In equal collaboration with Brian M. John.
Earth's more prized and endangered coasts bear the mark of a concrete irony: massive geometries, each weighing tonnes and interlocked by the thousands, engineered to control erosion and prioritize human resources for protection. These structures serve as porous matrices through which the coherent, directional power of ocean waves can be broken, scattered, and dispersed.
Dispersal is inspired from the apparent human need of wave-breaking. It studies humans' relation to the coast and our anthropocentric view of natural coastal evolution. Drawing contrast between the wave and the barrier, nature and artifice, we use wave and sound to emulate waves breaking. On the other side of the wall, music and color bury the concrete irony: that we make concrete to protect the coasts from erosion, exacerbated by rising sea-levels from our own manmade, environmental erosion.
Dispersal from Brian M. John on Vimeo.
This demo shows the projected light through the main wall of the piece.
Each rotator in the grid represents a recurring thought, feeling, or memory, seemingly uncorrelated to any other. From the grid, we may shift focus between the understandable one and the impossible many. We may convince ourselves of meaning in a pattern that is wholly mathematical, in the desire for the simultaneity of these thoughts -- the hallelujah of everything coming together -- arising impossibly from a state of endless, dynamic, mechanistic, asynchrony.
This video shows a full version of the piece. Certain aesthetic and finishing touches are underway, but the work shown is close to the final iteration. The piece is approximately 8.5 square feet and is best viewed at a distance of 15 feet.
I am a physics PhD student and an artist. My practice begins with the premise that our physical understanding of the natural world is never more than an approximation and that art does not imitate, but approximates life. As a scientist, I study the light that stars emit when they explode in their supernova deaths. I write algorithms to explore astrophysical concepts; develop creative scientific models; and display scientific data convincingly and beautifully through plots and charts, all in attempt to simplify our complex world. As an artist, my tools are not so different -- I still write algorithms, display scientific data, and develop models for interpretation. But while my scientific research dwells in the theoretical, it is my art that generates its physical manifestation.