Metabolic Rifts: Touch Memory
Metabolic Rifts: Touch Memory
Immersive multichannel video installation with 21 screens of various sizes.
In these works, hands reach out to these body like native plant “sculptures”. Slowed to the frame rate of the plant itself, there is a sense of the plant reaching out in reciprocity.
These works where filmed over the course of a year of embodied community workshops with folks in the Ocean Beach community(s).
The output as a video installation highlights the way so much of our experience of “nature” is increasingly mediated though screens. The serene meadow like experience of the installation is slowly eroded as awareness dawns that despite a feeling of vibrancy and life, little in the gallery is actually alive.
On weekends, two of the plant sculptures are brought into the gallery to watch themselves on the screens.
Please note: The audio of this installation (an accumulation of natural sounds from recording, moving as the viewer moves though the space) is distorted in the video documentation, and not representative of the actual experience.
This video installation came out of 2 years of community engagement around dune ecologies, bringing the plants to beach cleanup events in collaboration with Surfrider SF, Far Out West Community Dune Garden and other local events. Documentation of some of that is bellow. For more information about these plant sculptures Metabolic Rifts please see the other section under works.