New Projects
"They Call Me Theirs"
A line from “Hamatreya” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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In a mediated world nature is just another consumable.
Mediation and digitized wonders have forever changed our relationship with nature. Nature is revered, but raw nature no longer dazzles, unless it is packaged for the optimum experience. "They call me theirs" reverses the outside experience of nature by packaging the 4 seasons for a purer inside viewing.
The project is a multi-media installation composed of:
- multi channel audio installation,
- pristinely built and insulated cabin (shrine) housing a
- handcrafted hardwood box with 5 DVDs (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and
4 Seasons).
- mural painted on surrounding walls
When entering the space, the viewer experiences sound coming from 5 sources:
a highway off in the distance, a recreational area, residential complex, nature
preserve and aircraft overhead. The sounds change with the seasons, the winter
eerily quite, the summer loud with a cacophony of human and animal activity.
Once the cabin is entered, however, there is only the sound of nature emanating
from the Box.
"They call me theirs" was originally inspired by Rodney Graham’s
installation “Edge of a Wood” 1999, and by the writings of Ralph
Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. I live in a rural setting and since
2005 I have documented the “wilderness” on my property, filming
seasonal changes, both of nature and of man’s intrusions. Seasons change,
but human activity is always ever present as cars go by, planes fly overhead,
and lawn mowers and snowmobiles seem to be in the woods or just on its edge.
Emerson’s first book, “Nature” (1836), eloquently delivers passages that peruse our determination to connect with nature: “In the woods, is perpetual youth.” “In the woods we return to reason and faith”; “I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me and I to them”. Emerson also proposed that each generation define nature through their eyes: “Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?”
Jump 200 years and a redefinition has taken place. The forest in this piece is surrounded, quiet, and almost silent compared to the sounds of man. The forest is captivating and besieged. Yet in the cabin it is quiet except for the sounds of nature. The cabin itself is of the woods, as is the beautifully crafted Box Set, which harbors nature indoors. Box Set provides a private and purer experience of nature: no cars, no planes overhead or personal craft, no blaring music, lawn mowers or noisy neighbors. Choose your season, turn on the box and you have indoor nature at your own leisure.