Communion

Communion, an installation designed for a glassed-in corner space at the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans was developed around extensions of the X, Y, and Z-axis. A line of twelve horizontally placed photographs of headless figures (X) leads to the verticality of a video tower (Y). The monitors displayed the heads and faces of the participants feeding one another water using their mouths. A single monitor on the floor displayed a line of figures submerging their heads in an aquarium and breathing through a snorkel (Z). The audio was of dripping water and one person breathing.

Communion was an electronic analog of fountains found in urban areas throughout the world. It was also a document of the performances and personalities of the individuals participating in the odd gestures of nurturing one another.

I’d been thinking about oasis, sanctuaries, places of refuge and renewal, hot springs in Guadalupe Canyon Mexico, Caliente, Ortega, Esalon in California, Southern Chile, the Samoan reefs; the California and Baja beaches. Mental and emotional states; islands of thought, daydreams,sensuous escapes from urban environments, interior psychological experienced-every-day analogs to those exotic distant locals. Water, lakes, oceans and seas. Fountains, how they appear in various forms in cities all over the world.

I began to design work for urban spaces which could reference these things. I was inspired for the video stack when someone fed me sips of cold water on a hot day from their mouth to mine, a nurturing, elemental gesture.

I have left the footage rough with drips from noses and mouths and the awkwardness and learning curves of catching and releasing. I want the tiny narratives of each person and the serendipity of links when they happen.

The single monitor aqaurium piece depicts a line of people, presented to the viewer horizontally, one by one, in contrast to the verticality of the video stack. The snorklers immerse themselves into an environment where air is the precious, unifying resource. I work with heads in the videos.

The photographs of the bodies of the participants were taken after videotaping, in the dark, using flash, unposed. About twenty people were taped in New Orleans and San Diego, California over the past year. The angle iron is maritime industrial zinc plated, designed for ships at sea.