GENIUS LOCI

This work focuses on the mediated nature of much of the “experience” I found myself having with the natural world, embedded (as I was) within a major metropolitan area. Using found materials such as nature books and sounds, analog recording devices, and video tubes ensconced in objects such as Plexiglas houses and desk lamps, I created elusive “memories” of experiences and encounters I might have otherwise been having in the wild. In one piece, The Listening Trees (finding all the oak trees of Oakland) I set out to find every oak tree within walking distance of my Oakland, CA home; to record site-specific sounds directly onto an image of the tree; and so to capture for the viewer tiny moments in the life of the impacted environment. In the Sound Book Series, I used flashlight-triggered sound chips embedded in the beautiful end-pages of nature books, to structure a set of encounters in which the viewer could choose their own position between immediate experience and recollection, between simulated nature and the “real” of memory. A more complex interactive sound work, The Aviary was a series of self-sufficient (solar powered) sculptures designed to look like place-marker posts on a nature walk.  Human-made birdcalls emanated from the posts upon approach, triggered by the shadow of the viewer.  Whether placed in urban or natural settings, these pieces suggested that mimesis can, in some contexts and environments, seems as “natural” as the real thing.