Items tagged

Necrocracy

    Outside the Work: A Tasting of Hydrocarbons and Geological Time (Houston)

    2014

    Tasting/Participatory performance for 50 guests

    Collaborators: Lucullan Foods

    Hosted by Joseph Campana and Timothy Morton, with generous support from The Arts Initiatives Fund and The Humanities Research Center.

    Presented by CENHS (Center for Energy & Environmental Research in the Human Sciences @ Rice)

    This work is part of the project:

    A dinner for 50, co-hosted by philosopher Timothy Morton and poet Joseph Campana, that explored the concept of Deep Time and the multiple million-years-long process of fossil fuel formation, embodied in a seven course meal. The guests were primarily from the academic and arts communities in Houston. The purpose was to field test the effect…

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    The Petroleum Manga (book)

    2014

    Valerie Vogrin and Marina Zurkow, editors

    Published by Punctum Books

    https://punctumbooks.com/titles/petroleum-manga/
    This work is part of the project:

    The Petroleum Manga, first conceived of and rendered as 10-foot banners printed on Tyvek for gallery installation is now reproduced in book form. Originally, manga was used in Japanese to refer to whimsical drawings or picture books. Long before manga was a multi-billion-dollar-a-year comic book industry, there was Hokusai’s thirteen-volume manga, depicting everything from trees…

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    Outside the Work: A Tasting of Hydrocarbons and Geological Time (Boston)

    2013

    Tasting/Participatory performance for 50 guests
    808 Gallery Boston University

    With Lucullan Foods and Michael Connor

    Presented by the School of Visual Arts, in collaboration with Boston University’s Programs in Food and Wine.

    This work is part of the project:

    The French phrase hors d’ouevre literally means “outside of the work,” that is, outside the design of the meal. Petrochemicals infuse our foods, and while these byproducts of petroleum lie outside our designs on eating, they are intimately meshed with the foods we produce, transport and consume.You are invited to a multi-course tasting that invokes…

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    The Petroleum Manga

    2012

    50 banners, book
    Solvent ink on Tyvek
    10 ‘ x 54”

    This work is part of the project:

    Originally, the Japanese word manga was used to refer to “whimsical drawings” or picture books. The Petroleum Manga, a “picture book” about oil, is inspired by Hokusai’s thirteen volume set of manga. It depicts everything from trees to demons, squirrels to shingles. Each Petroleum Manga banner represents items organized by a specific petrochemical: PET, PVC, HDPE, PMMA, polystyrene, polyurethane, ammonia,…

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    Body Bags for Animals

    2013

    Tyvek, solvent ink, plastic regrind
    Life-size
    Unique

    This work is part of the project:

    All photos by John Berens

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    HazMat Suits for Children

    2012

    Tychem® TK fabric, acrylic , Velcro, rubber, mannekin
    Fabrication : Lara Grant
    Tychem® TK fabric courtesy of DuPont(tm)
    Approx 45” tall
    Edition of 5 suits

    This work is part of the project:

    Dupont’s patented Tychem hazardous materials clean-up suits are used in petroleum industry disaster response to mitigate ecological disasters. These suits have been re-scaled to outfit them for children. These suits are sealed to prevent humans from entering them, thus assuring that no children are harmed in the process.

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    Immortal Plastics

    2012

    Participatory performance

    In collaboration with Sarah Rothberg

    Premiered at New Museum IDEAS CITY

    This work is part of the project:

    Immortal Plastics (IP) Assessment Services is a performative, methodological procedure which determines the depth of participants’ relations with hydrocarbons and positions participating individuals on a timeline of plastic’s ancient past and indefinite future. 250 million years ago during the Permian Period, marine microorganisms died and accumulated in sediments on the floor of a vast saline…

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    The Thirsty Bird

    2012

    Two-channel animation, black and white, silent
    5 min,12 sec loop
    Animation assistance: Lindsay Nordell
    Edition of 5

    This work is part of the project:

    The movement of a pump jack (known colloquially as a “thirsty bird”), and a public water fountain are synchronized in a transitory dance. As the pump pulls oil upward, the water fountain spurts water. An array of archetypal individuals—cowboys and Indians, a father and his son, a county sheriff, a cow, a soldier, a girl…

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    NeoGeo I-IV

    2012

    Single-channel animation, color, silent
    Qucktime renders of Processing sketches, custom computers, speedrail, mirror
    12 minutes each
    Edition 1/5

    This work is part of the project:

    NeoGeo I-IV is a series of 12-minute Quicktime video captures of algorithmic, moving image work created using the software language Processing. The work visually represents the work of an oil drill as it penetrates through an infinite series of geological layers. The layers of sediment continually auto-generate based on pre-programmed parameters. The videos are mounted and hung…

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    Hydrocarbons

    2012

    Single-channel animation, color, sound
    2 min 32 sec loop
    Edition of 5

    This work is part of the project:

    Hydrocarbon chains are the base material for all plastics. They know not what they become, they simply proliferate. Extracting and manipulating a clip from The Inside Story of Modern Gasoline, a 1946 industrial film, endless chains of anthropomorphized (and uncomfortably racialized) hydrocarbon molecules dance until they blot out the screen. Hydrocarbons are indeed dispassionately lively actors, taking…

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    Mesocosm (Wink, Texas)

    2012

    Software-driven animation. 144-hour year-long cycle (never repeats).
    Color, animation, sound
    Format: Standalone software application on (intel) Mac with monitor / projection
    Dimensions variable

    Animation in collaboration with Michelle Mayer
    Sound in collaboration with Lem Jay Ignacio
    Software Developer, Sam Brenner
    Original Code Design, Veronique Brossier

    Developed through a residency at Diverseworks, Houston, Texas

    This work is part of the project:

    Spring, Summer, Fall, and WinterFour archival pigment prints on Crane MuseoDimensions 26″ x 44″Available as individual prints, or as a set. Mesocosm (Wink, Texas) is part of an ongoing series of animated landscapes that develop and change over time in response to software-driven data inputs. The title is drawn from the field of environmental science…

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    Necrocracy (project overview)

    2012-2014

    Project consisting of videos, dinners, software, sculptures, public art engagements, printed matter

    Diverseworks gallery text by John Pluecker

    Commissioned by Diversweworks, Houston Texas
    Supported by a 2011 John F Simon Guggenheim Fellowship

    This work is part of the project:

    Necrocracy is a meditation on geology, time, nature and petrochemical production. First exhibited at Diverseworks in Houston, Texas, Necrocracy featured newly commissioned video animation, drawing and sculpture. Questioning the division between the natural and the human inherited from the Romantic era, the works navigate between human manufacturing of petroleum-based products, ecology, and the geological chronology…

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