Post-Pastoral #1

2022

Digital collage on archival Hahnemühle Bamboo
10 x 50 in / 25.4 x 127 cm

This 48” image, influenced by Japanese ink brush scroll paintings, was made using DALL·E 2 to generate a database of unique source material—much like a stack of Life Magazines painstakingly cut and assembled into complex collages. Text requests include calls for 1930’s Japanese scroll paintings and agitprop of “a frog tasting a man’s foot with…

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A Questionable Tale #1

2022

A Questionable Tale (#1)
Digital image
3840 x 2160 px

The process of creating this digital collage with DALL·E , an AI system that generates imagery from language, entails my operating as an Art Director with an aleatory AI system. I direct and push the flow of chance to create surprising outcomes I never could make by hand. Then I act as my own cleanup…

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Closer

2022

Digital collage on archival Hahnemühle Bamboo
18 x 60 in / 45.7 x 152.4 cm
NFT registration included

Closer is inspired by the play “Far Away” (2000) by Caryl Churchill in which animalarmies have teamed up with human factions. The process of creating this digital collage with DALL·E , an AI system that generates imagery from language, entails my operating as an Art Director with an aleatory AI system. I direct and push…

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World Wind

2022

80″ x 80″ wallpaper mural, edition of 6

World Wind is a mural made in collaboration with Midjourney, an artificial intelligence software that creates images from textual descriptions. Through a prompt by the artist to the software—”World War II agitprop map of pollution and climate change”—World Wind incorporates AI’s perception of climate change with the artist’s guidance, editing, and direction.

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Climate Jeopardy

2022

Cardboard, paint

In collaboration with Abigail Simon

Presented at the Woodstock Farm Festival, New York

A fun, non-didactic participatory engagement “where nobody wins.”

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Animal Testimony: Cetaceans Between the Interspecies and the Inhuman

2022

Essay with illustrations and artwork

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/lyotard-and-critical-practice-9781350192027/

Co-authored by Margret Grebowicz and Marina Zurkow for the book Lyotard and Critical Practice, Kiff Bamford and Margret Grebowicz, editors. Bloomsbury, 2022

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A Liquid Wanting

2022

Sound, 28 minutes

Written and Performed by Anna Rose Hopkins and Marina Zurkow
Editing, production, and sound design: Pejk Malinovski
Original sound contributions: Scott Reitherman

Additional vocal performances: Kenneth Bailey, Aaron Burns, Una Chaudhuri, El Glasberg, Aria Michener, Ava Michener, Justin Michener, Liam Michener

ASL interpretation: Darius Doe

Special thanks to Stacy Alaimo, Lindsey Allen, Imani Black, Elizabeth Bishop, Una Chaudhuri, Jon Cohrs, Becca Franks, Christopher Hibma, Henry Fischer, Miles Freeman, Dylan Gauthier, Jennifer Jacquet, Kwonyin, Steve Mentz, Katie Pearl, Jose Rosero, Carrie Roble, Lauren Ruffin, Abigail Simon, Nancy Sowinski, Suzanne Thorpe, and Paola Zanzo

Found sources: Gravity Music, Lao Tzu, Alphonso Lingis, Ennio Morricone, Lalo Schifrin, WeTM, Heathcote Williams

Originally commissioned by the FoodxFilm Festival and the Guild of Future Architects, in support of Good Food For All and the United Nations Food Systems Summit

This work is part of the project:

“A Liquid Wanting” is a 28 minute audio theater work exploring the lives of ocean beings and the ocean itself as a planetary force, prompting listeners to dissolve, mutate and transform as they are led through imagined embodiments—from human to sea cucumber to marine snow to whale.

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Hudson Follies

2022

Custom software, color, silent
8K screen and computer
Dimensions approximately 40′ x 10′

In collaboration with Jim Schmitz
Animation assistance: Ewan Creed

Hudson River consultants: Hudson River Park’s River Project: Hudson River consultants: Carrie Roble, Tina Walsh, Siddhartha Hayes, Toland Kister

Worldbuilding consultants:Una Chaudhuri, Lafayette Cruise, Carolyn Hall, Clarinda Mac Low, Tony Patrick

Commissioned by Google for Pier 57

The animated software-driven work Hudson Follies is a site-specific commission by Google for the lobby of their event space occupying Pier 57 along the Hudson River in Chelsea, Manhattan. It explores an alternate, present-day Hudson River estuary in which happy social and biological ecosystems live in harmony, where humans can interact with the water in…

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Does the River Flow Both Ways?

2022

Custom software, color, silent
Projection or monitor and computer
Dimensions variable

In this animated software-driven work, an alternate, present-day Hudson River estuary exists in which relatively healthy social and biological ecosystems live in harmony; where humans can interact with the water in intimate ways, and experience what is happening below the surface. 

