Click on image above for detail view
So,
just what exactly is going to be/has already been involved with this
experimental residency and long-term project?
Several tons of dirt, multiple site visits, a slowly rising inevitable
mountain in the form of a runway, a makeshift community studio in the airport,
many photographic frames exposed, printed and tested, video gathered from
above, below and in-between, and a thick blanket of black asphalt icing the
dynamically compacted earth to seal it all in.
A bit of a poetically styled description, but that’s the gist of it.
But
let me break it down a bit more pragmatically.
The impetus for this entire project is the construction of a new runway
at the Fort-Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport as well as a terminal
expansion. This massive undertaking
involves a significant transformation of the physical surround. Most significantly, a tiny mountain with an
elevation of 65 feet is in the process of being fabricated on-site. This, of course, will be the runway, its
elevation necessary to clear the highway that will lie beneath. Regularly scheduled trains deliver massive
quantities of limestone from nearby quarries in Pompano and Medley where it
begins a process of what seems an endless and continual piling, smoothing and
grading.
Where
do I come in? I get to respond to these transformations and note the gradual
and dramatic shifts over an almost two year period. My first short-term site visit resulted in an
initial record that will serve as a start-point for what will ultimately become
a type of archive. However, rather than
documenting the process of the construction itself and literally tracking
changes in a scientific or methodical manner, my imagery may well be ambiguous
and at times difficult to decipher. My
concern is not with constructing a temporal continuum that relates to the start
and finish of the project, but with allowing the very nature of the structural
transformations to dictate my response.
In other words, I am interested in the deep, ecological time evoked by
the layered strata of earth as might be depicted in a photograph, or the
seemingly infinite experience of a waft of dust floating in the air, slowed
down even further in a video representation.
The
first completed artworks are scheduled to be installed in October and will take
the form of multi-channel, silent video works that will be installed in one of
the airport terminals. This will be
followed by a longer-term residency in the month of December, which will include
a community studio in the airport.
During this time, I will bring materials directly into this studio and
work on the project while interacting with travelers interested in the project. Shorter-term visits will follow along with two
additional longer residencies with community studios and public lectures in May
and September of 2014, culminating in the installation of site-specific works
throughout the airport. During each of
these stages, I will keep a log of my activities on this blog and will post
works-in-progress and test studies.
In
the meantime, below are a few images from the initial site visit that have been
worked on a bit in terms of sequencing and arrangement. It is unlikely that many single photographic
images will be used, as my interest is not in any kind of isolated “moment” but
rather in the natural extension and the back and forth movements across a slice
of space and time. (More on this to come….)
Click on images below for detail view
