MARINA ZURKOW
Lecture and tasting for invasive species
In collaboration with chef and exotic food procurer Gene Rurka
Presented by MAM Contemporaries
MAM Contemporaries’ presented “The Cute, the Bad, and the Ugly.” Inspired by the exhibition Marina Zurkow: Friends, Enemies, and Others, on view at MAM (Sept 2011 – Mar 2012), this unique participatory food performance comprised a lecture led by the artist and a tasting catered by Gene Rurka, the celebrity exotic chef, hunter, and farmer, known…
‘Local’ dinner for 25, menu, prints
In collaboration with Michael Connor and Alex Freedman
Chefs: Lucullan Foods (Lauryn Tyrell, Loryn Hatch, and Albert Nyguyen)
Foragers: Holly Drake, Oliver Kellhammer, Bun Lai, Andrew Nundel & your hosts
Photo documentation: M.Cianfrani, M_DOK
Commissioned by The Artists Institute
The Invitation You are invited to “Not an Artichoke, Nor from Jerusalem,” a dinner that renders the local exotic, and the exotic all too local. We are serving a meal harvested in nearby waters or foraged on the adjoining shores. Tong-ho. Whores’ eggs. Knotweed. Sapidissima. Sumac. These words feel strangely potent in the mouth. Language…
Sculptural objects and printed materials
In collaboration with Christie Leece
Commissioned by ISEA 2012 and the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance
Gila 2.0: Warding Off the Wolf consists of a “cattle armor system” of predator deterrent devices focused on the wolf based on aversion and deterrent research conducted in animal cognitive behavior and predator control. Our research and design propositions offer a self-defense system for cattle using GPS, sound and olfactory output devices, video sensing, surveillance, and…
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,…
Tychem® TK fabric, acrylic , Velcro, rubber, mannekin
Fabrication : Lara Grant
Tychem® TK fabric courtesy of DuPont(tm)
Approx 45” tall
Edition of 5 suits
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.
Participatory performance
In collaboration with Sarah Rothberg
Premiered at New Museum IDEAS CITY
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…
Two-channel animation, black and white, silent
5 min,12 sec loop
Animation assistance: Lindsay Nordell
Edition of 5
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…
Single-channel animation, color, silent
Qucktime renders of Processing sketches, custom computers, speedrail, mirror
12 minutes each
Edition 1/5
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…
Single-channel animation, color, sound
2 min 32 sec loop
Edition of 5
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…
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
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…
Series of twelve letterpress prints on Somerset paper
Individual prints, edition of 10
Set of all twelve prints, edition of 4
Dimensions 18″ x 16″
I was awarded a research residency through ISIS Arts in Newcastle, Northumberland, England in summer 2009. In 2011, I completed a series of letterpress prints, featuring twelve of the predominant invasive species in Northern England, and describing their origins, allies, enemies and victories. Heraldic Crests for Invasive Species leverages a local narrative language of power and conquest….
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…
Duration: 17’42” (loop)
Edition of 6 plus 2 A/Ps
Color, animation and stereo sound
Format: Mac Mini or media player
Dimensions variable; (dimensions in pixels): 1920 x 1080
Music by Lem Jay Ignacio
Additional animation: Jen Kelly
Commissioned by the City of Tampa, for Lights on Tampa 2009
The animated, carnivalesque tailgate party of Slurb loops and stutters like a vinyl record stuck in a groove. Slurb – a word that collapses “slum” and “suburb” – encapsulates a dreamy ode to the rise of slime, a watery future in which jellyfish have dominion. There is a history of satirical illustration, epitomized by J.J.Grandville in the…
Multi channel video
Direction and compositing: Marina Zurkow
Cinematography: Toshiaki Ozawa (Persistent Vision LLC)
Technical Design, standalone units: Paul Paradiso
Convention Center Technology: CISCO Systems
Site-specific commission by ZERO1 for the 2nd Biennial 01SJ Global Festival of Art on the Edge
with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation
A convention center is a holding space waiting to become, made real only by the temporary inhabitants (IT companies, auto manufacturers, democrats) who flow through it. Non-specific and unhinged from the local, it could be almost anywhere, employing the casual and vacant vernacular of large-scale meeting places: Concrete. Glass. Info screens. Coke machines. Signage. Potted palms….
Series of four works
(4) 5:00 minute loops
Editions of 7
Animation, sound/silent
Format: Dimensions variable; custom framed 24″ monitor with MPlayer, or MPlayer only for 1920×1080 projection or monitor
Production Stills Installation views from Bryce Wolkoitz Gallery, New York, 2009 Installation views of Elixir I and IV, Feldman Gallery, Portland Oregon, 2009 The Elixir pieces describe impossible landscapes: cut-crystal bottles bob and toss like buoys in the ocean, beacons bearing potions, poisons, messages, genies. Each bottle contains an animated figure engaged in a repeated,…
In collaboraton with Katie Salen and Anfim Khanikov
A commission of the Public Art Network, for
Americans for the Arts Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada
Uniting the economies of abundance (sunlight) and scarcity (water), One Nature is a ceremonial instruction set for global strangers. An out-of-work Russian ice sculptor wheels a hand-carved, miniature, iceberg landscape on a room service cart through the crowded Las Vegas strip. Accompanied by two formal waiters, the trio offers participants a chance to pick their…
Animation, (2) 30″ monitors, (2) custom PCs, custom housing
56″ x 24″ x 8″
1’58”, silent
Edition of 5
Two-channel video loop
Series of 2 works
Animation, (4) 22″ monitors, (2) custom PCs, custom housing
78″ x 14″ x 6″
(Poster Children) 9 minute loop, silent
(Heroes of the Revolution) 3’30”, silent
Editions of 5
The Poster Children and its remix, Heroes of the Revolution are part of a series of animated paintings whose themes circulate around apocalyptic fantasies of the deluge and climate change, of water, ice, animals, and people. Writing Essays in The Scholar & Feminist “Gender on Ice” (Barnard College, 2008):Un-Performing Zoögeopathology, Una Chaudhuri(2009)
Animation, 15″ monitor, custom PC, custom housing
2’44”, silent
Edition of 5
Airplanes, elephants, and plankton – three beautiful “machines.” Weights + Measures compares proverbial apples and oranges, in order to probe a system of relative values. Take any two of the three creatures in the system: in water, airplanes sink while elephants swim. Elephants and airplanes both release methane, and both have been instruments of transport and war….