plastiglomerates in the plastisphere
Research Blog | June 10, 2014
We have micro-macro ecosystems that contain new forms of geological evidences: “Future Fossils: Plastic Stone” …researchers have discovered an unexpected way that some plastic waste is persisting: as a new type of stone. The substance, called plastiglomerate, is a fusion of natural and manufactured materials. Melted plastic binds together sand, shells, pebbles, basalt, coral and wood,…
plastic beaches, the polymer vortex
Research Blog | August 13, 2013
10 days ago I went to the OR coast – around Astoria, the mouth of the mighty Columbia River, with 15 Japanese continuing ed students to survey the beach plastics and look at and for tsunami debris. Oregon is twinned, connected to Japan through a strong east/west current. In addition, long-livin’ plastics suspended in the…
Petrochemical Self-Assessment form
Research Blog | January 12, 2013
I have an exhibition at bitforms gallery in New York through Feb 15, 2013. It is my first solo show at the gallery, and a further development of “Necrocracy,” the work I began at Diverseworks in Houston, Texas, as a commission in March 2012. New work includes a Petrochemical Self-Assessment Form, as well as a series of body…
The amazing world of regrind, floor sweep, and purge
Research Blog | December 31, 2012
The lovely Marcia Sardy Schofield wrote this account of our trip 2 days ago to Long Island to pick up some purge and regrind. My endless gratitude to her for helping to locate said exotica, and for supplying wheels to boot. She and her equally delightful and eccentric husband Richard are both doctors in the…
Body Bags for animals destined to return to hydrocarbons
Research Blog | December 31, 2012
I’m working on a show opening at bitforms on Jan 10, some of it from Necrocracy at Diverseworks, and a bit of new work as well also re-approaching our relations with petrochemicals. The new pieces are animal body bags, made of Tyvek and printed in solvent ink, with folk-art style patterns that upturn, implode, decroate…
Hydrocarbons & You
Research Blog | December 26, 2012
I’ve started an inventory service to help people determine the depth of their entanglement with hydrocarbons. Stay tuned. If you’d like a survey form, email petrochemsurvey@o-matic.com I can email you a pdf or you can pick one up at bitforms gallery january 10 – february 16.
A Fracking Method With Fewer Water Woes? – NYTimes.com
Research Blog | November 9, 2011
Still awaiting a patent in the U.S., the technique has been used about 1,000 times since 2008, mainly in gas wells in the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and New Brunswick and a smaller handful of test wells in states that include Texas, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Oklahoma and New Mexico, said GasFrac Chief Technology Officer…
Study Says Fluids From Hydraulic Fracturing Killed Trees
Research Blog | July 13, 2011
(My emphasis added to the last line of the excerpt.) A study that argues for more research into the safe disposal of chemical-laced wastewater resulting from natural gas drilling found that a patch of national forest in West Virginia suffered quick and serious loss of vegetation after it was sprayed with hydraulic fracturing fluids. The…
Book Review – What’s Gotten Into Us? – By McKay Jenkins – NYTimes.com
Research Blog | May 13, 2011
We all know by now — don’t we? — that many of the synthetic chemicals in our food, personal-care and cleaning products, toys and household goods are harming not just the environment but ourselves. Body-burden tests, for measuring exposure to chemicals, reveal flame retardants, plasticizers, pesticides and perfluorinated chemicals in the blood of almost every…
drawings jan 2011
Research Blog | January 29, 2011
Test format for printed book: Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) | dentures Some of the raw sketches:
Texas Ranging 08. The Wink Sink, the Petroleum Museum
Research Blog | January 18, 2011
Jan 16. It often smells bad when I am driving around. You can’t edit out the yellow grass, or the black mesquite (and its distribution now away from the draws, so that it dots most of the landscape), or the skies, or the oil pads, or the tanks, or the smells, or the invasive plants….
Texas Ranging 07. A 200 mile circle
Research Blog | January 18, 2011
Elena Glasberg wrote this in an email to me today: I wish I were in such blighted yet open places. The deserts are the ruins before time. Lovely. Jan 15. Drove another big circle: Midland, Stiles, Big Lake, Iraan, McCamey, Crane, Odessa. Big Lake was scary. The gas station filled with roustabouts getting lunch, felt…
Texas Ranging 06. Midland and the Llano Estacado.
Research Blog | January 16, 2011
Jan 14. Met with an independent oil man for coffee. He was so kind and so generous with his time I wish we had focused more on HOW he sees as a geologist. How he gets a mental picture-map of rocks that delineate both time and space. And how he gambles as an oil man….
Texas Ranging 05. The Permian Basin
Research Blog | January 15, 2011
Jan 12. Sea change coming north to Midland. The land flattens, and if you aren’t careful you’ll say it all looks the same, and empty. Yellow grass. Blue sky. Black mesquite trees (shrub-sized) that look charred against the grasses. All these dinosaurs of equipment lying around too. And corrugated metal sheds. Midland is all business….
Texas Ranging 04. The Davis Mountains
Research Blog | January 13, 2011
Jan 10. Erika and Dahr said they felt like living in this part of the desert often felt like living at the bottom of the ocean, and it’s so true. An ancient sea whose waters rubbed mountains down to soft and toothless nubs. Surprising reefs and volcanic moments you only find of you take the…
Texas Ranging 03. Marfa
Research Blog | January 13, 2011
Jan 09 Spent much of the day at The Chinati Foundation , on the grand tour. The work feels…not exactly off-the-grid (despite being off the grid), but definitely not on the grid, either. It’s a pilgrimage site, a more stubborn, wilder, but gentried cousin of DIA Beacon. Chinati is a dynamic testimonial to Judd’s persistent,…
Texas Ranging 02. Midland to Marfa
Research Blog | January 10, 2011
Well I left the beef fat and downstream petro behind, and took a plane to Midland TX. The earth looks scraped clean – and it kind of is, at least in patches (scraped and then bored down down through strata of hard and soft, old and older. Lots of oil pump jacks – the term…
Houston waterway shut for days after beef fat leak
Research Blog | January 7, 2011
My comments in (italics) HOUSTON (AP) — The Coast Guard says a nearly one-mile stretch of the Houston Ship Channel will be closed for at least four days as workers use pitchforks and fishnets to corral, pierce and remove 15,000 gallons of beef fat. Coast Guard spokesman Richard Brahm says shipping has not been impacted…