Video/Sound/Installation Work 2015-2020
2019
Sonic Atmospheres: World War II Batteries, Marin Headlands (Golden Gate National Park)
https://tourbuilder.withgoogle.com/builder#play/ahJzfmd3ZWItdG91cmJ1aWxkZXJyEQsSBFRvdXIYgICg_a3O7goM
This experimental documentary sound art piece explores the interplay of the materiality of World War II bunkers, the materiality of atmosphere, and the phenomenology of interior states. It was inspired by Gernot Böhme’s The Aesthetics of Atmospheres. Böhme is a German philosopher who is concerned with multisensory perception and aesthetics, particularly as this applies to architecture and urban design. He writes about the “ontologically slippery” position of atmosphere. Böhme questions: What is atmosphere’s “being-ness” given its integrated nature, which is partly about “objective,” material states and partly about “subjective,” internal, phenomenological perceptions of space, time, and place?
2018
Mapping Hathor Through Timna( a mapped media collection of sound, photographs, and 360 video in Google Tour Builder)
https://tourbuilder.withgoogle.com/tour/ahJzfmd3ZWItdG91cmJ1aWxkZXJyEQsSBFRvdXIYgICgqsWbugoM
PLEASE NOTE: Only Chrome and Firefox browsers support viewing 360-video as such.
In the summer of 2017, I took my first trip to Timna Park in the Negev, Israel. At Timna, ancient Egyptians mined copper during the reign of five pharoahs, starting with Seti I (reigned 1290-1279 b.c.e). After the Egyptians, Midianites mined, but my tour focuses on the Egyptian miners and their worship of the goddess Hathor. The laborers esteemed Hathor because, in her guise as Goddess of the Mountain, they believed she offered her protection. However, Hathor is more commonly known as a goddess of music, motherhood, sensuality, sexuality, and beer. She was a good-time goddess, as the Egyptians believed in pleasure and happiness as forms of worship. If you were not happy, it showed dissatisfaction with what the deities were providing for you. At Timna, I captured photographs, video, and 360 video to try to get closer to this history. I also experimented with capturing audio at archaeology sites using a sistrum, a percussion instrument sacred to the priestesses and musicians of Hathor. I am interested in two primary questions about Timna: 1) What was the role of women at the mining camps? 2) Can we learn anything about Timna sites, or how people used them, by paying attention to acoustics?
2017
Slice of Wadi Rum (360-degree video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU9sR9QXlwQ
PLEASE NOTE: Only Chrome and Firefox browsers support viewing 360-video as such.
A 360-degree video for use in a VR headset. Shot in Wadi Rum, Jordan, this video is art of an Arabic language learning game for finding nouns, verbs, and adjectives. [Link to gaming instructions.]
Note only Firefox and Chrome support 360-video, Safari does not.
Hear Me Now
https://vimeo.com/248828691
"Hear Me Now" makes audible the spirits of sistrum rattling musicians of Hathor who inhabited the ancient Egyptian copper mining valley of Timna about 3200 years ago. Hathor was commonly known as a goddess of music, motherhood, sexuality, and sensuality; but in her Goddess of the Mountain guise, she was also the patron goddess of the Timna miners who sought her protection in the Negev.
Please respect that this video contains ancient human remains. (As per IAA ethics recommnedations, this video was password protected until these sensitive archaeological finds were published.)
She Studies Seashells: a field interview with Dr. Beverly Goodman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsXiV0Y8sg0
Dr. Beverly Goodman, professor at University of Haifa, talks about her marine geophysical archaeology research at Caesarea. She explains and how seashells can help to date ancient tsunamis, and how a story in the Talmud might provide researchers with some clues about a particular tsunami.
In 2020, excerpts from this video were used by Caesarea television channel 98 in Israel for a documentary they produced about Dr. Goodman’s work.
IUI Research Vessel Algae Tests at 40 Meters (360-degree video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCAVWkthSQA
PLEASE NOTE: Only Chrome and Firefox browsers support viewing 360-video as such.
Research experiment footage shot in 360 in the Red Sea for The Interuniversity Institute of Marine Sciences in Eilat, Israel. While intended as an experiment to test the depths limit of my 360-Fly camera, this long take shot turned out to be actually artistically interesting! —especially the sound.
2016
Eugenia
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwIPqSglYbJ2R1VwUjJSQ0pJTEU/view?ts=582569f6
I created a sound piece, in the style of “This American Life,” about my paternal grandmother, Eugenia Sobieralski: accordion player, world’s best pie baker, gardener, and female supremacist who grieved the loss of her second oldest son right after the Viet Nam conflict.
Sonic Textures of Mission Santa Cruz: Historical Echoes of Materials, Tools, Labor
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwIPqSglYbJ2alViSGl3d1MtWXc/view?usp=sharing
For my sound piece “Sonic Textures of Mission Santa Cruz: Historical Echoes of Materials, Tools, Labor,” I engaged in an exploration of the emerging field of archaeacoustics. My overall research interest is in creating immersive embodied experiences that facilitate awareness of, and connection to, subjective histories. The work of Shelley Trower woke me to the notion of sound and vibration as an embodied experience. Her work also led me to think about sound/vibration in relation to materiality, and that sparked my interest in the work of Daniel Miller. Miller inspired ideas about relationships among materiality and labor because these issues were certainly central to California mission life. Recollections of Gaston Bachelard inspired me to think about the phenomenology of intimate spaces.
2015
Hieros Gamos
https://vimeo.com/139816791
A short film about desire, loss, fertility and parthenogenic goddesses. Filmed in residence at Skopelos Foundation for the Arts, presented as a video installation at an art show on the island.