viscous identity

Viscous Identity

Tar, seaweed (egregia menziesii), video installation, marine debris buoys cleaned off the beaches of Santa Rosa Island

 This work explores why we are and how we are as a collection of cultures always in relation to the ocean; our greatest material bank.  As you enter the gallery, you are met by the noxious odor of tar. Oil is the raw element of both tar and plastic but they offer extremely different levels of permanence. Tar is viscous, smelly, and sticky. In contrast, the it attaches to in the ocean is firm and inflexible. To explore this dichotomy, I filmed tar sliding over a plastic buoy during the sunlight of midday for three weeks in the heat of Los Angeles fire season.

The film follows the voices of six fishers, scientists, and anthropologists who describe material interventions throughout time and across technological revisions. Anthropologist Jaime Matera, describes tradition and craft of hand fishing in his home of Colombia. Scientist Russ Bradley tells a story of environmental justice between birds and commercial net-casting in British Columbia.

The thumping undertone suggestive of a heartbeat is the sound of tar dropping from the buoy. Repeating the sound of gravity over and over aims to mystify the “living” quality of melting tar. Culminating the video is the sound of a sparse heartbeat that matches the pace of blue whale’s heart. This contrast between human heartbeat, the other, and our early memories intends to re-contextualize our existence in relationship to other creatures, mammals, and elements of non-human nature.