction in terms of the attributes known as “friction,” “stickiness” and “roughness.”