Installation 2010-Present
LINES OF FLIGHT (EXHIBITION) 2011
In this work video is shot through a scale model of an airplane inspired by my great uncle who was a pilot in WW2. My initial interest in his service resided in the historical assemblages that created the circumstances that drew him into the War and how the material of subterfuge and aviation were made manifest. The video Storm is an atmospheric recreation of the weather that fateful November night by way of a high-definition video loop that consists of simulated clouds, lightning, and rain with the sound of planes and thunder embedded in the soundtrack. Here weather is a particulate virtual environment. Generated by the computer apparatus, the video has its own connection to the history of war, and the more current practice of weather prediction. One has only to think of colossus or Hollerith and IBM to the more recent computerized weather predictions to see the analogy. In the exhibition the spectacle of rain, thunder and lightning, positioned the viewer within the dramatization of my great uncle’s story by utilizing the large scale projection; and it is these simulated non-human factors (thunder, lighting, water vapour) that are central to the broader questions of my practice, extending the field of inquiry beyond the anthropocentric reading and elucidating questions of cause and effect, intentionality and influence.
In this work video is shot through a scale model of an airplane inspired by my great uncle who was a pilot in WW2. My initial interest in his service resided in the historical assemblages that created the circumstances that drew him into the War and how the material of subterfuge and aviation were made manifest. The video Storm is an atmospheric recreation of the weather that fateful November night by way of a high-definition video loop that consists of simulated clouds, lightning, and rain with the sound of planes and thunder embedded in the soundtrack. Here weather is a particulate virtual environment. Generated by the computer apparatus, the video has its own connection to the history of war, and the more current practice of weather prediction. One has only to think of colossus or Hollerith and IBM to the more recent computerized weather predictions to see the analogy. In the exhibition the spectacle of rain, thunder and lightning, positioned the viewer within the dramatization of my great uncle’s story by utilizing the large scale projection; and it is these simulated non-human factors (thunder, lighting, water vapour) that are central to the broader questions of my practice, extending the field of inquiry beyond the anthropocentric reading and elucidating questions of cause and effect, intentionality and influence.
