Artificial Weathering, 2024

Interactive video and sound Installation, sound composition, field recording, tactile transducers, ceramic sculpture, metal sheet.

Artificial Weathering is inspired by Karen Russell’s short story about humans raising tornadoes, she explores the human/climate relationship through magical realism and history. In this installation, I created ceramic sculptures that blend fingers with cypress knees—those curious nubs protruding from the swamp. To me the seem like fingers dipping in to water, but reversed, dipping into air for oxygen. While no one knows for sure what cypress knees do, some speculate they reach for oxygen. Here, I’m exploring the human/plant relationship in this act of "grabbing" for oxygen. The ceramic fingers contain tactile speakers that vibrate with a sound composition I created from field recordings in a swamp near Lafayette, Louisiana, a place where oxygen dissipates faster than anywhere else. Can we hear/sense/feel oxygen beyond the mechanism with our lungs?