Tōhoku
2011-03-11 05:46:24 UTC
On March 11th, 2011 at 5:45:24 UTC the 9.1 magnitude Tōhoku megathust earthquake shook Japan. I experienced this earthquake first hand in the basement of a skyscraper in the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo.
This artwork is about what it felt like to emotionally process one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded in human history.
Process:
The series of paintings, Tōhoku 2011-03-11 05:46:24 UTC, is based on my own personal memory of the earthquake which emerged from a two year process of experimenting with the motion data in digital mediums such as 3D animation, 360 video, and mixed reality and in traditional media including graphite, oil pastel, technical pen, and charcoal on paper. The series of experiments resulted in settling with acrylic on canvas--- the fluidity of the paint and the spatial presence of a large canvas presented the perfect conditions for what I was trying to express. This felt right as my memory of the earthquake was very physical.
I reconnected with the five minute event on canvas through the psychological and physical space of gestural painting. The performative painting was guided by motion studies that were developed by taking the seismic data recorded at 100 Hz and creating a very dense curve in Autodesk Maya. The motion became visible when turned the curve into a motion path and animated a sphere along the path (like a rollercoaster). Having the animation play next to me while painting, I had a guide for the movement. This allowed me to see the motion in time while using rollers, my hands, and small brushes to paint the earthquake experience.
Keywords: Getural Painting, Data Experiment
Programs Used: Python, 3D Maya, Max/MSP, After Effects
Tōhoku I 2011-03-11 05:46:24 UTC Acrylic on Canvas 48 x 48 inches
The motion path was created digitally from a 3D curve using 30,000 points from the x,y,z seismic data points. A MEL script was used to generate the curve in Maya. Upon first viewing the curve, my heart-rate went up, the density created by the data and technological signature present in the curve was intense --- it was hard for me to look at directly.
Maya rendering of earthquake data generated as a curve.
Immutable Swell
Immutable Swell is a sculptural representation of an ocean wave as it breaks onto land. The artwork was created by extracting over 500,000 data points from a custom buoy sensor placed in the waters of Cape Cod. This data was combined with my own own personal experience of swimming in the ocean to emerge as a complex 3D digital inscription of an ocean wave. By using software and motion analysis to observe the wave from a digital distance, I was able to distill invisible structures in the wave. Immutable Swell represents an opportunity for viewers to reflect upon the powerful and mysterious patterns found in the ocean.
Immutable Swell Sculpture. 3D Printed Resin 5” x 5” (Displayed with Ocean Video Vitrine), 2018
“We do not uncover pre-existing facts about independently existing things as they exist
frozen in time like little statues positioned in the world ... Rather, we learn about
phenomena—about specific material configurations of the world’s becoming. The point is
not simply to put the observer or knower back in the world but to understand and take
account of the fact that we too are part of the world’s differential becoming.”
----Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway1.
Bruno Latour uses the term Immutable Mobiles to explain a flattening of reality that happens to scientific images enabling them to circulate globally—to become mobile, yet immutable. Its significance comes from optical consistency, a Renaissance visualization technique in linear perspective allowing the possibility of physical spaces and objects to go from one type of visual trace to another2.
The prescriptiveness of representation doesn’t box in the original data, however. A given representation of the data is only a referendum on itself, since the underlying information still exists and can still be looked at in an infinite number of ways. The Immutable Swell as portrayed here as the distilled moment of a body moving in a wave is not intended to foreground a specific conclusion, but instead it is asking for an emotional response from the viewer.
Shown at Creative Turbulence, a group show in NYC at the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute featuring work from Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, David McLeod and Berndnaut Smilde.
Immutable Swell Sculpture. 3D Printed Resin 5” x 5” (Close Up), 2018
Immutable Swell Sculpture. 3D Printed Resin 5” x 5” (With Ocean Video Light), 2018
Immutable Swell Inkjet Print on Archival Paper. 40”x40”, 2018
Immutable Swell Sculpture and Print. Creative Turbulence Exhibition NYC on View at the Helix Center
NYC, June 2018
NYC, June 2018
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Latour, B. (1986). Visualisation and cognition: Drawing things together. Knowledge and
Society: Studies in th e Sociology of Culture Past and Present , 6, 1–40.
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Barad, Karen Michelle. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the
Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Duke University Press, 2007.
Earth Viewing (E.V.)
E.V. (Longnook) - Aluminum & Acrylic Primer, 2015 (w/ Gabriel Winer)
E.V. (Earth Viewing) is an attempt to circumvent dominant, culturally constructed modes of environmental perception by seeking an alienated perspective of the terrestrial environment. Techniques used in the remote sensing of alien planets base the form and function of the device on the requirements for durability and accuracy of perception in the subject environment. We invert the gaze and application of these methods to focus on an earthbound context.
The initial experiment (E.V. 1) was conducted at 42.020 N, -70.037 W, JD 2457263.375. A one-meter aluminum and masonite cube was positioned at the outer margin of an outwash plain with a single aperture oriented toward coastal ocean. Individuals inhabited the device for periods of 10 minutes and reported several perceptual shifts, particularly spacetime transformations and increased awareness of their own symbolic processing of the landscape.
Container Home
Off the grid Shipping Container Home
3 Containers:
960 Square Feet
Manderson, SD
3 Containers:
960 Square Feet
Manderson, SD
Pre-Journey
Rendering of Iteration 1
A three shipping container home for a client in South Dakota.
The design was driven by the cinematic landscape of the property and the first floor features a side open continer (or a trenchcoat full of contraband)...and the west facing facade has three operable porthole windows that were reclaimed from a ship in Europe.
Design: In collaboration with Raeven Architecture (Karla Karwas)
Fabrication: Supercubes
Cell: AgRP Improv
Cross-disciplinary collaboration between a composer, neuroscientist, and arist.
The project was born out of a series of conversations between Marcelo Dietrich, Matthew Suttor, and Dana Karwas. How could resolution be brought to something that was outside of human hearing? What would this look like? These were some of the quetions that were addressed in the series of sonic and visual experiemts explored by the artists. Read more here.
