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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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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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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Mesocosm (Northumberland, UK)

2011

Software-driven animation. 146-hour year-long cycle (never repeats).
Color, animation, sound
Format: Flash player/projector on (intel) Mac with monitor / projection
Dimensions variable

Add’l animators: Xue Hou, Andrea Lira, Laewook Kang
Code Design: Veronique Brossier
Occasional Sound: Lem Jay Ignacio
Leigh Bowery modeled by Lawrence Goldhuber
Red squirrel source footage generously bartered for with Nicholas Berger

Developed during a residency at ISIS Arts, Newcastle, Northumberland

Four archival pigment prints on Crane MuseoDimensions 26″ x 44″ Mesocosm (Northumberland, UK) is an algorithmic work, representing the passage of time on the moors of Northeast England. One hour of world time elapses in each minute of screen time, so that one year lasts 146 hours. No cycle is identical to the last, as…

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Hospital Poetry

2002

Printed acetate lightbox graphics

What happens between the apprehension of a sign, and the moment in which, through a linguistic reading, it becomes legible? This series of pictograms attempts to create poetic “short-circuits” by piggybacking on cliche and similitude. The point of meaning (if you can call it that) occurs in an extra-linguistic zone, yet depends wholly on both…

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