where is mind
These three projects are interrelated inquiries into human, biological and planetary origins; the idea being that the agenda of planetary evolution is the evolution of mind through form, with form and mind becoming increasingly complex over time.
My interest in archaic systems, prehistoric peoples, and planetary and biological evolution converge in these three sets of images. The images intend to be a language or mythology underlying the evolution of form, while also pointing to language itself as the fundamental material comprising the cosmos.
Apophatic Island (2016) - Are large black and white photographs of the geological origins predating the (unlikely) future existence of man. Apophatic, a theological term describing divinity only through negation, the images have cut away any information that distract from the experience of being present in the mountains and open spaces of an ancient, pre botanical landscape dominated by rock and water. A primordial geology overwhelms the presence of the individual; here, felt only as ghostly indications in the evolution of mind on earth.
A Plant Machine (2019 and ongoing) - Using infrared photographs of subtropical plant species, A Plant Machine represents the next level of planetary evolution as a necessary outgrowth of the previous level. The plants underscore the evolution of mind on earth beginning with the biological (first in plant species, then in animal species) and leading into the mechanical and artificial intelligence built on the preceding human level.
Projected Petroglyphs (2018 and ongoing) - Beginning in 2018 I visited some of the sites of early American cave paintings in the western United States. These images are photographs of the desert scapes hiding these ancient rock paintings, layered on top of each other in the way that the cave paintings layer over the rock itself. The images are concerned with ancient people’s first strides into an abstracted visual language. Carved into rock and preserved by a desert ecosystem, they show us how art and language are the way mind expresses itself through the conscious reflection of a biological being.
My interest in archaic systems, prehistoric peoples, and planetary and biological evolution converge in these three sets of images. The images intend to be a language or mythology underlying the evolution of form, while also pointing to language itself as the fundamental material comprising the cosmos.
Apophatic Island (2016) - Are large black and white photographs of the geological origins predating the (unlikely) future existence of man. Apophatic, a theological term describing divinity only through negation, the images have cut away any information that distract from the experience of being present in the mountains and open spaces of an ancient, pre botanical landscape dominated by rock and water. A primordial geology overwhelms the presence of the individual; here, felt only as ghostly indications in the evolution of mind on earth.
A Plant Machine (2019 and ongoing) - Using infrared photographs of subtropical plant species, A Plant Machine represents the next level of planetary evolution as a necessary outgrowth of the previous level. The plants underscore the evolution of mind on earth beginning with the biological (first in plant species, then in animal species) and leading into the mechanical and artificial intelligence built on the preceding human level.
Projected Petroglyphs (2018 and ongoing) - Beginning in 2018 I visited some of the sites of early American cave paintings in the western United States. These images are photographs of the desert scapes hiding these ancient rock paintings, layered on top of each other in the way that the cave paintings layer over the rock itself. The images are concerned with ancient people’s first strides into an abstracted visual language. Carved into rock and preserved by a desert ecosystem, they show us how art and language are the way mind expresses itself through the conscious reflection of a biological being.