Speculative Aboriculture is a video set in a small suburban forest in Long Island. It explores a conception of ecology that encompasses human activity, erasing the artificial borders between humans and habitat. The video is based around a sculptural project that combines found natural materials (dead wood and foliage) with electrical conduit and living plants like moss and lichen. The sculpture takes the form of a networked branch that seems to be either drawing power from or conveying power too the surrounding built environment. I began filming the sculpture as I built it, combining footage shot in the studio with details from the small forest outside my studio space at the Carriage House. The result is a piece that slowly reveals an ecosystem in which the lines between technological and biological evolution appear increasingly blurred. Oil and water are harvested from or embedded in leaves, branches, wires and moss. The minute details of this hybrid environment are accompanied by a shifting soundscape of traffic, electricity, machinery and forest life. I’ve also created a sound map for this piece.
this creates a line break!
this creates a line break!
URBAN WATERSHED, 5:08, 2010-11
Urban Watershed focuses on the way water moves across the surfaces of the city and into storm drains and groundwater systems, carrying nutrients and contaminants as it goes. The video is made up of footage shot in my recent installation Ground Water Permeability Network, as well as footage gathered from the urban watersheds of Bushwick, Brooklyn and Ridgewood, Queens.
this creates a line break!
this creates a line break!
this creates a line break!
URBAN SOIL HORIZON, 5:14, 2011
Documenting the existence of dirt in a world of concrete and asphalt, Urban Soil Horizon contrasts the age old cycles of erosion and accretion with the rhythms of a contemporary, human-driven ecosystem
this creates a line break!