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OOzy2 production still

OOzy #2: like oil and water

2022

3 minute video loop, sound

Sound by Scott Reitherman
Animation assistance by Ewan Creed

Commissioned by Niio

This work is part of the project:

The ocean is not a body—and it is. Seeking its own level, it expands as much as it can. The ocean is a container. It is also a shipping superhighway; a resource for food and minerals; a space of mystery, adventure, fantasy, dream, and myth; a space to be mapped, measured, and known; and “Earth’s”…

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OOzy3

OOzy #3: just because you can’t swim in it doesn’t mean it isn’t there

2022

3 minute video loop, silent

Animation assistance: Ewan Creed

Commissioned by Niio

This work is part of the project:

6,000 meters below the ocean surface, a human would experience crushing pressure, freezing temperatures, and total darkness. But other beings thrive in the Abyssal Zone; at 300,000,000 square km, it is the largest environment for earth life. Coral reefs, squid, sea spiders thrive; many are transparent, luminescent, lit from within.  Minerals ooze out of hydrothermal…

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The Crucible Series

2022

Eight Archival prints on Tesuki-Washi Echizen
38 x 26 in / 96.5 x 66 cm
Edition of 3 plus 1 AP

The Crucible series urges a conversation between individual and global moments, touching on intimate aspects of this relationship. The porous connection between a lived experience to the far-reaching environment is portrayed through domestic, material manifestations. The artist’s own souvenirs, inherited objects, and hand-built ceramics interface with instances of environmental disaster and geo-planetary disruption.

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Whale Fall Feast (Dear Climate)

2021

Marine debris, plastic bags, metal signs, CNC cut wood, mini-golf turf

In collaboration with Blake Goble, B-Space
Documentation: Jakob Dahlin

Commissioned by Putting Green, NY

https://dearclimate.net/installations/whale-fall-feast
This work is part of the project:

When a whale dies and sinks, its carcass creates an entire ecosystem on the ocean floor, nourishing thousands of organisms. Ocean pollution affects this process and disrupts the food chain, impacting species from krill to whales. Whales are some of the longest living mammals on the planet, with lifespans from 10 to 200 years. When…

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150 Media Stream

150 Media Stream

2021

3 minute video loop, sound

Sound by Scott Reitherman.
Animation assistance: Ewan Creed.

Commissioned by 150 Media Stream, Chicago IL.

https://150mediastream.com/archive/
This work is part of the project:

On view Oct 2021 – Jan 2022, OOzy #2: like oil and water was conformed for a 16K screen in the lobby of 150 Riverside, Chicago. OOzy #2: like oil and water brings into view a sensual—but harsh—mix of kelp, marine organisms, human aquanauts, mermaids, plastics, and oil, who cycle and snake through the 150…

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Oceans Like Us (5 Manhattan West)

2021

Custom software animation, screens, custom poplar wood pallets

Sound Design: Scott Reitherman. Software: Sam Brenner. Animation: Marina Zurkow and Ewan Creed. Technology: James Schmitz. Documentation: Jakob Dahlin
Curated by Kendal Henry

Commissioned by @artsbrookfield

This work is part of the project:

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Boil the Ocean (ICA San Diego)

2021

Custom generative animation software, sound, screens, marine debris, wall drawings, custom wood scaffolds

Sound Design: Scott Reitherman. Software: Sam Brenner. Animation: Marina Zurkow and Ewan Creed. Technology: James Schmitz. Scaffold architecture: Keith Edwards. Documentation: Phillip Rittermann

Commissioned by the ICA San Diego

This work is part of the project:

Text by Guusje Sanders, curator: Aided by the constructed marine debris island, visitors can see, smell, touch, hear and taste their presence within the ocean. The installation invites participants to re-imagine their connections to the ocean and challenge their conditioned perspectives. By slowing down in a complex space of systems, an opportunity arises to assume…

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Soupy, Salty, Sonic!

2020

Food, ASMR, mixer and speakers, lighting, slide show

Led by Hank and Bean
Sound: Yotam Mann and Sarah Rothberg
Thanks to Sunview luncheonette and Dylan Gauthier

Presented at Sunview Luncheonette, Brooklyn, NY

This work is part of the project:

Soupy Salty Sonic, an edible exploration of fluid ocean spaces was a beta dinner and an aural/oral experiment, in conjunction with the exhibition “Wet Logic” at bitforms gallery.

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Oceans Like Us

2020

Custom generative animation software, sound

This work is part of the project:

A set of three software-driven animation works that explore the ocean and its inhabitants as a fractal and restless repository of reflections and projections. The series offers an ocean poetics to produce new affections for the ocean at large—a cosmopolitan sea inclusive of graceful, filthy, tangled, and fantastic realities and imaginary churns. Custom software allows…

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Wet Logic (bitforms gallery)

2020

Custom software, wall drawings, silkscreen prints, toilet, recycled nurdles, fishbowl fountain

bitforms gallery (link)
This work is part of the project:

Wet Logic, a collaborative exhibition by Marina Zurkow and Sarah Rothberg, presents a model of the world organized according to a wet, oceanic ideology rather than a dry, land-based paradigm.

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What is Happening

2020

Site-specific video installation (52 screens) at the Fulton Transit Center, New York

Created in collaboration with Sarah Rothberg

Commissioned by MTA Arts & Design.

Sarah Rothberg and Marina Zurkow’s video project “WHAT IS HAPPENING” at Fulton Center combines site-specific drawings of the transit hub’s architectural elements with text and animated collage. Philosophical queries like “WHAT IS POSSIBLE” or “WHAT IS MOVING” prompt the minds of viewers passing through. These provocations are met with clever visual juxtapositions, such as a doughnut rising…

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