As my installations for performance became increasingly sculptural, they beckoned to become stand-alone installations in their own right.  This COLA grant allowed me the occasion to explore this new direction in my work.

The two video installations I built for the COLA show were directly inspired by the book, “COLLAPSE: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” by Jared Diamond.  I  wanted to address in these pieces what we don't see, what we choose not to see, what we don't understand, how our motivations even when well-intended can get complicated and have an unexpected impact.

The title “Understory” refers to the strata beneath the lowest branches of the tallest trees in a forest. Although aware of the perils of deforestation and accumulation of brush in the understory, I hadn't realized that it was a matter of policy from the early 1900s.

Toshimaru Nakamura is a Japanese musician/composer, active in free improvisation and Japanese onkyo. We had performed together at REDCAT in 2007.  I thought his music to be perfect for these two installations.  Is static a veil of distraction (bad reception?) that one must hear past? Or, when handled with great subtlety is it a source of beauty and expression unto itself?  The piece Heater/Refrigerator I thought would speak to energy consumption and man-made climate control.  In Nimb 44 Nakamura utilizes extreme frequencies, making us aware of the huge gap between.

For general information regarding these two installations, please see above.  Specific to "RINGS":

“Rings” began with a drawing process contemplating the use of reading tree rings (dendrochronology) to decipher the environmental circumstances of the past – a reverse palm reading of sorts.  Upon the two layers of scrim, I produced these drawings by dipping a plumb bob in acrylic medium and allowing it to deposit these trails as it orbited above the mesh producing something that looks both macro and micro at the same time.  The rear projection simultaneously lights up these drawings and casts shadows onto the frontmost layer so that the drawings act both like a photographic negative and positive.