MARINA ZURKOW
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…
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…
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…
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…
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
Add’l animation: Michelle Mayer
Code Design: Veronique Brossier
Occasional Sound: Lem Jay Ignacio
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…
2011
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….
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…
2009
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…
2008
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….
2007-2009
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,…
2007
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…
2007
Animation, (2) 30″ monitors, (2) custom PCs, custom housing
56″ x 24″ x 8″
1’58”, silent
Edition of 5
Two-channel video loop
2007
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)
2007
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….
2006
Performance, software, truck, icies, squirrel emcee, lights, web site
In collaboration with Katie Salen and Nancy Nowacek
Tinklepop Music: Lem Jay Ignacio
Designed and produced in collaboration with students and graduates of the San Jose State Cadre Laboratory for New Media
Commissioned for ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge,CADRE / SJSU, and the Montalvo Arts Center Sally and Don Lucas Artists Programs.
Proper Pop Protocol:10 Steps to Achieve Karaoke Wonder 1. Resist the urge to stare at your feet. You’ll miss the cue from the squirrel.2. When attempting to sing Hey Ya by Outkast, remember that vowels too can be words.3. Avoid gazing directly into the mirror ball.4. If you lose your place, make it up.5. Try…
2005
3′ 51″, sound
Single channel animated video
DVD or Quicktime
This work is part of the project:
How do you wage war on an abstract noun? Terry Jones The Space Invaders is a composite of live-action footage and 2D character animation, redolent of vaudeville sketches, early cartoon pranks, and Grand Guignol’s shock theater. Conceived as a strand of animated paintings, the concept of Code Orange and other viral promulgators of fear are externalized as…
2004, 2007
7-channel installation
animation, DVD and quicktime, sound
Music: Lem Jay Ignacio
Technology: Julian Bleecker
Installation Design (The Kitchen): Palmer Moss & Marina Zurkow
Title Design: Nancy Nowacek
Nicking The Never is a project of Creative Capital, with generous support from Creative Capital, The Jerome Foundation, and The Media Arts Fellowship (supported By The Rockefeller Foundation).
Nicking the Never is a multi-linear installation that incorporates screen-based animated narratives into a sculptural interface. Composed of allegories about a young girl stuck in a kinetic world of emotional pitfalls, this kaleidoscopic trip into the states of selfhood bases its structure in the Tibetan Buddhist Wheel of Existence, whose images luridly and vividly describe…
2003-2005
9” x 8” X 16.5” custom metal housing, Mini-ITX PC, High res 6.4” monitor, Sensor interface, 120V power surge box, Speakers
Edition of 5, signed on mounted interior plaque
Pussy Weevil is a screen-based installation of an individual software persona, a 2D animated character, who reacts to the viewer’s distance or proximity.
2003
The pixel is an unfixed unit of measure; on the computer, it is the smallest unit of visual information that can be used to build an image. Yet it has an extremely tangible quality. Sometimes, I feel mediated by the pixel. If I work long at a computer and move away, I find myself measuring…